Drawing a very irregular facade

[robinberghuys]

Just wondering if it's possible at all to draw the facade that my project calls for. The attached picture shows the general shape of the building. The facade would be made up of triangles. Meaning, a glass curtain wall, where the glass is triangular and held together by triangular frames. I guess what I would be drawing is the frames, since glass tends to be translucent. I have no idea of how I would go about this, so any ideas would be appreciated. Also, if it's not realistically possible to do within, let's say a day, that would be good to know as well.

 

Thanks!

[MaxwellEdison]

So thats what ou wanted that blob for...tricky. So you want to translate the irregular curved surface into triangular sections similar to a geodesic dome? I can't think of any existing tool in AutoCAD which would allow for the calculation of the sections...And I'd have concerns about the stability of such a facade as it is the spherical shape of those structures which gives them their strength.

 

If all you're looking for is to reproduce the look however...you might be able to take cross sections (slices) at regular height intervals (lets say 30 units) and translate those into polylines. Then use the measure command to mark off points around each cross section to make the vertices of the triangles (I'm ballparking, maybe 20 units). If you alternate the spacing of those points like courses of brickwork, it should be enough to let you build a lattice of 3d polylines (bottom to top in a zigzag pattern so they can later be extrusion paths). Then I'd extrude a circle up those polylines and hope for the best. I'm not sure you can do it in a day...but I am sure you'll run into a problem somewhere in that method I can't foresee right now. But hey...what the hell, right?

[robinberghuys]

  MaxwellEdison said:

So thats what ou wanted that blob for...tricky. So you want to translate the irregular curved surface into triangular sections similar to a geodesic dome? I can't think of any existing tool in AutoCAD which would allow for the calculation of the sections...And I'd have concerns about the stability of such a facade as it is the spherical shape of those structures which gives them their strength.

 

If all you're looking for is to reproduce the look however...you might be able to take cross sections (slices) at regular height intervals (lets say 30 units) and translate those into polylines. Then use the measure command to mark off points around each cross section to make the vertices of the triangles (I'm ballparking, maybe 20 units). If you alternate the spacing of those points like courses of brickwork, it should be enough to let you build a lattice of 3d polylines (bottom to top in a zigzag pattern so they can later be extrusion paths). Then I'd extrude a circle up those polylines and hope for the best. I'm not sure you can do it in a day...but I am sure you'll run into a problem somewhere in that method I can't foresee right now. But hey...what the hell, right?

 

Yeah the glass facade will be a curtain wall, attached to the colums, which will give the structure its rigidity.

 

As for part two, this is kind of what I thought. Hmm. I don't have the time to do that.. so I think what I might do is draw the thing without the facade in autocad, get a picture of the model I'll build and then trace that in illustrator. That seems to me like the most doable solution.

[MaxwellEdison]

Well there is always another option...

 

Make a copy of your "blob" at the same coordinates, then scale the second one up by .5% or so (or scale reference and a set number of units, your call). Either subtract the orignal from the larger on or use the shell command to crate a shell of the facade. Create a circle to represent the greater diameter of the structure. Create a tile of 2 triangles at the quadrant of the greater diameter circle (think 2 rows, one on top, one below so they will match up). Extrude the triangles in to prisms with a length equal to the diameter. Polar array them around the centerpoint of the circle (fill 180 deg. mess with the amount until it looks right). Now switch to a side view and array them vertically up the building. Subtract all the triangular prisms from the facade and voila! A bit hamfisted but it may get the job done and fool just enough people.

[robinberghuys]

  MaxwellEdison said:

Well there is always another option...

 

Make a copy of your "blob" at the same coordinates, then scale the second one up by .5% or so (or scale reference and a set number of units, your call). Either subtract the orignal from the larger on or use the shell command to crate a shell of the facade. Create a circle to represent the greater diameter of the structure. Create a tile of 2 triangles at the quadrant of the greater diameter circle (think 2 rows, one on top, one below so they will match up). Extrude the triangles in to prisms with a length equal to the diameter. Polar array them around the centerpoint of the circle (fill 180 deg. mess with the amount until it looks right). Now switch to a side view and array them vertically up the building. Subtract all the triangular prisms from the facade and voila! A bit hamfisted but it may get the job done and fool just enough people.

 

You may be onto something there, but I think I will go with my method, for time reasons..

 

I'm thinking to myself, why didn't I just stick with a nice rectangular building?

[shift1313]

if you are just looking for the "look" just render your "blob" as glass and have a map of triangles as a bump map or shade map.

 

If you took that object into software like mechanical desktop or something with FEA it would mesh it and show you what you want, but not usable, only a visual reference.

 

I dont think intersect works for multiple objects but you could draw two triangles next to each other, array, then rectangular array and use intersect with your shell.

 

are you hoping for flat panes of glass? or you want them curved with your surface? I really think the best thing you can do is make a material and render it. would be the easiest way anyways

[robinberghuys]

  shift1313 said:

if you are just looking for the "look" just render your "blob" as glass and have a map of triangles as a bump map or shade map.

 

If you took that object into software like mechanical desktop or something with FEA it would mesh it and show you what you want, but not usable, only a visual reference.

 

I dont think intersect works for multiple objects but you could draw two triangles next to each other, array, then rectangular array and use intersect with your shell.

 

are you hoping for flat panes of glass? or you want them curved with your surface? I really think the best thing you can do is make a material and render it. would be the easiest way anyways

 

I am indeed just looking for the look, so rendering it like that might be a good option!

 

Flat planes is what I'm looking for, yeah.

 

I haven't been on this forum long, but I have already found out, you guys are really helpful Thanks!