Noah's Loaf - Curtain Panel Goodness

This step took some tenacity...But tenacity starts with "T" which stands for Trouble!

First step is to do this with a curtain panel by pattern:

If you don't know what it is, shame on you!  Go read here:

Au Bon Panel

Thank you Bob-Man and Shaggy

So with that panel pattern in my back pocket, i could go ahead and start screwing around with my base model from last time:

For what became my first attempt (thought this would be easy), I started by picking the edges between each rib and hitting the CREATE FORM button.

I did this several times to fill the whole boat

And then divided the surface and applied the appropriate Curtain Panel Pattern:

It looked okay at first blush, but upon closer inspection, the shell edges weren't squaring up right.  Actually, they looked downright sloppy:

I'd rather be accused of fastidiousness than having too much time on my hands...Semantic argument for sure....nonetheless i tried again.

This time I took the "Tedious Brute Strength" approach.  First off, i hosted a bunch of reference points along the shell profile:

And repeated this process for all 3 profiles and it worked exactly as i wanted:

Then I hosted a parameter driven rectangle  on each reference point.  CREATE FORM again and voila!

It worked as expected,

but 2 problems remained:

1) All my lengths were now curved and i wanted straight segments, broken at each joint for scheduling and measurement

2) It was a damn lot of work and i got bored

Okay...Trial #3!

Because I set up the original Curtain Panel Pattern using the correct point orientation, I realized i could do the whole shell in one shot.  The trick was going to be to use DIVIDE BY INTERSECTION in order to control the break points:

My segments divide out properly.  If i did some work with reporting parameters, I could get some cool data out of this.  Implanting MODEL LINES in the curtain panel would give me a structural stick model too!

The joints go straight through which i am not overly keen on, but i suppose if i wanted it perfect, i could take it into Rhino or ACAD and perform some additional boolean operations...

yikes....what a day....

It's my Birthday

No Really.

Today is my birthday....and i really hate it.

With consideration and gratitude on a horrible anniversary.

TBT

Slicing Noah's Loaf

Previously, I went through an explanation of how to develop this form.  In this post, i will look at the process of slicing it up.

First things first, i laid out a series of reference lines along the length of loaf.  I then went ahead programmed some parameters to control the spacing of these lines which are intended to locate the center between ribs.

These are the parameters involved:

Then I pick each line individually and hit the CREATE FORM button.  It extrudes a nice 2D surface upwards.

This is where it gets interesting.  Then i pick the edge lines of each surface, you may have to hit the TAB key once or twice to cycle through the options.  Having selected the edges of the surface, i hit CREATE FORM again and a box is extruded.

I link the positive and negative offsets of the box to the VOID_Thickness Half parameters.

And the boxes all line out to exactly how i want:

And I can start slicing using the CUT command....

Oh how happy I am!

Until i try to flex the form, which was the point of the whole exercise anyways, and then:

AAARARRARAGGGGGHHH!!!!!  I made the fatal error of using model lines to define the ends of my form.  I go back and start from scratch, generating the profiles as REFERENCE LINES!!!!  9 out of 10 times, when forms don't do what i want, its because i used model lines rather than reference lines.  I am a forgetful troublemaker sometimes....grrrr....

But NOW, I am kickin' it with a big smile.....