Cut a circular hole in a sphere...

Support Modeling
1

…without using booleans! :eek:

A challenge for the seasoned modellers out there. Anyone know of a tried and tested method or a good script? Absolutely need to avoid disturbing the geometry of the adjacent faces of the sphere.

Ideally, the vertices that make up the hole should intersect with those that make up the rings of the sphere, if you get me. This is a tricky one I know, would love to get some ideas.

2

It’s actually not that hard, if you’re using a UV Sphere. I just deleted the top and bottom vertices, as well as another loop around it, and joined all the faces from top to bottom.

Here’s the file: http://uploader.polorix.net//files/392/spherehole.blend

3

Thanks Pash, but I should have mentioned it would need to be in a arbitrary point on the sphere, not the top / bottom. Imagine the results you could get if you could do a ‘spin’ using the knife tool - I wish you could do that in Blender!

4

You could in edit mode add a circle of the size and position of the hole you need. Link select the sphere then cut new verts on the sphere Ctrl-LMB snapping the cut to the circles vertices.