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Visual Reality: Tutorial: Hexagon: Bend Tool Exercise

Visual Reality: Tutorials: Hexagon

Exercise: Bending a Cylinder with the Bend Tool

In this exercise, you'll create a cylinder and a helix, and then use the Bend tool to deform that cylinder using the helix as a basis. You'll add tessellation twice. First, you'll apply it to the entire cylinder to get it to bend more smoothly. After seeing how that improves the result, you add additional tessellation just to the facets in the middle of the cylinder to get that section to bend more cleanly without increasing the polygon count of the model more than necessary.

This exercise uses the following tools:

Selection Palette
  Select Object
  Select Faces
  Select Loop
  Select Between

Vertex Modeling Tab
  Cylinder
  Quad Tessellation

Lines Tab
  Helix

Utilities Tab
  Bend

Although this exercise includes features of each of these tools, it does not cover all fields and options for them. For additional information and instructions on using a tool, please read the tutorial dedicated to that particular tool.

Open a Hexagon File

  1. Start Hexagon. A new file is automatically opened.

  2. Press 2 on the keypad to switch to full front view instead of the default side-front view.

Note: You can also click View on the Hexagon menu, and then click Front View to switch to the front view.

Create a Cylinder

  1. On the Vertex Modeling tab, click the Cylinder button .

  2. Click in the workspace to define the starting point for the cylinder.

  3. Drag the mouse to the right to define the radius of the cylinder. The current radius value is displayed in the Tool Properties panel. Drag the mouse until the radius is approximately 1.

  4. Click in the workspace again to set the current value as the cylinder's radius.

  5. Drag the mouse down to define the cylinder's height. The current height value is displayed in the Tool Properties panel. Drag the mouse until the height is approximately -12.

  6. Click in the workspace again to set the current value as the cylinder's height.

  7. Click Validate to create the cylinder.

Note: Additional fields and alternate methods for defining and setting a cylinder's radius and height are discussed in the Using the Cylinder Tool tutorial.

Create a Helix

  1. On the Lines tab, click the Helix button .

  2. Click in the workspace to define the starting point for the helix.

  3. Drag the mouse to the right to define the radius for the helix. The current radius value is displayed in the Tool Properties panel. Drag the mouse until the radius is approximately 3.

  4. Click in the workspace again to set the current value as the helix's radius.

  5. Drag the mouse down to define the helix's height. The current height value is displayed in the Tool Properties panel. Drag the mouse until the height is approximately -10 and the end radius is approximately -2.5.

  6. Click in the workspace again to set the current value as the helix's height.

  7. Click Validate to create the helix.

Note: Additional fields and alternate methods for defining and setting a helix's radius and height are discussed in the Using the Helix Tool tutorial.

Bend the Cylinder

  1. In the Select Mode panel, click the Select Object button to switch to select object mode, and then click the cylinder to select it.

  2. On the Utilities tab, click the Bend tool button .

The results from using the Bend tool. The cylinder was bent along the path
defined by the helix, but looks very clunky and is flattened in the middle.

  1. Click the helix object. Note how the cylinder is curved, but looks clunky and flattened in the middle.

Tessellate the Cylinder

  1. Click Edit on the Hexagon menu, and then click Undo to remove the bend operation.

  2. Select the cylinder again.

  3. In the Select Mode panel, click the Select Faces button to select facets instead of the entire object.

  4. Click Selection on the Hexagon menu, and then click Select All. All the facets for the cylinder turn blue to indicate that they are selected.

  5. On the Vertex Modeling tab, click the Quad Tessellation button . Each facet of the cylinder is split into four separate facets. These additional polygons will allow the cylinder to bend more smoothly.

Bend the Tessellated Cylinder

  1. In the Select Mode panel, click the Select Object button to switch to select object mode.

  2. If necessary, click the cylinder object to select it.

  3. On the Utilities tab, click the Bend tool.

After applying a level of quad tessellation to all facets in the cylinder,
it bends more smoothly. The middle is still a little flat, though.

  1. Click the helix object. The cylinder is bent, but much more smoothly this time. However, although the middle isn't as squished this time, it still doesn't bend as cleanly as it could.

Add Additional Tessellation to Selected Facets Only

  1. Click Edit on the Hexagon menu, and then click Undo to remove the bend operation.

  2. In the Select Mode panel, click the Select Faces button to switch to select faces mode.


Select three facets from
the fifth row from the top
of the cylinder.

  1. Select three facets in the fifth row down from the top of the cylinder.

  2. In the Selection panel, click the Loop button . All facets in the fifth row of the cylinder are selected.

  3. With those facets still selected, press the Shift key while selecting three facets in the fifth row up from the bottom of the cylinder.

  4. In the Selection panel, click the Loop button. All facets in the fifth row from the bottom of the cylinder are selected.

After clicking the Betw button, all
facets in the middle of the cylinder
are selected.

  1. In the Selection panel, click the Betw button . All facets in the middle rows of the cylinder, between the two rows that you already had selected, are selected.

The facets that were selected are
each split into four individual facets.
The facets that weren't selected
aren't tessellated this time.

  1. On the Vertex Modeling tab, click the Quad Tessellation button. The selected facets are each split into four individual polygons.

Bend the Final Cylinder

  1. In the Select Mode panel, click the Select Object button to switch to select object mode.

  2. If necessary, click the cylinder object to select it.

  3. On the Utilities tab, click the Bend tool button.

Since the ends of the cylinder bent fine with just one level of tessellation, restricting the
second level to just the middle allows Hexagon to bend the object more smoothly while
keeping the polygon count lower.

  1. Click the helix object. The cylinder is bent. Not only do the ends bend smoothly, but the middle bends much more cleanly with the additional tessellation added to it.

 

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