MPanel Tutorial Drawings

A step by step tutorial showing how to design a cone tent using MPanel.

A more in depth look at creating a cone tent, this web page walks you through the design process for developing a cone tent, covering mesh density selection, stress effects and compensation of the finished panels for production.

How to design a cone tent with fixed edges. Illustrates how to use MPanel to fix the eaves on a double cone tent structure.

Shows a method to design a sail structure with one fixed edge and 3 catenary edges.

How to use embedded cables to carry some of the loads in a cone tent design.

Creating an awning cover with some double curvature on a half dome. Framed structures, which are sometimes made without double curvature, benefit in strength and rigidity if they are designed with double curvature. This drawing illustrates working over a simple entry way awning.

Looks at designing cable reinforced structures as an alternative to stressed skin structures using MPanel

Deep catenaries can be used for entrance arches, shade tents, sculptural effects, etc. This drawing shows how to develop deep catenaries without running into meshing problems.

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Creates a set of panels running diagonally on a square sail. Diagonal seams are required for aesthetic or structural reasons, and MPanel can create them nicely, although there are difficulties with the corner triangular panels. This drawing illustrates the process.

Creating geodesic seams on  a saddle tent. Geodesic seams are often used to minimize seam lengths and create substantially rectangular panels.  MPanel can create geodesic seams from any boundary points over any number of meshes, and can then turn the seam lines into a new mesh, to ease paneling.

How to make panels of a specified width. Illustrates working from a geometrically fixed seam to produce a series of specified width panels.

Looks at the issues involved in merging panels, and shows how the shearing error occurs. Merging is a powerful technique for joining panels together and achieving panel end curvature, but it has implications in the way the fabric stress relaxes that need to be understood. This drawing illustrates those issues for a simple hoop structure.

Shows a method used to block cut a simple icon into a mesh, which will be created in a contrasting colour.

Paneling and Meshing Colourways
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The method of modeling using a single sheet over several constraints. This was an earlier modeling technique, used before the capability to relax multiple meshes arrived. For some fabric shapes it is difficult to think of a reasonable multiple set of meshes to define the structure, and so this drawing details the old method.

Modular Tent
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How to design a modular structure, so that you can add any number of central sections to create different length designs.

Ordinary compensation or shrink methods work for most situations, but MPanel's compensation can be tailored to fit special circumstances. This drawing illustrates methods for variable compensation, partial decompensation, and changing compensation across the panel.

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Metric
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Covers membrane stress variations, cable loads and anchor loads.

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Metric
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It provides an estimate of the required fabric pre-stress, and so provides the information needed to detect a suitable material.