Panel lines that work are actually pretty simple. Projected lines onto the surface then used the single rail command to form a very small rectangular polysurface line on the surface. The polysurface line was then assigned a somewhat transparent shiny black material in the object editor. This was repeated for each panel line shown below. This allows the surface shape to be left whole which is preferable. The panel lines can then be handled as a layer group making things a lot easier. Another item is the background image has been assigned in the renderer and can be seen in the reflected surface of the image. For a surface to be perceived as metallic aluminum it must reflect something...,
+Gil
