Use Graph Mapper to Create a Ball

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Permalink Reply by Birk Binnard on September 24, 2016 at 2:40pm

What you mean by "create a globe/ball" is not precisely clear, but if you mean you want to make the outside surface of your shape more sphere-like then you need to control the diameter of the curves you use to make the Loft surface. 

I've made many surfaces like yours, but I generate them from complex closed curves made from circles. The basic idea is to generate a Loft surface based on a series of closed curves of varying radii spaced out vertically by specified distances.

I tried using Graphmapper to define/control the radii and vertical distances, but I found I had better luck by specifying the values myself. The problem I ran into was that it was difficult to control individual values generated by Graphmapper. There may be a way to do this, but I couldn't figure it out.  So I switched to the Gene Pool object because it gives individual control of each value and is easier to deal with than using multiple Sliders.

Take a look at the GH file in this thread:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/is-this-a-gh-or-rhino-or-...

It can make shapes very similar to the one you have, but it does this from internally generated planar curves. You could change this to use your external shape if you selected the edge and then scaled it according to your needs.