Swirly Signet Ring

Well, my ring design for the 3D printing assignment has finally been finalized (or, should I say "finalized"...), and it certainly changed quite a bit from the rough 'sketch' designs that had been done last week.

I decided to go with the one ring design that was not a full ring as of last week's discussion, but had received the most positive feedback from my peers...

...Choosing said ring idea also included fixing all the geometry issues the original signet/emblem design suffered from...


   

(Old design with geometry issues vs. the new, much-improved design)

I managed to fix the holes in the geometry by doing a rough, but fairly complete redraw of the design, with a few changes, before noticing that the issues were stemming from some of the internal curves not touching and other little annoyances.... Oh well, the new design is preferable anyhow...

...But, of course, the newly made and now-loved emblem design had its issues...

I uploaded just the emblem design onto Shapeways and used their little render to see if the the design would hold up to a print, but alas, many of the walls were too thin for.... every material they offered.

 ... Back to the drawing board, or in this case, the Rhino window...

The design was simplified to take the wall thickness restrictions into account, and using one of the ideas that was suggested to me during our group discussion, the central design was replicated and flowed around the band of the ring.

  

The central design on the face that would be pressed into wax, if this ring was to be used as a signet ring, was momentarily omitted to prevent any warping in the design from the curve of the ring band.

  

The rounded part of the top face was essentially sliced off, the emblem design boolean-unioned on, and tah-dah, a slightly bulky, but fascinatingly swirly signet ring.

  

(Almost finished ring and the hypothetical design that would appear if the ring was pressed into wax)

There is one spot that I'm slightly worried about, but it might be nothing...

Where the two ends of the flowed designs meet, there seems to be some geometry that feels a bit funky, but its hard(ish) to see and might just be me... I dunno...

...Anyways...

Better HD renders to come, my laptop is still hating me (should just do them at school, I know...)

 

(Third picture: interesting render colours... for the fun of it...)

Everything looks alright on the Shapeways end of things, though for the material choice, pretty simple, this design is only printable in one material without another overhaul of parts of the design. Oh well, frosted detail plastic it is... pretty material, but I have a slight nagging sensation that it will be fairly brittle... but I don't mind...