(Another) Problem in Meta

**The Orange** · #1 12-28-2009, 04:05 PM

Backstory: A few weeks back I was playing around in Meta, trying to round off a cone, in such that when it was imported to pepakura for the process of unfolding, I would be able to have a cone unfolded, without the presence of edges. It worked, but I totally disregarded the fact of recording the technique.

(See June's Guncannon - Image attached) - Rounded off cone

So here's my problem, I'm trying to regain that technique. I've been playing around in Meta some more to try to get it rounded without edges.

In picture 1 - An edged cone, with 8 Vertices at the lower base that sits. That's what I'm trying to get rid of.

In picture 2 - Another cone beside the edged cone. This one presents more vertices. This is the main problem. I'm trying to round off the cone without having the presence of those vertices.

In picture 3 - Both cones imported to Pepakura designer. Now, I can just set the cut lines to be the only lines visible and then fix anything in Paint.net or Gimp, but I'm trying to avoid that.

So that's my dilemma, I'll be poking around with Meta's stuff for a while, but I can only get so far alone.

Thanks

**Barry** · #2 12-28-2009, 05:04 PM

Use colour edge, if you make a a rectangle with the mouse all lines inside the dotted line will disappear you will have to play with it to see. You can colour each line individually.

maybe this is not the question you are asking

**SCEtoAUX** · #3 12-29-2009, 07:15 AM

I am not sure about the commands in Meta, but if you draw a circle and cut out a pie wedge then join the cut edges you will get a cone. You can cut out the center of the circle too to get a truncated cone (frustum). You would have to calculate the size of the pie wedge to remove in order to get the diameter(s) of the final cone that you want as opposed to the starting circle diameter(s).

Here is a calculator that might help with the dimensions that would be needed to plug into your designing program to get the desired shape and size.
Cone and truncated cone

**The Orange** · #4 12-30-2009, 12:23 AM

Barry - Referring to picture 3, are you suggesting I should just color the inside mountain fold lines white, so that it appears to be more rounded? I can do that, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. There's a real simple way that I did before, just not sure which button allowed me to do it. But hey, thanks for the suggestion!

SCEtoAUX - First off thanks for telling me the correct word usage for the cone in question. I've never heard of it called as a truncated cone! True, I could cut out a pie piece and then join the cut edges, but won't it still leave me with unwanted vertices and lines? Then again, I may be misreading your statement, forgive me for that.

Actually, I should have made this more clearer, I believe I forgot to leave the actual question in my first post. Nonetheless, thank you guys for the responses, I'll definitely give them a go. My question is, which button, or set of commands do I use to create a truncated cone?

**Barry** · #5 12-30-2009, 06:08 AM

Primative select Cone then Knife the result

**SCEtoAUX** · #6 12-30-2009, 08:47 AM

Here is something that mentions Smooth Scaling under the View menu.

http://www.daybreak-studio.net/tutorials/tutorial_4.jpg

Something to explore.

**The Orange** · #7 12-30-2009, 10:53 AM

And I think this is what I'm looking for! I'll try both ways later today. I'll make sure to respond if it worked! Thanks guys!

**The Orange** · #8 12-30-2009, 11:34 AM

In picture 1 - First try at smoothing it out, and creating a truncated cone.

In picture 2 - Combining what I used in picture 1, I created the actual cone.

Ok, although knifing and creating a truncated cone did not work exactly like I wanted and adjusting the view to smooth didn't really get it either, however! ....

Thank you Barry and SCEtoAUX, your suggestions led me to remembering how I smoothed it out in the past! Thank you very much, this will definitely help me complete my latest model. And now for the explanation!

*Warning* The way I create a truncated cone, smoothed out, will have a lot of faces. When importing to pepakura, there will be the pop up that tells you the said model has too many faces.

1 - Primitive Cone creation
2 - Knife cone
3 - Mesh smooth : 4
4 - Import to Pepakura

And voila, pepakura gets rid of the mountain lines automatically! Again, thank you very much Barry and SCEtoAUX!