Creating a Relief Patterned Sphere

[Anonymous]

I was just curious if anyone knew of an efficient way to project a pattern onto the surface of a sphere in such a way that it retained equal proportioning across the surface- such as the superposition of torus indent or projections in the hex shaped coordinate system generated by triangular vertices used to approximate a sphere.

Here's an image for reference!

https://goo.gl/images/KrKpjT

Short form is looking for a way project patterns which retain proportionality across a spherical (or curved) surface rather than being distorted by a quadrant based, orthographic mesh (perspective!) S'rry if I'm being ignorant! Very new at this and wanted to know the best route!

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

That spent in you animated gif was created in Blender and that is exactly where I would model it.

If you absolutely need a solid model, then import the undivided sun-D mesh from Blender as a .obj file and convert it into a BRep. That way it'll maintain its polygonal character.