3D lego surface

[oleth]

You have seen lego surfaces that bend in 2 dimensions (most notably castle walls). I 've been trying to figure out how to bend a lego surface in a nice way in 3 dimensions (like a bowl). After lots of experimentation I manged to do this:




The method is expensive (lots of headlights) and slow to build. It also pays off only on big surfaces (maybe a roof or sth). However, I wanted to share so others can work with this and even make it better

See more here on my MOC pages.

[architect]

This is a neat technique. Thank you for sharing. I wonder if a perfect sphere could be built if one had enough headlight bricks?

Ben

[mystuffiscool]

Yes, thanks for sharing! *Makes large headlight brick Bricklink order*

I wonder if a perfect sphere could be built if one had enough headlight bricks?

Nice idea, but would it serve any real (castle-related) purpose?

Thanks,

[architect]

Yes, thanks for sharing! *Makes large headlight brick Bricklink order*

I wonder if a perfect sphere could be built if one had enough headlight bricks?

Nice idea, but would it serve any real (castle-related) purpose?

Thanks,

Yes. Half of a true sphere could be used for domes on religious buildings used in medieval times such as Hagia Sophia and the Pantheon.

Ben

[Athos]

Very cool. How does it look from the bottom?

Yes. Half of a true sphere could be used for domes on religious buildings used in medieval times such as Hagia Sophia and the Pantheon.

Ben

Could you imagine the size of that MOC?

Steve

[Bruce N H]

It wouldn't be possible to get a spherical shape out of flat sheets. You could make a cylinder, but would need to take out little wedge shaped cutouts to wrap up and make a sphere. It's like the whole problem of trying to take a round earth and make a flat map. If you had one like this you could make it into something vaguely spherical:



Bruce

[oleth]

Bruce, Ben I guess since there are gaps between the flat surfaces of each headlights (the surface of the sphere will not be form uniform surface), I think a sphere could be created.

However, I have no idea if it will be able to "close", I mean if it would be possible to align all the studs with a headlight hole. Actually this would probably be a interesting topology/geometry problem (which I don't have the ability to solve :P).

Steve, the 8x8 square I have on the pic (a square is 4 headlights together) has a projection (when it sits on a flat surface) of a square 13cmx13cm. The elevation of the center is around 1.5 cm. So a wild guess is that it needs a big diameter (50-60cm?) to show a nice dome effect.

[DNL]

This could be useful to make realistically shaped a hull for a ship, although the pattern wouldn't look right. It might be possible to make a dome, but then you would need to cover four sides with triangles to hide the gaps. That would not be a problem with a roman or gothic MOC as those architectures often use triangles. And it could of course be used to create an interesting roof for a modern building. Thanks for sharing!

[jdarlack]

I don't remember where I've seen it before, but if you arrange the sheet with contrasting colors (like a checkerboard), you can produce a nice 'hounds-tooth' pattern that would look nice in a throne-room floor.

[Bruce N H]

I don't remember where I've seen it before, but if you arrange the sheet with contrasting colors (like a checkerboard), you can produce a nice 'hounds-tooth' pattern that would look nice in a throne-room floor.

The first I saw do that was Brendan Powell Smith, who has done a lot with this. He's got a whole gallery of different patterns on Brickshelf, but it's down right now, but if you look through the Brick Testament, you can see how he's used it for floor designs like this one.

Bruce