Creating Faceted Truncated cone in SW

ok -

I’m bringing this to the forum for some help. - just want to see how everyone here might approach this problem before I dive into the deep end.

here it is:
I’ve got (to simplify things) a truncated cone in Solidworks.
Think Fez hat or Pint glass…
Sort of like this:
truncated_cone.jpg
I need to populate the outside surface with triangular facets.
something like this:

but in lower relief like this:

Any ideas on how to approach modeling this in Solidworks?
I know there’s a simpler way to do this than actually patterning cut features etc…
Please, anyone who has experience with surfacing like this, your help would be hugely appreciated.

thanks!

How dense are the facets?
If they’re relatively coarse, i would just create a polygon sketch at evenly spaced levels and loft between them.

Mike

Do it with surfaces

1 - create a faceted cone shape that has the number of sides you want
2 - Sketch on one side the amount losanges you want
3 - Array the first row of losanges and fill in the gaps
4 - Knit everything into a solid

Voilà

I did not finish the model below nor try to make it nice but you get the idea

Mirk:
The facets should be relatively dense- i would say nickel size on a pint glass… Ideally I would like an approach that will allow me to “dial in” the desnity\and angle etc…

VanDeBar:
This is a great start. I’m going to work through the model with this method first. The only thing I would like to do differently is somehow keep the facets from getting larger at the base – i know its a conic surface so the easy way to segment it is into tapering faces… tough… This is most likely the way to go - thanks Philippe!

I redid the step by step … it should be clearer now :

this is rad. thanks man!

I know you said Solidworks. But Rhino has a few plugins that would make things like fairly simple. Look into “paneling tools” and “flow along surface”.

You could always then re import them to solidworks and knit into a solid there.

Sain>

I watched some videos on these tools → they look great and super useful for what I’m doing - I do have Rhino on a machine around here somewhere…
If this gets any more complicated i will go that route →

thanks!

I would have probably done it a little differently.

I think you could have used radial array or datums to your advantage - by making surface cut tools and repeating them around a cone solid, then using them to cut away from the main body.

The advantage is that you don’t have to manually input all the facets X-times whatever the number of repeats around the cone. If you’re careful you could also finesse the pattern to your liking while it still correctly repeats when you regenerate the assembly (or doesn’t repeat and you can fix it).

Maybe this is a little complicated and the model could fail, but that’s another way to create this kind of shape in CAD…

FYI - this is working out.
taking a bit more leg work to get the faces split into 4 triangles rather than 2 (Green vs. pink), or a diamond shape - but same approach.
works well and controllable when all the dims are set to some master sketch stuff.

Thanks for the shouts! super helpful.

Hello all,

can someone please give me a little more input to how this was done (see Prior pics). i tired to follow the steps and I was able to get to this stage (please see images), can some one please give a bit more details to what tools was used to make the diamond shapes solid. I am fairly new to surfaces.

Thank you all in Advanced.

anyone?