Modeling a Desk Lamp
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This time we are modeling a desk lamp. Probably the one most of us have on our desks.

RESOURCES
STEP 1
We will start from the bottom up. So, first we will model the bottom plate. Create two circles from the top viewport, one 11.9cm in diameter (if you see a diameter option in Circle command, click it so it turns into Radius - that means the diameter is on) and other 11.5cm.
Then we will need three more circles (you can make them anywhere, just make them concentric). Make them 0.3cm, 0.6cm and 0.8cm in diameter.
Now, using Mid, Quad and Cen options in Osnap, position these three little circles on the End (or Quad) point on the outer bigger circle. And move those three from right to left by 0.85cm.
Now we need three more groups of those 3 circles. So, we will use Arraypolar, and array them 4 times around the center of bigger circles (in my case that is 0,0 as I usually have my models in the origin).
Now, select the inner circle of two big, and outer circles of each three-group circles and move those circles up by 0.25cm (from front viewport):
Now, select and copy the inner circle of two bigger, and move it up by 0.55cm
Now, copy the outer circle, and move it up by 0.8cm:
Now, back to those 3-group smaller circles. Select the inner one (4 of them) and move up by 0.75cm. Then, copy those moved circles, and move the copied ones up by 0.2cm.
Now, pick one group of circles, and we’ll start making the boss. Create a surface between two smallest circles. I used extrude, but you can use Loft as well.
Now, the bottom one, I’ve extruded it to the bottom small circle (here, if you want to use loft, you need one more circle that is in the same construction plane as the bottom smaller circle).
And then, extrude the biggest circle to the upper small circle:
Now, we need to create the surfaces between inner and outer circles. We’ll do that with PlanarSrf.
Join those surfaces, and ArrayPolar like we did for the circles.
Now, we’ll make the bottom surface, so select outer circle, and 4 little ones and using PlanarSrf make a surface with 4 holes (just run PlanarSrf command and hit enter):
Repeat the same step for upper 5 circles:
Now, using the Loft command, make a surface out of outer circles (Use the straight sections in style option) :
Join those surfaces, and we’re done with the plate.Theres just one thing to do, that is fillet the edge. So, using FilletEdge and 0.1cm as radius, fillet the shown edge:










May 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Congratulations!
I like your side, news, video tutorials…etc. But in tutorials I would include also .pdf tutorial on the end (it is much easier to read and to see the pictures).
Keep with good work!
Best regards,
uros
May 19th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
well thanks. I’ll think about pdf, if theres a good and fast solution to creating pdfs then fine

thanks, I just hope few more ppl would find my efforts worth and help me out with writing tutorials, so I can learn something too
May 21st, 2008 at 8:19 pm
hey thanks alot for ur tutorials i reallyyy learned alot. but i just want to ask u a tinny favor …iz it possible to put the photos little bit big size. i know if i ckick i can see big size but when iam printing they became small:((( sorrri to asked alot
June 30th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Thanks a Lot Dude! It was very joyful
Its impressive the way you make your tutorials… so detailed
June 30th, 2008 at 9:49 am
thanks for your tuts!!!!
September 29th, 2008 at 4:34 am
great rhino tutorial, especially the shelling. i have a question: in a few places (e.g. third step on page 4) you do a trim that also seem to create fill surfaces. e.g. when you trim the three extruded rectangles through the shelled lamp head, you appear to be getting a solid result. When I do it, I have to creat the vertical fill surfaces by hand. Is this something you’re leaving out, or am I misunderstanding?
thanks again, these are the best notes i’ve ever seen. i’d love to see pics & text of how you set them up, & how you measure the object for the modeling.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:38 am
well, since we are extruding those three rectangles, and trimming the extruded surfaces with the shell, I suppose either you are doing something wrong, or you did something wrong
but keep trying
October 5th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Whenever I *trim* a solid with another entity (curve, surface, or solid) the result never seems to be closed; only if I do a *boolean subtract* is the result closed. E.g. make a cube and trim out a hole with an extruded circle: there will be two circular holes in the cube’s faces, but no interior cylindrical wall. If you send me an email address I’ll send you pictures of what I mean. But I really *want* it to work like you say! Thanks for any explanation…
October 9th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Bad Ass! Learned a lot during this tutorial!
October 10th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Oh, wait, I see what you’re saying: trim A to B then trim B to A and join…right?
October 10th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
well, boolean operations work actually the same as trim and join, but you do it in one step and one command and sometimes avoid unnecessary problems. I am just too much used to trim so I often forget to use boolean
November 4th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
teach me to know more about rhino.
December 15th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
It would be nice if the blueprints weren’t in pdf… ya know so you could actually use it maybe.. just a thought. It would be much easier to make the body shapes using profile curves from a bitmap but you can’t get a bitmap.
December 15th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
your tuts suck. I could getter better tuts from a retarded aspergers baby
December 15th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
You can look up on vector graphics on wikipedia if you can’t grasp how vector is more powerful than raster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics
And in case you didn’t know, you can export pdf-s into jpeg images which then you can insert into Rhino.
With a little more “advanced” rocket science, you can actually import vector graphics as curves into Rhino, which is another reason why I provide vectors.