Probably the best and most comprehensive video about why curvature continuity is so important in product design, what causes those “bumps” on the edges of regularly rounded rectangles, and why it all works as it works.
This is a very nicely presented video, but I discovered it 20 years too late! Back in the early 90’s I was experimenting with b-spline surfaces for car exteriors. I needed to reverse engineer our CAD system, and teach myself to program. There was no internet resources for normal people then, no IT people around either. And I’m no mathematician, so I programmed everything geometrically. Gerald Farin’s book helped with some breakthroughs, but I had to ignore all the heavy formulae. I was finally able to make a program to help create the very precise, smooth surfaces needed for vehicle exteriors seen on many well known cars driving around since then.
That’s interesting) Have you worked on those vehicles’ designs as well, or specifically on the software that was used? Is it something that’s still utilized to this day?
Yes. My job is designer. But typically the software is a big limitation. So initially I secretly learnt to enhance the software without my bosses knowing. And in the time I saved, I was able to develop the software and my knowledge even further. It was when I shared my commands with my colleagues the bosses started to take notice. Not all bosses understood what it meant for productivity though.
When the commercial software improved, most of my programs became redundant. Yet I was happy to now use real professionally programmed tools. But some of the coolest things are still missing.
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