How do you make an easy geodesic shape in NX ?

[Alderfek]

What the "subject" says. Needed for a project.

Thanks,
Kirk

Kirk Alderfer
Designer
Meggitt Polymers & Composites
Rockmart, Georgia

"Imagination continually frustrates tradition, that is its function." -John Pfeiffer

 

[JohnRBaker]

Can you provide at least a picture of what you consider as being a "geodesic shape"?

Are we talking about something dreamed-up by Buckminster Fuller...

...or are we talking about drawing a 'straight' line which lies on the face of a free-form shape?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
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To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Alderfek]

It is more of a soccer ball than Bucky ball. I did one manually, playing around with the location angles but I would think there could/should be an easier way. See attachment

Kirk Alderfer
Designer
Meggitt Polymers & Composites
Rockmart, Georgia

"Imagination continually frustrates tradition, that is its function." -John Pfeiffer

 

[JohnRBaker]

Attached is a zip file containing two part files ('soccer_ball.prt' has the full feature build), while the series of images shows you the basic steps that were followed (sorry, there's no script). Now if you don't really need spherical faces, you could stop (at image #5) before the curves are projected onto the sphere and just create bounded planes and then sew them into a solid. You could still use the 'trick' as seen in the 'soccer_ball_solid.prt' to get any size object that you want. Note that the lines used to create the initial 3D shape are not associative or even features, but since that part of a shape like this is fixed, in that there is only one possible pattern that works, it's not really a big deal since as you can see in the 'soccer_ball_solid.prt' example there are other ways to get a 'parametric' soccer ball WITHOUT having to make EVERYTHING parametric.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.