Building a dome roof

[ATonOfBricks]

Hello all,

I'm having a trouble trying to build a dome on top of an octagonal structure. I don't normally build fully round structures; I've only done one MOC that was round modeled after a skyscraper in Texas (I forgot which city). Since I don''t have much experience with round buildings, I've having an extremely difficult time trying to build a dome top of my structure. I'm trying to make it in LDD as I would in real life but I'm not having any luck. I'm trying to make it look like what I have below but a lot better. Any suggestions or techniques to make this happen?

[Classicsmiley]

Here are a couple of options that create an output .ldr file. Hopefully you'd be able to import these into LDD.

Studs-out: http://lego.bldesign.org/sphere/

Studs-up: http://olson.pair.com/moc/spheroid/

Edited July 4, 2016 by Classicsmiley

[RoxYourBlox]

I'm having a trouble trying to build a dome on top of an octagonal structure. I don't normally build fully round structures; I've only done one MOC that was round modeled after a skyscraper in Texas (I forgot which city). Since I don''t have much experience with round buildings, I've having an extremely difficult time trying to build a dome top of my structure. I'm trying to make it in LDD as I would in real life but I'm not having any luck. I'm trying to make it look like what I have below but a lot better. Any suggestions or techniques to make this happen?

Yes, starting with what you have, you could add layers of wedge plates and/or curved slopes to give it a rounder shape.

[marco9999]

I had sort of the same problem in this building:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/141832

and I had to give up trying to make a round dome: finally my roof is a basically a square with round corners.

Octagonal builds are quite troublesome in Lego. In a regular octagone (135°) with a 8-stud side the distance between two opposite sides is roughly 21,2 studs, so if you want to connect your building to the ground you'll just have one side connected and seven sides laying on tiles. The model is quite fragile then. Differently you may vary a little the corners and fit the front and back sides at exactly 21 studs one from the other. At least you have two sides connected and you get an acceptable stiffness in your model. That should also help you to create a base for your roof.

Your dome is not bad though. On a bigger scale you may be able to fill the empty spaces using proper wing plates.

Edited July 5, 2016 by marco9999

[MatthewRC]

Sorry to revive this thread, but is there a tutorial on how to build a 6 studs-by-6 studs dome?