Modeling Truchet Relief

Truchet patterns refer to a set of geometric designs based on simple, repeating shapes, usually tiles or squares. These tiles can be rotated or flipped to create complex and visually interesting patterns. A French mathematician, Michel Truchet introduced these patterns in the 1970s. Since then, you can see them often in art, design, and mathematics. In this short video tutorial, I am modeling truchet relief in Rhinoceros CAD software. My purpose of this modeling process is to demonstrate the basic modeling and precision commands in Rhinoceros. Truchet patterns are generally in 2D. Therefore, I wanted to try making a more 3D version of them. This can be a starting point for a more complex and 3D tiling system in the future. I studied Truchet tilings earlier here, and here.

In this video series, I present in-class exercises from the first-year Architectural Geometry course. Using Rhinoceros software, we explore topics such as Euclidean constructions, basic drawing and transformation techniques, introductory fractals, regular and semi-regular tessellations, patterns, 3D modeling, and the unrolling of polyhedra. I designed these concise exercises to benefit junior architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and anyone with an interest in related fields. I’ll be sharing new exercises weekly on my blog and other platforms. Today’s exercise focuses on modeling a Truchet relief.

The software used in this course is Rhinoceros 3d (www.rhino3d.com). However, if you want to find out more and see the whole list of this video series, you can check my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@designcodingnet. The music of this video is ‘Adrift Among Infinite Stars’ by Scott Buckley (CC-BY 4.0). www.scottbuckley.com.au