Design and Fabrication of Multi-Patch Elastic Geodesic Grid Structures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a multi-patch approach to elastic geodesic grids (EGG) for approximating complex free-form surfaces, demonstrating improved design flexibility and practical deployment for larger structures.

Contribution

It proposes decomposing complex surfaces into smaller patches to enhance EGG performance and showcases a scalable, practical implementation for larger structures.

Findings

Multi-patch decomposition improves surface approximation.

Elastic geodesic grids are suitable for complex free-form surfaces.

Practical deployment of larger EGG structures is feasible.

Abstract

Elastic geodesic grids (EGG) are lightweight structures that can be deployed to approximate designer-provided free-form surfaces. Initially, the grids are perfectly flat, during deployment, a curved shape emerges, as grid elements bend and twist. Their layout is based on networks of geodesic curves and is found geometrically. Encoded in the planar grids is the intrinsic shape of the design surface. Such structures may serve purposes like free-form sub-structures, panels, sun and rain protectors, pavilions, etc. However, so far the EGG have only been investigated using a generic set of design surfaces and small-scale desktop models. Some limitations become apparent when considering more sophisticated design surfaces, like from free-form architecture. Due to characteristics like high local curvature or non-geodesic boundaries, they may be captured only poorly by a single EGG. We show how decomposing such surfaces into smaller patches serves as an effective strategy to tackle these problems. We furthermore show that elastic geodesic grids are in fact well suited for this approach. Finally, we present a showcase model of some meters in size and discuss practical aspects concerning fabrication, size, and easy deployment.