Modeling in detail a Teak tree in Fusion 360
Accepted solution
The mesh structure/topology is fine. In general it is preferable to stick with quads. But T-Splines also deal well with 5 sided polygons. But, again, that is not the problem here.
I also looked at the mesh in box view mode and did not see anything obvious.
You already used the "repair" tool, but likely have not tried the "make uniform" tool. That does the trick in this case.
However even then, in rare cases these tools do not manage to fix a mesh that otherwise should be OK.
In such cases, export the T-Spline control cage as a .obj and reimport that mesh and convert it to a T-Spline. That forces Fusion 360 to completely rebuild a T-Spline form a mesh.
@Anonymous wrote:
I don't quite get your last sentence. How do you export the t-spline control cage? Do I have to stay in the create form menu or exit from the modification before doing so? Do you mean I should export the shape when it is in box mode?
While still in T-Spline mode, right click on the body in the browser and select "Save control frame as .obj. It does not matter whether that is in box view mode or smooth view mode 😉
There is no reason to model all of that as one single connected T-Spline. The trunk, branches, twigs etc can be all individual meshes.
Why would they have to be connected ?
What is your end goal with this model ?
This isn't essentially a software problem. You'd run into this using any other Sub-D modeling software 😉
The end goal with this model is to create a detailed illustration of the teak tree to use for a large format drawing for my studies. I will try and represent how the tree connects the ground and air together through additional simulations using Realflow to simulate the groundwater interaction with the roots and Autodesk's CFD to simulate the wind moving around the canopy, that is the end goal at least.
As you mentioned it probably doesn't need to be connected as I am modelling it but the final output will need to be as I will be using the model as a whole. For the illustration I am drawing my inspiration from Macoto Murayama's botanical blueprints.
I've been using Zbrush to remesh the T-splines shape to output that finer squared grid then using illustrator to edit the line weights.
So if yo already know how to use ZBrush why would you not simply sculpt the tree with the tools in ZBrush and then re-mesh it?
That is the entire purpose of the re-meshing tools in Zbrush, to remesh the triangulated sculpt meshes. Sculpting in Fusion 360 is really NOT sculpting. Is very similar to polygon mesh modeling or Sub-D mesh modeling.
I personally would NOT use Fusion 360 for this at all. Not because it could not be done but predominantly because of its clunky sculpt UI make it unpleasant to create such models.
Something you should be aware of is that these FEM software packages usually don't work with meshes. They need NURBS based geometry o BRep. There are a few traps here!