Time to get with the late 2000s

For the time being any new content for this page will be found on Facebook.

Non-Manifold Edges

There was a question on the Rhino group on LinkedIn about booleans failing due to "Non-Manifold" edges and just what that meant. There are two cases that fall under that heading, and in both cases if your model has them it means you've created a set of surfaces that could not in theory be turned into a real part(not by any conventional means like machining, rapid prototyping processes have their own rules.)

The first case, I'll explain using the simple case of 2D lines. Imagine you've got two lines that form a 90 degree corner, and a third that bisects the angle, so you have three lines meeting at one point. Rhino doesn't let you "Join" those 3 curves into one.

While such geometry is "illegal" for manufacturing purposes, it is actually not uncommon to to work with if you use FEA, so V5 has a tool called NonManifoldMerge that will let you create a polysurface like that pictured, it automatically splits and joins up all the edges of all the surfaces where they intersect.

Now in the second case, imagine if you have something like a sphere with a smaller sphere completely inside it, not intersecting at all, and you try to "boolean" the smaller one from the bigger one, if it would let you do it that would also be a non-manifold shape.

Recent Project

Automating the production of cutting patterns for hot-air balloons for Sundance Balloons. It involved figuring out how to apply the appropriate distortion so that the design looks correct when inflated; then scripting the detailing of the pattern pieces with seam allowance offsets, labels, alignment marks, and prepping for export to their cutting table software.

Recent Project

Modeling and rendering for the "Switchblade" flying motorcycle for Samson Motorworks.

Rhino Intro at Carleton U Industrial Design

On the 25th of February I'll be showing Rhino to Industrial Design students at Carleton University.

Recent Project

Ascension carbon-fiber lounge chair, modeling and rendering.

T-Splines Vehiclular Design Challenge

If you're a T-Splines user, check out their new transportation modeling challenge. I was honored to be picked to be a judge. Get your entries in by November 30th.

Carleton U Rhino Workshops

Starting tomorrow I'm going to start a Rhino workshop at Carleton University Architecture, running 4 Wednesday mornings. Look up Randy Kerr if you're interested in signing up for possible future sessions.

Brazil Basics: the Matte material in studio shots

My big issue as a rendering newbie when making studio-style shots was how to get a certain background gradient or solid colour quickly and independently of lighting the actual product.

My previous Brazil tutorial showed a method that works well when looking for a reflection in the 'floor' but was a little elaborate.

To start with this little duck, here's the simple gradient environment that I want to see. It's lit only with global illumination from the environment.

Here it is with a Global Illumination environment, one of the 'Studio' HDRIs included with Brazil.

Now the gradient background is what you see, but the GI environment is providing the lighting and reflections. There is more than one way to do such 'overriding,' but in this case I combined them using a Composite Environment. The GI environment was simply plugged into the first slot and the gradient into the second.


So that the duck doesn't appear to be floating in space, I add a plane.


And finally, the plane is assigned a Matte material. It makes the surface 'invisible' but it still receives shadows (and/or reflections,) and those shadows make the duck appear to actually be sitting on the background.

Buy Brazil here.

Looking for a few Rhino instructors

I'm trying to develop a formal unofficial "Level III" 3-day modeling course using my material, and I'm looking for a few experienced Rhino instructors to give their opinion on it.