Morph Ball!
Description
Want to see a 15:1 timelapse of the blue ball being made? Of course you do!
youtube.com/watch?v=UwzBYi5POJA
Mostly copied from the video's description:
The style worked very well for learning some new features in Inkscape! Most notably grid-snapping and tiled cloning (tessellations). :)
Design and prototyping was done in one night, with most of the prototype balls only taking a minute or so to plot because they were done as outlines only. The final 2 balls took about 11 minutes each due to the large fills.
The timelapse was taken at 1 photo per second, and played back at 15 fps. Unfortunately, this 15:1 time scale is basically as low as my phone can go while producing a decent movie. :P
BONUS! If you look closely, you can see a small wake behind the pen where the ink is drying!
BONUS! It's ridiculously tempting to even take the current design and plot it onto one of those motorized balls that randomly roll around! I can't seem to find a link to a simple version, but this pool-toy displays the basic idea:
amazon.com/Swimways-Crazy-Chase-Dive-Ball/dp/B0036FTLXI
BONUS! I'm friendly! Comments are super-welcome! :D
Instructions
inkscape.org/download/
2. Double-check and make sure you have at least version 2.1.4 of the Egg-Bot Inkscape extension! This is very important, because without the tiled-clone bug fix that version includes, the bottom row of the design will wind up being plotted right on top of the top row.
wiki.evilmadscience.com/Installing_software/
3. Find something that makes awesome stepper motor sounds while doing stuff to spheres! Don't have one of these awesome devices yet? An Egg-Bot is a good place to start!
egg-bot.com/
4. Get your hands on something round and a fine-tip marker!
So far I've luck with these products:
White balls! amazon.com/gp/product/B001RFRZ46
Colored balls! amazon.com/gp/product/B004B7NWKI
Sharpies! amazon.com/gp/product/B00006IFI7
5. Load one of the files, use the Egg-Bot extension, and then imitate your plotter for about 11 minutes!
(Beeee! Errrrr! WREEEEE! Wran-wran-wran-wran.)
NOTE! The current hatching density was chosen for a 40mm ping pong ball with an ultra-fine tip sharpie. When using a grapefruit and chocolate frosting, it may be necessary to change the hatch's pitch!
NOTE! I found that if you inset a hatching path by a few pixels, you can get much sharper looking edges on your objects! Related, I unfortunately can't find a way to hatch a clone and keep the original as an outline. *shrug*
NOTE! If you're new to using tiled cloning in Inkscape (I certainly was!), here's a handy tutorial that steps through cloning a group and using the "Enter Group" feature to make changes to the group while it's still mirrored. It's super effective!
simarilius.wordpress.com/2006/08/26/mirror-mirror-on-the-wall/
NOTE! Have fun!
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"NOTE! I found that if you inset a hatching path by a few pixels, you can get much sharper looking edges on your objects! Related, I unfortunately can't find a way to hatch a clone and keep the original as an outline. *shrug*"
For many shapes I find that the following works:
1. Select the shape.
2. Duplicate it: Ctrl-D
3. Inset it: Ctrl-(
4. Fill the inset object as normal.
5. (Optional - I like to do this for flexibility in plotting) Place the fill on a different layer than the outline.
But note, you may need to
group the two if you want to do resizing, moving, rotating, duplicating, etc. and sometimes you will have to split the outline and fill into separate layers as the last step.
Update! I pushed the fill in "Morph Ball - Beveled - Filled" up into the layer named "2 - Fill". :-P
Doing it, I realized why I didn't bother before: Since all the objects in a group have to be in a single layer, the cloning work to generate the 5 copies has to be redone in the fill-layer. In this case, it's not too bad though.
Those are some well described steps for how to create a duplicated inset fill!
I'm familiar with duplicated inset fills though, such as the ones in "Morph Ball - Beveled - Filled". The thing I don't think is possible with Inkscape right now is to create a cloned inset fill (such that the fill is updated as the vertices of the master path are modified). It's reasonable to see
why they don't support such a thing, but it means it's currently necessary to branch out versions, such as "Edges" and "Filled" below.
Thank you for the reply though! It's good advice!
It reminds me though: I meant to put the fill in a separate layer, and I think I forgot to move it into that lay
er before uploading.
License
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Oh geez, 2 of my most fav things man!
I just made an MCP model, you may want it for your collection or to mod: http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
And I have some 8-bit Samus for you too: http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
Make On Austin!