Draw tire tread on round surface?

[Anonymous]

Hi all!

 Id like to take an image of a tire tread design and draw it onto a round ring. Id then like to extrude it out. Its basically making a tire myself. I am just wondering what the best route would be to make something like that happen? I have been trying to think of how to do it but I am having troubles.

Thanks all!

Chris,

[jeff_strater]

Hi @Anonymous,

Here's what I did in this model:

Now, I should warn you up front that this was an exercise in modeling for visual results, not for accuracy or for manufacture.  My goal was only to get pretty pictures.  And, I'm not a tire designer.  So, this may not be a valid way to design a tire tread.  But, FWIW, here is what I did.

Started with a sketch of just one instance of my basic tread pattern, on a plane tangent to the tire cylinder:

my tread pattern was very simple, more complex patterns will require bigger sketches.  Here is a close-up:

Then, I used Split Face to imprint that onto the tire face.  I've changed the color because the black edges on a rubber material were not showing up:

Now, there's a caveat here:  This worked well for me because my pattern is very small.  If  your pattern is longer, understand that Split Face will add distortion the farther away from the cylinder that you get.  There are techniques (Project Curve to Surface) than can help, but if you keep your tread pattern small it can work OK.

Then, I used Press/Pull, set to "New Offset" (this is critical), to add an emboss-type feature from the split faces:

Then, I patterned this tread unit across the face of the tire:

and then used a circular pattern to repeat it around the cylinder:

In all honesty, I didn't do a particularly great job here, because the precise measurements get tricky to get just the right tread matchup in the pattern.  Mine have some issues:

But, again, my goal was cosmetic, so those didn't bother me too much.

I think that some variation of a technique like this, though, could be used effectively.  What Fusion really needs is a true "wrap around a surface" and Emboss feature to make this easier, but that's not yet implemented.

Also, be aware that this technique adds a lot of geometry to your model.  If you end up with a really complex tread pattern, the performance could get slow, both modeling and graphics performance.

Let us know how you get on, and what you are trying to achieve here.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris_Halliday!

                           These are the steps which I follow for making threads on tire.

Step 1: take a offset plane from the surface of the tire where the threads are to be cut.

Step 2: Draw the thread pattern and apply cut extrude upto the depth you want it.

Step 3: Apply circular pattern option to get the thread cut over the complete circular surface of the tire.

I Hope it solves your problem.

Regards.

Mandeep

[Anonymous]

Thank you Jeff. I will give this a shot a bit later tonight.

P.S. Lotus 49? Did you do this entirely in Fusion, Absolutely stunning model! My goals are to be able to complete models such as this. Thanks for sharing the image.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Mandeep. I will try this method as well a bit later tonight. I think in my earlier trials I totally forgot the cut to surface feature and probably made a big mistake because of it. Thank you for pointing that out.

[jeff_strater]

Hi @Anonymous, yes, I've always loved the Lotus 49 design.  To me, that era of F1 cars were just beautiful.   Simple, elegant.  And yes, I did the whole thing from scratch in Fusion.  It took me a long time, but I enjoyed it.  I had to make lots of simplifying tradeoffs just to get the thing done.  Here is the link to the gallery project for it:  lotus-49-second-attempt.  Let me know if you have any questions about the model.  And, good luck with your own models.

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Cheers! Absolutely stunning car. PITA to drive in a simulator I run though!