Hi,

I was wondering if you guys could help me onto the path of learning 3D modelling and recalibrate my brain to work with solids.

I have started to play around with creating a little dice. I started with a 20x20x20mm solid and rounded the edges off, I then proceeded with making small orbs ( ??? ) 2mm in diameter and sinking them halfway into the cube and extracting them.
I know that a dice isn't strictly a cube (but rather a an orb that's got 6 flat surfaces), but what seemed to cause me problems was the accurate positioning of the "dots".

I'm using ViaCAD 2D/3D.

Grateful for any suggestions and tips. :)

You could start with a sphere primitive and then create the flat sides by using the trim tool or boolean functions to remove material to make flat sides.

I would approach this by making a primitive sphere and a cube the same size.

Place the cube and sphere so that their centers are at 0,0,0.

Position the cube to the right of the sphere (use arrow keys). So that the cube is cutting into the sphere (this has to be adjusted depending how flat the sides of the die will be).

Copy and paste 6 copies of the cube (all of the copies will be in the same space)

Use the boolean and click on the sphere and then on one of the cubes.

Rotate the sphere around it's center 90 degress.

Repeat the boolean.

Continue rotating the sphere and boolean for each side of the cube.

When you rotate the sphere, make sure you are clicking on the center of the sphere which should also be the world center as well.

I ran into this type of thing before and was given the tip of rotating the source and leaving the cutting "tool" in place. This technique works very well on trimming other round objects like cylinders as well.

joev, looks very nice! Bigger gaps between the flat surface, but other than that, perfect. :D I hope I'll be able to do that soon. :)

joev, yes. I think so too. Thanks!

Anyone got any idea on what's the best way of positioning the "dots"...?

eHam, that's very cool... but I must be missing something as I can't see the PDF..?! :confused:

>>shoot me a private message

Feel free to send to me at [email protected] and I will edit your post to include it.

Regards,

Tim

eHam, I look forward to seeing your PDF. :D

Zumer, good idea. I guess I'll have to get back to this "project" and try a bit harder. :cool:

Nice work, eHam. An alternative to revolving the arc to create the trimming surface is to use a diagonal construction line through the cube to place a sphere and intersect the two solids. Because the proportion of the corner rounding seems mostly cosmetic, if the result isn't quite what you wanted, it's simpler to undo the boolean, alter the sphere's diameter then intersect again.