Lathe Object
Many objects in nature have some rotational symmetry (like vases, apples, wheels, etc.). To describe such an object we normally only need the profile of this object. The whole object can then be reconstructed by rotating this profile around a rotation axis.
The Lathe object does exactly this. It uses spline objects to create rotational symmetrical meshes.
Usage
To use the Lathe object you just have to drag and drop a spline object into a Lathe object. The spline object will now appear as a child of the Lathe object in the object browser. The spline is still fully editable so you can fine adjust the object.
The apple above was created with this small scene.
Properties
- Sections: Describes into how many sections the rotation from angle from to angle to will be partitioned. The more sections the smoother the final object will become.
- Angle from: The angle where the rotation of the spline begins.
- Angle to: The angle where the rotation of the spline ends.
- Rotation axis: The axis around which the spline should be rotated.
- Flip normals: Cheetah3D depends strongly on the orientation of splines. If your Lathe object turns out to be black, your spline has probably the wrong clockwise orientation. You can fix this easily by changing the fix normals property. Cheetah3D will now flip the orientation of the spline internally so that the object should get the expected appearance.
- Cover: If you use a closed spline in the lathe object you can decide if the ends of a partially rotated spline should be closed.
On the picture below a circle was rotated from 0°-270° and the front was closed.
Tip
Use the approximation angle property of the spline object to adjust the sections along the spline curve.