Continue to Site

Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

  • Congratulations KootK on being selected by the Eng-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

Surface of a Sphere

Status
Not open for further replies.

Eltron

Mechanical
Mar 3, 2005
2,459
I have an interesting modeling question. I need to create a sphere out of a bunch of circular plates. Essentially I have to stick a bunch of these plates of various diameters to the surface of a sphere then remove the spherical form leaving just the plates. Anyone have any suggestions on how to accomplish this?

Dan

Dan's Blog
 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

plates of various diameters
This part of the problem description is confusing as a sphere has only one diameter.
Do you have any pictures, *.sld* or urls?
 
Yes, a sphere has only one diameter. The plates that I need to attach to the surface of the sphere are differing sizes. Imagine sticking a bunch of CD's to the outside of a beach ball then deflating the beach ball. That's kind of what I'm going for, but the CD's are various diameters. As an update I think I may have an idea how to do it, but I don't think I am going to have time to test it today. I'll keep you posted.

Dan

Dan's Blog
 
If you made your plates offset from their origin by the radius of the sphere, then you could mate all of their origins to the assembly's origin. The plates would all then be tangent to the surface of the sphere, without creating the sphere.

As far as mating the plates to each other, I can see several ways of going about it, but I do not know what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to have the largest size all touch and then fill in the gaps with smaller ones, I would start with a 20 sided die shape and put the largest on the points.

Eric
 
Try researching geodesic dome. Then substitute your circular plate for the hexagon or pentagon shapes.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
 
Yes but you won't be able to do anything with it ... or even see the features.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor