Tricky one I have been playing around with
 

As said in the title I have been trying to put togther a model based on the following image

http://www.goodbuddy.com.au/images/wiffle%20ball.jpg

I am finding it very hard to make a decent looking and not to over complex model. As you can hopefully see I'm looking to take a sphere and punch circular holes in it.

So far I have tried a nurbs curve projected onto a nurbs sphere, which looked good but didnt convert nicely as there were far too many unconnected CV's and isoparms.

I have also tried taking a boolean difference approach using a poly sphere and poly cylinder to 'punch' out the holes. This kinda worked ok, although there was a ton of work connecting the new vertices. In the end it didnt look that hot and I kind of gave up on the idea.


I would really like advice on the easiest way to do this as I have a nifty idea for a model based on this design, thank you!

I dont think I would model it, i'd just use a transparancy map.

You could use nurbs and fillets thought to do it

Yeah Nurbs and Fillet/Trim would be the way I'd do something like this...

Ok, seems like you guys are in agreement with the fillet/trim, would that work under the following circumstance.....

I'm looking to extrude the circular edges out from the cut peices so I would end up with something that would look like an old WW2 shipping mine, or something in the attached photo. I looking for a really nice crisp line between the curve of the sphere and the jutting out of the pipe.

I know I could just have a curve and a pipe intersecting, but I dont think that would look to go really, or am I wrong?

Sorry for the poor ref pic btw, first one i could come up with in google :P

If you want a really sharp edge between the two there's no need to fillet them, but if you want just a slight curvature in the transition it's easily done with a circular fillet...