Creating a Microphone Mesh

[fred]

I'm new to Fusion 360 and was wondering if it is possible to model a microphone like this example:

I have no idea how to create the interlocking mesh and mold it into a ball shape. Any ideas? Thanks.

Fred

[Beyondforce]

Hi @fred,

How about something like this?

Cheers / Ben
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[PhilProcarioJr · Accepted solution]

@fred

Yes you can but to do this entirely in Fusion would take a lot of hours to do. (about 10 hours of tedious work)

There is an easy way to do it though and that is by creating it in blender and importing it in as an .obj to T-Splines then converting it into a solid. (less then an hour)

If you want to give this a shot follow this tutorial and I will show you how to convert it in Fusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NhawJgrBKw

[Beyondforce]

Actually it took me 1 min. 🙂

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Beyondforce

Yours is just a texture not a model and looks nothing like a microphone mesh. 

His specific question was how to "MODEL" a microphone mesh not texture one.

[Beyondforce]

But it looks good. If it's just for cosmetic then why not!

[fred]

Thank you both for your replies but I really wanted to model the mesh. I am also trying to learn Blender so maybe this is a perfect project to combine the two.

[Anonymous]

I would like to draw a Celtic Cross with a course weave in the back ground.  It cannot be cosmetic. I need to cut it with a CNC router.  Any ideas other than drawing one fiber at a time in the weave? 

[Anonymous]

The reason why people don't model meshes like that is because it's tedious, inefficient, and can drastically increase the render time of a model.  Unless it's something that's going to be created in the real world, it is typically inefficient when you can get the same effect with texture transparency and bump map, especially since a microphone isn't exactly something one views from up close, so if it's going in a scene, texture is generally enough.  I mean after a given amount of time, if it's for rendering purposes, it's basically more practical to photograph an actual microphone.  You can also use photogrammetry on an actual microphone to turn it into a 3D model that would look better than anything you could make in a modelling program, and it would take all of a half an hour with any smartphone.    

You may want to make a full 3D model mesh for the heck of it, but really, it's prudent to discourage potentially time wasting things that may make no difference.  People are more than willing to help, but when people see requests of things that are inefficient and tedious for the 3D world, you're more likely to get advice to not do it, rather than advice on how to do it, as to tell you how to do it, usually involves doing it themselves to show you.  So then you have multiple people working on these inefficient actions, being even more inefficient.  

[Beyondforce]

@Anonymous, that's what I thought as well. It will be very ambitious to create something like that!
Actually, a texture can look really good. I have tried that and it looks almost like the real thing 🙂

[PhilProcarioJr]

@Anonymous

Actually once you know your way around Blender making theses meshes takes less then 5 min and once everything is converted into solids performance and rendering is also very fast.

From the visual side a transparency map with bump doesn't even look close to the quality of a true mesh unless the object is seen from a distance. You will spend more time getting the curvature of a texturemap to look correct then just making the model. How you figure 5 min is a waste of time I don't know but everyone is entitle to their opinion...

@fred

If you need any more help let me know.

Cheers

[donsmac · Accepted solution]

Here's a wire mesh made in Fusion, all in solid modelling. It took less than an hour to do, (the screencast is cut down to twenty minutes).

It didn't turn out perfect around the bottom where some tweeking might help.

[fred]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. I am new to Fusion 360 and so far I love it. The Community is also great! Thanks again.