In this post, we’ll take a look at Geomagic Freeform, an organic 3D design software. Freeform offers a sculpting and design toolset to sculpt, detail and deform virtual models into any form you desire.
In this example, we’ll focus on Sub D Modeling. This Technique is used to create detailed modeling from a polygon mesh framework. Through Sub D modeling, you’re not modeling the actual surface or solid, you’re shaping the solid by manipulating the surrounding Control Cage.
In this example, we have a 6 faced cube. Our underlying surface has 6 faces as does our Control Cage.
If we take the surface model and click level 2, it divides each face into four faces and averages the positions with all the adjacent faces.
We’re left with a new surface model, with 24 faces.
At the next level, we quadruple to 96 faces.
And as we go to level 5 and even 6, the faces get smaller and smaller until we get to the point where our model looks like a sphere.
By increasing the numbers of faces, we can create very fine details in certain areas and have very coarse details in other areas.
Now let’s take a look at the Control Cage.
As mentioned earlier, the Surface model is being driven by the control cage. We’ll first keep the control cage at 6 faces. We can now modify the control cage with a haptic device by touching the faces. We can push and pull on a face and drastically alter the shape. We can also grab edges and pull and push on edges.
We can similarly edit vertices and make larger gross changes to our model.
That was level 1. If we want to control tighter areas, we can take this cage to level 2 and divide each of its faces into four.
This tightens up the areas that we can isolate on the model. As we go up each level, we have even finer control, where we can grab fine areas and make modifications.
The highest level leaves us with a very dense mesh. Aside from moving faces, we can also extrude. With the extrude function, you see we’re adding an entirely new face to the control cage.
A key advantage of Sub D is that it requires less memory for fast editing and seamless control. You can create complex shapes with a combination of smooth and sharp edges. The resolution is easy to change, allowing us to work on gross sections or very fine sections depending on the particular need.
As you can see, Freeform with Sub D modeling allows you to edit organic shapes to develop complex designs used across many applications and industries. For more information on Geomagic Freeform, please click the button below.
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