Making a Holiday Ornament with
FreeForm Modeling Plus
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The development of this ornament begins with a 2D drawing of the design concept. This drawing will
be used for reference in the FreeForm® Modeling Plus™ application by a variety of tools, including
Wire Cut and Emboss with Image.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The modeling begins by starting with a basic shape, a cube with the following dimensions:
100H x 100W x 10D. The clay coarseness (resolution) is set to 1.5
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The reference image is brought into the FreeForm application via the Emboss Image tool and resized. The Emboss tool
can be used to either raise or lower the clay based on the distance set by the user and the tonal values of an image.
Areas of the image that are black will not be modified; white areas will be raised or lowered the full distance with the
varying shades of gray being adjusted between 0 and the distance set.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The initial emboss is created by raising clay with a distance of 3mm and provides a starting point for
the modeling.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Next we want to trim away the excess clay using Wire Cut. Using the sketch tools first a freehand
curve is created to outline each angel and a sketch circle is created to outline the FreeForm logo. The
overlapping curves between the freehand curves and the circle are then trimmed.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
In this image Wire Cut has been used with the closed sketch profile to cut away the material that
existed outside of the sketch profile. A second plane is created of the side view and a sketch box is
used to create a sketch profile to wire cut the extra thickness from the back of the ornament.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The model is very rough at this point. The Smooth Area tool, which both adds and subtracts clay, is
used to smooth the entire model. Additional targeted smoothing is done in rough areas guided by the
sense of touch using the PHANTOM® haptic device and the Smooth tool.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The image emboss creates a model that looks like and angel from the front view, however from a side
view the model lacks volume in various areas and requires additional detailed modeling to create the
missing geometry. A variety of tools are available to create the physical detail of the angel. In the
above image the Smudge tool is used by working from the inside of the model to add volume.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Above a closed 3D curve is drawn to define the area of the angel’s wing.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The Tug Area tool is used to quickly manipulate the surface of the wing to give volume to improve the
appearance of the angel as seen from the side.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Tips
- Model from the inside to added volume
- Use curve boundaries as stencils to guide how the clay is manipulated
- Use your sense of touch to smooth the geometry
- Use the Tug tools to rapidly reposition the surface
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The above image shows the completed modeling of one angel on the left.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Using the Mirror Clay tool we can avoid having to model the details of both angels. First we create a
sketch profile that surrounds the sculpted angel and use that profile to select the angel on the left. We
then copy, paste and mirror the selected clay to the other side, shown above.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Above the clay colored piece is active and we carve away the original angel.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Here the copied angel is repositioned and the transition is smoothed. Once satisfied the new piece is
combined into the original piece.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Next we want to embellish the area within the FreeForm logo. Using the sense of touch we draw 3D
curves that outline the FreeForm logo and project those curves to a plane (shown above) and use
those curves to select the volumes and mask off the areas we don’t want to modify.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
All the areas we want to remain unchanged are masked and shown in red above.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Using Emboss Area we can add detail into the clay. Above an image of a gingerbread man is selected
and stamped on the model in varying sizes (shown in blue).
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The emboss is applied, raising the areas that were stamped.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Above a holly leaf is stamped using a falloff setting to transition the raised area to the surrounding
clay. By saving out a copy of the model before organic detail is added we can create multiple design
iterations on that blank model. Via rapid prototyping or rendering we can then create a variety of
design concepts in short order to be used for design approval.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The holly leaf emboss is applied.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Use FreeForm to evaluate if there are undercuts and if the model is moldable. Above, a slice curve is created and Show
Parting Line Colors is turned on. The arrow in the image indicates the axis of the pull direction. The tan and blue colors
indicate the two sides of the tool. Red represents areas with 0 degrees of draft. The orange indicates anything that is
between 0 degrees of draft and the set draft angle. The blue in the edge of the ribbon indicates an area of undercut.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Fix Draft is used to fix the area of undercut and the areas that had 0 degrees of draft (areas that were
previously red) that might have gotten stuck in the tool.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Above shows the tooling version of the model with 1 degree of draft on both the front and back sides.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The parting line that was used to fix draft is offset to space and used to create the NURBS parting
surfaces.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Above curves are drawn to bisect the offset curve creating four-sided boundaries for the parting
surfaces.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
With the click of one curve boundary NURBS surface patches are created that meet up directly to the
ornament.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Next we need to create the cast part out of the model; that is a solid model that will have two sides to
the model.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Shows the front component of the cast part.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Shows the backside of the cavity of the component.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
Shows the cavity, the underside of the detailed front of the ornament.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.
The final step was to create two renderings of the model in two different material properties, one gold
one silver, to help determine the material to be used in manufacturing.
© 2007 SensAble Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of SensAble Technologies, Inc.