🚀 go-pugleaf

> >In a previous article, gmead@io.org (Glen Mead) said:
> >>elements are consistent on a real golf ball.  How does one model a truly 
> >>realistic looking golf ball?  If anybody could give me some pointers on how 
> 
> >Well, one thing that I'm sure would make a huge difference is to
remember that
> >the dimples on a golf ball are on a hexagonal grid, not a square one.
> 
> 
> >-- 
> >Paul Tomblin, Contract Programmer.
> 
> I noticed that a tesselated sphere will generate a very golfball like
array of 
> polygons when metaformed.  Something to look at if you want to spend a few 
> hours fiddling in modeler.  I never got a good golfball this way since I 
> couldn't get the dimples to smooth as much as I wanted.  But someone else may 
> be more patient.
> 
> 
> Walter (Jay) Turberville         |wturber@primenet.com  wturber@aol.com

You are definitely on the right track, W.T., except that I would say that
it's the _points_ that make that pattern.  Most of the modern golf balls
have a pattern where each dimple is surrounded by six others, _except_ at
certain main points, which have _five_.  The main points are at the center
of five rows of dimples that go from main point to main point, defining
what looks like spherized triangles from a 20 sided regular solid
(somethingahedron).

If there was a way to do a point-clone, with each clone "aimed" at center,
one could use the tesselated sphere's own points to turn them into
Booleaned dimples, using simple "cups" instead of complete spheres, with
the exact same "cut" for all.

I'm sure that a suitable ARexx or BML script could do this.  If there is
one, someone please email me... if you write it, same!

It sounds dirty, but that looks like what the Viewpoint guys did, in their
catalog.

Jim May
http://www.inforamp.net/~scrutnzr
Phaethon Interplanetary Developments,   LightWave Gallery