hello

I've been playing around with MoI for some time now and have to say I really, really like it. So easy to use!!

Anyway... i've started to modeling a Sony Ericsson K770i a couple of hours ago, almost finnish with the rough model but I would really
appreciate some help with the back side. I've tried some different tecniques but don't have any solution so I'm pretty much stuck.
I don't expect any detailed explanation but a pointer or brief text would be much appreciated!

As you see in the attatched images it's not many good refernces to rely on but I think you got the idea of how it looks like.







Thanks in advance:)



//Per

Sweden

Hi Per, what I would do is kind of ignore the rounding on it to start with, imagine for a moment that places that you see that are rounded are instead sharp, and model that sharp-edged shape and apply fillets to it to get the rounding.

It can be quite a lot more difficult to try and directly model the rounded areas rather than letting fillet do the work.

So in this case I started by drawing 2 rectangles using Draw curve / Rect / Center. They are on the same center line, but one is smaller than the other and shifted to the side a bit, and then dragged up in Z:



Now select these 2 rectangles, run Construct / Loft to create the following, delete the original curves when you are done so they won't get in the way:



Next we will begin applying fillets with the largest sized ones first. The first ones are the 2 slanted edges on the left side, I filleted those with a large value to round them off quite a bit:



Next I selected the edges around the top, except not the one all the way to the right side, and applied a fillet about half the previous size there:




Then the ones on the right side, except not the bottom-most one:



Anyway, that may give you some ideas.

To make the bottom mate up nicely with what you already have, you may need to do something slightly different, like starting with some rounded corners in your initial profile curves that you loft.

You may also be able to get some good effect by placing more than 2 profiles, like 3 profiles in layers to control some initial curvature of the side pieces.

If you want to post the part it has to fit on to, I could try to make an example from that.

- Michael

Hi Michael, thanks for your answer! Very much appreciated! :)


I've tried the technique but I don't think it match up with the blueprints in an accurate way.
In a front view render the back part isn't necessarily needed but I intend to create an animation with close ups so the back part is
very important.

I attach some references if you want to take a look.

Thanks again

Hi Per, I'll give it a try tomorrow.

- Michael

Hi Per - I tried myself what can I do - I just make 3 curve for both end corresponding to the shape - while selecting the first 3 curve use the network command then do it at the second group of 3 curve at the other side and then use loft command to connect and complete the middle part of surface. hope it will help :) sorry for my broken english. :)

Hi Per, attached is the best that I've been able to come up with so far.

This version has 3 layers that are lofted. You can adjust the shape by moving the different layers up or down in the front or right view, and also by using Transform / Scale / Scale2D in the top view to enlarge or shrink them, or by adjusting control points of one of the curves.

I think that would let you tune the curvature enough to match up with the profile in your blueprint.

I'm not really too happy with the edge of the longer sloped part, it seems like that should be more gradual and not as abrupt. But unfortunately that is really quite difficult to do and also maintain an exact match to the bottom outline.

I think that a variable radius fillet would help here (which MoI does not currently have), because then that edge could maybe be modeled as a sharp edge and get rounded with a variable radius fillet that dropped off to zero as it approached the bottom.

- Michael

Hi Romi, that's not a bad idea either, but I think that in that case you will have some smoothness problems at the very tips where the 2 longer parts touch... That one surface will probably not quite be smooth to the other pieces...

- Michael

thanks michael :) I saw the one you have provided looks precision and also I have found at Polyloop that you are one of pioneer developer of Rhino, it's cool to know! by the way how to post image here instead of clickable link. thanks.

Hi Romi, well the one I did has some of its own problems. But it may be close enough.

> by the way how to post image here instead of clickable link.

You need to type in an tag for that - you copy the address of your link and put it inside the src="" part. See this message for some instructions: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=68.118

- Michael

Thanks for the help Michael :)

Thanks to both of you, appreciate your time to solve this problem!!! :)
This shape seems to be extremely hard to get accurate, and there are obviously some
issues regardless which technique I'm using so I don't really know what to do.
Is there maybe any other options in Rhino? Need to avoid poly modeling as much as possible..
was thinking it has some useful tools which might be handy.

Done some test renders.. post them later

Hi Persa, actually I don't think the problem here is needing other tools so much as figuring out a better strategy.

I was noticing the symmetry of that one tapered section, and I think I've figured out a better way to approach it.

For this new approach, I started by scaling up the corner piece from the bottom, this is scaled with the scaling origin at the bottom rectangle corner, I put in extensions using construction lines and got the corner where the construction lines intersected:



Then I moved that scaled piece directly up in Z, and dropped some lines at its ends straight down:



I think that's the key thing here - when surfacing, don't try to match the wider arc directly to the small one by a direct one-to-one connection. They are just too different in size and you will get pinching type problems if you try to match things of much different size. Things got a lot better when I tried matching the large arc to a bigger portion of the bottom including some of the straight pieces.


Then to help shape the surfacing, I added some rounded curves at the ends of the smaller arc piece. I actually made these by placing a second slightly differently scaled version of the arc in between them and then used Draw curve / Freeform / Through points to snap on to it:



Here is a different view of this curve framework:



Then I mirrored those pieces and joined the longer pieces together. Then these selected pieces become the profile curves for a sweep:



Then performing the 2-rail sweep:



I got better results with performing the sweep through all those sections all in one go. If you do it in a smaller section of just the curves in one corner, it will work but you will tend to get slight creasing where the sweep ends. By doing it all in one longer piece you ensure smoothness through the whole thing.

For the other pieces, I just did a straight extrusion up. I think you may need to adjust the other side in a slightly similar fashion, I didn't do that part here. Then after joining the extruded parts with the sweep parts you can then use Construct / Planar to cap the top and bottom to form a solid:



Then a fillet along the top edge (just select the top face and it will fillet all those top edges):



Another view:



That seems to be a lot closer - you could adjust some of the sizes, spacing, and curvature of those extra guides to tweak things further.

Model is attached as Back_part2.zip

Hope this gives you an idea on a different method!

- Michael