
	Eg 1: Surfacing a Teapot

With mechanical parts it's usually better to slice for particular feature lines. These can then be used as profile lines for sweeps or volumes of revolution.

Figure 303. Teapot Mesh

In this example you will see how a teapot is sliced, and then reconstructed within a surface modeler.

Stage 1: Preparing the Mesh

Reducing the number of polygons in the mesh can save you lots of time. Use some sort of adaptive polygon reducer, such as Cymage, to simplify the mesh down to an acceptable level. Around 100K faces is good.

Stage 2: Building the Body

The body of the teapot is a nice and simple volume of revolution. The first step is to view the teapot from the side, with an orthographic projection, and draw a slice down the center.

Figure 304. Slice Draw From Side

The teapot is spun around 90 degrees (hit <6> on keypad 3 times) and a slice is drawn down the center from the front.

Figure 305. Slice Draw From Front

Figure 306. Both Slices

The second slice is used to split the first slice into two.

Figure 307. First Slice Split

The second slice is deleted; it's not needed any more. The two halves of the first slice are interpolated with adaptive splines.

Figure 308. Two Halves of First Slice Interpolated

The splines are imported into the modeler, and a volume of revolution is created from one of them. The other spline, that is the other half of the first slice, is just used to check that the volume of revolution has the correct radius.

Figure 309. Body Surface