I've been paining myself on how folks have made geodesic domes. It seems like an awful lot of work to do, and it must be pretty difficult to get everything all lined up. Then it occurred to me that Lightwave Modeler has all the necessary tools to do this quickly and very easily.
Here's a quick cheat-sheet recipe:
- Open modeler and select the new Ball tool. Open the Numeric panel and change the type to Tessellation. Leave all the defaults alone. Close the tool.
- Select the bottom half of the sphere and delete it.
- Select all the polygons and change the surface name to Beams.
- Select the Bevel tool and open the Numeric panel.
- Apply a bevel of 1.25mm shift and 1.25mm inset.
- Apply another bevel of -1.25mm shift and 1.25mm inset.
- Apply another bevel of -1.25mm shift and -1.25mm inset.
- Apply another bevel of 1.25mm shift and -1.25mm inset.
- Change the surface name to Glass.
- Deselect all polygons.
- You're now ready to apply appropriate surface attributes to the beams and glass.
Presto! One geodesic dome!
