The golf ball link is broken.
I really thought the dimples in a golf ball were all uniform. I will have to look at some references and do some research.
The method using the icosahedron does not seem to be a perfect sphere to me either.
I need to check out the geosphere script to see if that works.
Thanks for the feed back and keep it coming.
Some stuff I found...
Most balls on sale today have about 300 to 450 dimples.
There were a few balls having over 500 dimples before. The record holder was a ball with 1,070 dimples -- 414 larger ones (in four different sizes) and 656 pinhead-sized ones. All brands of balls, except one, have even-numbered dimples. The only odd-numbered ball on market is a ball with 333 dimples.
Officially sanctioned balls are designed to be as symmetrical as possible. a ball can have six rows of normal dimples on its equator, and very shallow dimples elsewhere. This asymmetrical design helps the ball self-adjust its spin-axis during the flight. The USGA did not sanction it and changed the rules to ban aerodynamic asymmetrical balls. The ball supplier sued the USGA and the USGA paid U.S. $1.375 million in an out of court settlement.
-wikipedia
so it appears the USGA tried to ban asymmetrical ball designs but was sued and settled out of court. Interesting.
I would still like to find a method of modeling a golf ball with uniform dimples. Just as an exercise to show that I as a modeler control the model and I don't have to simply settle for what Maya will give me and say it's close enough.
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675
Last edited by ctbram; 24-02-2010 at 06:29 AM.