John M. Dlugosz <joh### [at] dlugoszcom> wrote:
> The part about the beauty of torus splines I see: I figured as much upon
> reading your tutorial.  I don't follow the rest of it.  The weaving is a
> hierarical system of splines, one for the overall shape and another for
the
> weave??

Yes - one spline defines the profile that is revolved to form the shape of
the basket, another is a simple circle which is repeated at intervals along
the profile spline to create the weave.

> Grabbing digital camera... here is a life-model of what I was thinking
about
> (posted to p.b.i.), but after seeing yours, I really like the open weave,
> too.  So now I'm thinking of the diamond-shape "dish" like mine, but with
a
> more open weave like yours, to show the contents better.  Each of the 4
> sides and bottom would be flat, maybe made as individual panels and tied
to
> a metal frame.
>
> I'm thinking of thin, flat strips of wood or bark.  Sticking a wood
texture
> on an isosurface or carefully "carved" undulation pattern would not look
> right -- it's more like a U-V mapping, not cut from material in that
shape.
> Know what I mean?  If strips are cut parallel to the grain, that might be
> close enough, though.

Looking at the shape of the basket you posted the photo of, I would say
breaking the construction into parts is probably the best option.  The base
could be created using cylinders and waved torus splines, stretched in the
horizontal direction to flatten them.

The sides might be a little more complicated, particularly as the photo
doesn't clearly reveal exactly how they're woven.  You could define a
continuous spline that follows the perimeter of the basket, using this for
the horizontal canes that build up the sides, and for spacing the binding
canes that hold them together (which could be defined by another spline).
But if you wanted a more open weave, perhaps you could use vertical struts
with a weft around the sides instead.

Texture wise, I think using UV mapping to follow the exact bending of each
object might be termed "overkill"!  Given that the texture will probably
have some amount of turbulence, a little mapping to follow the general shape
of the basket (rather than the individual canes) should be sufficient.

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