Tooling refinement

In this section we illustrate some ways to add details to a tooling. The first step in our refining process is to ensure that all parts have consistent geometry and texture coordinates. Next, we enhance the meshes by adding textured details. At the end of the process, you will be able to export the high-resolution, detailed meshes.

Digital textures

At the start, you may have a collection of geometries, some of which might not be meshes. For more consistent results, we recommend converting the geometries you intend to refine into meshes using the PangolingMesh command, available through the Pangolin plug-in, which can be downloaded via the Rhino Package Manager.

Now we add texture coordinates to the resulting meshes. Apply the B_Unwrap command to each mesh to flatten it and visualize the 2D output in the UV editor panel . Keep in mind that any change made to the UV mesh in this panel will affect the way the texture is mapped onto the geometry.

At this stage, we can apply digital textures. Open the Botcha digital textures panel and import one or more images. Double-click the preferred one and then the mesh you want to apply it to.

The Digital texture modifier will appear on the Modifiers propery page. A more refined result can be achieved by increasing the number of subdivisions. However, if you want to keep your model lightweight you can set hight Export subdivisions. This way, detailed tooling will only be generated at export time.

At this point the tooling could be ready for export, but you might want to further improve the quality of your geometries in export. For example we might want all the details on the geometries componing the tooling to be transfer on a unique, lighter geometry.

Low poly displacement baking

To do this, first use _Shrinkwarpto generate a unique mesh from multiple geometries.

Now, with B_DrawCrvOnMesh command you can mark your tooling mesh with lines you want to be respected when remeshing.

We typically suggest to use the curve created as parameter in the _QuadRemesh command, which is the next step in the workflow. This is a standard feature of Rhino since 7 and can be controlled via curves. We suggest to use the previously created curves to generate edge loops so you will have some nice seams to cut the mesh with.

Once the remeshing is complete, we need to assign clean and regular texture coordinates to the new mesh, since that is essential to ensure a correct transfer of details. That means flattening the mesh into non-overlapping 2D islands. Before unwrapping, we need to unweld the parts of the mesh that should be separated during the flattening process. This is where the edge loops created during remeshing become useful. Use the _UnweldEdge command to disconnect the edges that will serve as cutting seams for the mesh. You can double-click an edge to quickly select the entire edge loop.

After our mesh has been unwelded properly we want to use the B_Unwrap command from either the toolbar or the UV editing panel. Here you can set several options on how big the canvas size should be and how many iterations to use. You should keep the option Divide=SplitAtDoubleEdges to get the proper split on the edges that we unwelded.

Now it's time to transfer all the details from the original geometries onto the new mesh. Before doing so, apply the Digital texture modifiers created earlier. Then run the B_BakeTexture command on the new mesh, selecting as target geometries all the detailed tooling meshes and surfaces and keeping the option Action=Apply. All the details will be baked on an image and a new Rhino Texture will be created. The target mesh will be modified through a displacement operation based on the generated texture. Since we choose Action=Apply, a displacement modifier will already be applied.

B_BakeTexture command output image. Intermediate levels of black and white stay for the amount of displacement on the 3D geometry.

To achieve a high-quality displacement effect without overloading the model, we recommend adding a Multi Resolution modifier.

Displace modifier created by the command, combined here with a Multi resolution modifier to have better effects in details visualization.

Some details of the final result.

Your tooling is now complete—detailed, optimized, and ready to be used in your next steps, whether it's rendering, 3D-printing, or manufacturing.