Monday, February 1, 2016

Ashley D Goodenough: Mouse

              Concept: My concept for the trackball mouse started with brainstorming some interesting shapes in nature that a computer mouse could mimic in a way that felt sleek but geeky. I landed on some images of trilobitefossils that I fell in love with and thought could meld well with a mouse design. I kept my integration of trilobite anatomy into the mouse at a minimum, since I didn’t want it to have too much of a biological feel.
Modeling: Techniques used in Rhino for building my trilobite mouse included booleanSplit, booleanUnion, and booleanDifference for getting my large solids. When starting with curves, I used matchCurve, using a curvature graph to smooth out a curve, scaling in 1D, drawing varying types of curves, using lofted surfaces, and sweeps with rails and cross sections. For finishing, I capped planar holes, filleted,  extruded curves, trimmed and shrunk surfaces, untrimmed when done with a curve, and used mirroring to get symmetry on both sides of the mouse.
Materials: I stuck with metallic paint for all of my mouse materials, since I wanted it to look sleek. I decided against some plastic options I had, because they weren’t quite making the design pop. Deep reds and faded gold were my color choices to mimic the coloring of the fossils I was referencing.

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