Large Assignment 5: Tiling

Part 1: 2D Tiles

Part a) For the first part of this assignment I was not sure what shape I originally wanted to do. I messed with Escher tiling website until I found a shape that resembled an elephant. When I tried to implement this I wasn’t able to get the trunk correct without overlapping tiles. I continued to mess with the edges until I made this one by accident and I stuck with it because it reminds me of a capybara. I just followed the steps we went over in class and it was fairly simple to create this shape.

Part b) I definitely had more issues with the hexagon tiling than I did on the capybara. I tried using the code we used in class but I think I was running into an error with my vectors and they were not aligning correctly. I decided to start from scratch and create my own code to create the hexagons and tiling them. After that it was much simpler to just create my own hexagon class and recursively call this function with a translation.

Part 2: 3D Tiles

For my 3D print I wanted to use the rail revolve in some way because I have always thought it is one of the coolest commands we’ve used in Rhino. After messing around with it for a while I wanted to create this dome like shape instead of a simple extrusion. However, this proved to be a little more difficult than I originally thought. Because my shape is uneven when I would use rail revolve to create the dome I realized that it would not properly tiling because the extruded part would overlap the other tiles. To fix this I offset my tile and lofted to that raised offset. Then I used the rail revolve on the offset curve to prevent any overlapping.

Part 3: Surface Morph

For my surface morph I really wanted to try morphing my curve onto a curvy plane because I did not do a topological map for the Data project. I did not really have any problems with this part, I found the slides very helpful when I was creating this surface morph. I did notice that when you to an intense surface morph it alters the original curve a lot and it makes the shape look really funky especially on the edges.

8 thoughts on “Large Assignment 5: Tiling

  1. Hi Patrick,
    Your capybara tiles are so cute! It was a very smart move to do the loft with the rail revolve on top. I spent hours trying to get a loft to behave and not obstruct the tiling. The effect the rail revolve had on the physical feel of your tiles was super interesting. Additionally the surface you used for the surface morph is very satisfying!

  2. Hi Patrick,
    Your capybara shapes are really fun to look at. what shape did you use to create it? Using the railRevolve function was something I did not think of when trying to tile in 3D, it is nice to see it used and the results look very clean. The surface morph also reminded me of an egg carton holder, a cool design.

    1. I just used 2 InterpCurves to create the capybara shape and made the tile like how the professor does in the slides. I love using the RailRevolve I think the results are always so interesting.

  3. Hi Patrick,

    I really liked your capybara shapes, and found them really fun like many of the other animal prints. I liked that you chose to morph onto a curvy plane as it seemed most people opted to do a vessel like morph (including myself).

    1. Thank you, I really wanted to use a curvy plane since I did not do a topological map for the Data visualization project. I think it was interesting that it came out looking very similar to an egg carton.

  4. Hey Patrick,

    I really enjoyed reading through your process! The Capybara inspired tile is such a fun idea, and I think it’s great that you stuck with the accidental shape. For the 3D tile, the dome shape using rail revolve came out really well, and I like how you solved the overlapping issue by using an offset. Your approach to the surface morph also sounds smooth. I agree that the morphing can make shapes look quirky, especially at the edges, which adds character. Lastly, the purple filament was a perfect choice—really makes everything stand out. Great work!

    1. Thank you! I feel like the moment I saw the capybara it was definitely a sign to stick with it. I thought the elephant would be really cool to tile so maybe I’ll have to do it in the future.

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