Question

Ideas wanted on how to create a funnel type 3D object

  • 6 February 2023
  • 5 replies
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Does anyone have any ideas on how to efficiently create a 3D feature similar to this image?

image of a funnel(the cut away is just to help show the geometry, it will be completely circular)

I can make a cylinder by buffering a circle and then extruding it vertically but the only idea I've had so far for this geometry is to layer a whole lot of circles on top of each other and dissolve them, which is taking a long time.


5 replies

Userlevel 3
Badge +16

Interesting challenge. The attached workspace (FME 2022.2) builds a shape like that.

Start with a point, offset copies of it radially and upwards, into the shape of a cone. Form it into a solid, then create the funnel by clipping one cone out of another. I didn't deal with the base of the funnel, but that would need another clip with a plane to get the 'opening' from your picture.

imageimage

Badge +20

Starting from a circle and it's center point you can stroke it, chop it, buffer it, snapp (to get rid of empty spaces and overlaps), get the angle to the circle's center point, extrude and dissolve for a similar output to your image.

I have attached a sample workspace to get you started.

Badge +5

Starting from a circle and it's center point you can stroke it, chop it, buffer it, snapp (to get rid of empty spaces and overlaps), get the angle to the circle's center point, extrude and dissolve for a similar output to your image.

I have attached a sample workspace to get you started.

Thanks for that @caracadrian​ I was thinking about trying it that way with the vertical components. I would probably go with 1 degree parts but that would limit the features going into the SolidDissolver to 360 rather than potentially thousands with a horizontal approach.

 

I like what you are doing in the Extruder to get the shape.

Badge +5

Interesting challenge. The attached workspace (FME 2022.2) builds a shape like that.

Start with a point, offset copies of it radially and upwards, into the shape of a cone. Form it into a solid, then create the funnel by clipping one cone out of another. I didn't deal with the base of the funnel, but that would need another clip with a plane to get the 'opening' from your picture.

imageimage

Great stuff @ctredinnick​, I like that this uses the SolidBuilder rather than the SolidDissolver, it's potentially going to be a lot faster. Yeah it is an interesting challenge. I'll post a reply on here when I have some results of what I'm using it for. It's related to my 3D printing stuff that Mark highlighted last Wednesday.

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Here's what I've come up with using the approach of building all the faces and using the SolidBuilder. Thanks for the suggestions.

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