Modeling a Parametric Structure

One difficulty I faced was that I tried to use ‘Adaptive Beams 2pt’ for the ribs, but there was an issue where for ribs on the left the beams had their outer side aligned to the selected geometry, while for the ribs on the right the beams had their inner side aligned to the selected geometry. Additionally, the panels for each side were also wrongly aligned. This issue was resolved by choosing ‘Tube 2pt’ instead, as both sides aligned to the inner point of each tube.

Additionally, I found that grouping and labelling my steps was quite helpful for clarity, especially as more components were added. Going forward, I aim to group each step in this way.

For this design, the following values can be flexed:

• (Part 1A and 1C) Amplitude and Number of Waves for Sin and Cos curves
• (Part 1B) Scale Factor for middle geometric curve
• (Part 2A) Beam radius for shelter (lengthwise, between the different curves)
• (Part 2B) Beam radius for each curve (between 2 points on each curve)
• (Part 2C) Grid (u and v values) for panels on shelter
• (Part 3A - also adjusts for 3B) Number of ribs and number of panel points on each rib
• (Part 3A; Steps 3A and 3B - also adjusts for 3B) Adjust radius for ribs and panel size

Transforming your Geometry

I used the same file from Part 1, as I had already created 3 parametric curves for the top shelter (using Sin, Quadratic/Geometric Curve, Cos). For this part I adjusted the parameters for these 3 curves

Applying Your Form at Different Scales

I used the structure from stage 1 for this stage.

• To adjust it to different scales, I changed the x value for starting point - (e.g. multiplying by 5 for small to medium) (to maintain the same steepness of the ribs at each side). I also changed the x value for the ending point for each of the shelter curves to be the start point value + the length. For the right side ribs, I pushed it out by a similar extent to maintain the steepness (Part 3B - Step 1A; changed value from +10 to +50)
• To maintain similar proportions, the y value also needed to be adjusted by a similar scale (e.g. from small to medium, y value multiplied by 5).
• Similarly for the Z Value (for small to medium, multiplied by 5, to become 50) for the shelter height.