To start off this series I borrowed something I had already posted from my
Super Corsair thread.
One thing to keep in mind when designing is that you have to be smarter than the software you are using. You have to realize that the software deals in absolutes but you don't necessarily have to. Rhino may be a extremely well trained beast (it knows more commands than you ever will) but you have to string those commands together in the right way to make something happen.
The point I wish to make here and is one of the few core principles mentioned above that has infinite applications is this:
We often think that we only have to break up the shape we are modeling into individual pieces. You can break up what is going to be one part into many pieces in the design phase then put them back together for the finished product.
There are many variables but depending on that shape you are modeling you can have curves on more than 2 sides and still get it to lay flat as long as you hide a straight line in the middle somewhere.
The first pic is of the cooling vents on the aft portion of the cowling with the red box indicating the portion of the model shown in the screen capture(the carb intake). The numbers 1-3 are next to curved lines and honestly it took me a while to see the simple and elegant way to get a fairly accurate and pleasing shape with only one piece of paper with no slits in it. Line #4 is the straight line that breaks the compound curvature. Generally Rhino won't unroll 2 surfaces joined together like I have these but sometimes it will. On those occasions when it won't the edges don't always mate precisely but I figure that a gap half the width of a piece of paper can be fudged and no one will be the wiser.