Hello,
I am modeling a 3D structure of a hollow tubular sculpture for 3D printing (see images).
This structure has a lot of tubes that converge together, and they have to be connected with a smooth transition (no angular join). I also need to scale the diameter of the tubes to make two versions of the structure, one with wide tubes and another with thin ones.
I wanted to try a connection of vertices, but there are many tubes and it makes the connection very unclear.
Could you help me with some step by step advice to make this structure?
You need to boolean the parts together, and then fix up the mesh where they join if you intend to add a subdivision modifier. The problem will be in aligning the verts to get the best join. Not an easy task with what you’re attempting.
Thank you very much Anthony_Forwood and amdj1 for the suggestions.
I was trying with the boolean but the connection is very angular, I will try tomorrow with the curves, perhaps it can work.
Not even sure if this is what you are trying to do but it’s rather crude. You will have to spend some time on vertices placement but you get the idea. I started off with a low poly (like 8 sides) then figured out a way to merge them (i also used circle from loop tools to create the circle shape on the connector part). Then added a subdivision modifier to smooth things out.
There are many ways to do this. Here’s one that’s very simple. This example took just over 5 mins. I’m using 2 addons - Bevel after Boolean and Quickpipe.
Here are the steps I used:
1 - start from a single vertex and extrude verts to create path of the pipes. Use vert beveling on corners depending on pipe bend required(or do this later if you prefer, at the mesh stage)
2 - create pipes from edges using Quickpipe
3- further adjust curves or convert to mesh when ready
4 - go through the process of using Bevel after Boolean tool to create intersections with smooth beveling. Note: you will need to understand how BAB works and what is required of input meshes before the operation, for best results. This is very easy. BAB has a long thread with all the info you need: [WIP]Bevel after Boolean
5 - delete pipe caps and add a Solidify modifier to achieve your tubular form. Note: you can also use a scaled down along normals duplicate of your BAB result to hollow out the mesh with a further boolean
6 - use bevel modifier or sub-div modifier or creasing or whatever method you want to smooth the final surface
7 - there may be cleanup of some edges around the intersections, due to unwanted surface shading and depending on your initial topology during the BAB, but this is easy and fast to do.
8 - you now have a watertight mesh ready for printing, with very little manual work.
