- Home
- Articles & News
- Armour ceramics enters the gaming world
Armour ceramics enters the gaming world
by Johan Groenewald, Technical Manager, Multotec Wear Linings
At Multotec Wear Linings, our MOH-9 division produces ceramic inserts for body armour. These ceramic breastplates are organically shaped to ergonomically conform to a human’s body. As such they are not defined by a simplified mathematical formula or traditional geometry.
The plates are produced by pressing flat plates in a hydraulic press and then firing them on a curved setter plate. While firing, the ceramic plate takes on the shape of the setter. Because of this, we have to be able to develop the plate from a curved shape to a flat shape and apply our ceramic firing shrinkage factor to produce the correct drawings for production. Because the curves are organic in nature, this development to a flattened shape becomes a very complicated exercise.
Originally, we tried to produce parametric models using standard polynomial equations as seen in the diagrams below, but this had two major drawbacks. Firstly, the curves required 6th-degree formulas with ridiculous complexity and, secondly, each section of the plate required a new formula completely unrelated to the previous one. For a few months, we were stumped. How could we possibly automate this design process? Then a solution was found in video games!
Bezier curves are a mathematical tool used in video games, computer graphics, design, and animation to create smooth and precise curves like the roads in the image. They are named after their inventor, Pierre Bezier, a French engineer who developed them in the 1960s for use in designing automobiles.
A Bezier curve is defined by a set of control points, which are used to manipulate the curve's shape. The curve itself is created by connecting these points with a smooth, continuous line. By adjusting the position of the control points, designers can create curves that are tailored to their specific needs. You can also use Bezier curves to generate new grip points for more Bezier curves, so you can use this system to create a three-dimensional surface, similar to our setter plates.
Bezier curves benefits
One of the benefits of Bezier curves is that they allow for complex shapes to be created using just a few simple points. They are also easy to manipulate and adjust, which makes them a popular choice for video game programmers.
One can approximate the length of the curve by dividing it into small line segments and summing up their lengths. The smaller the line segments, the more accurate the approximation will be. This method is called numerical integration or numerical approximation.
To test the theory, we produced a python script to generate a Bezier curved surface and then overlaid 3D scans of our setter plates onto the model. We adjusted the grips until the generated surface matched our organic shape. On this model we can determine the length of any curve at any section in any direction and easily develop it flat to produce the required developed shape.
Thanks to innovative and creative “outside the box” thinking, we will now be able to produce these armour plate production drawings with automatic parametric models faster and more accurately.