A Method for Specifying Contours of an Arched （一个方法用于指定轮廓的一个拱形的）.pdf

A Method for Specifying Contours of an Arched Plate [This article was originally published in American Lutherie #69, Spring 2002] R.M. Mottola Copyright (C) 2002 by R.M. Mottola The surface of a typical stringed instrument’s arched plate is a complex surface indeed. Experienced plate carvers and first timers possessed of highly refined spatial perception tend to implement these with some ease, while for others even the prospect of rendering such a plate is j ust too intimidating. This paper proposes a method by which the contours of such plates may be specified. It is a step-by-step design * approach which can yield a topographic contour specification such as found in topographic maps for a plate of arbitrary outline. The resulting specification can be directly transferred to a plate blank which is then rough carved with a router to yield a close approximation of the finished plate’s contours, such that only minor additional carving is necessary. The method described is derived from a feature of advanced Computer Aided Design (CAD) facilities called Parametric Solid Modeling (PSM). Using PSM a designer may completely specify the dimensions of a complex solid by specifying the values of a relatively small number of parameters. Folks with a non-technical bent need not be put off by the derivation of the contour specification method to be described, as no CAD or math is required to use it. The method described is a modification and simplification of the CAD-based method I use to develop arching profiles for new instruments, modified and simplified so as to be useable with pencil and paper. As CAD software is increasingly used in lutherie, the method is also described such that it can be performed using basic 2D CAD software as wel