If you are interested in the architecture of Ancient Greece, on this page you can find a 3D model of the Ionic volute ornament, and also a tutorial on how to draw it.

A volute is a spiral-shaped (scroll-like) architectural ornament that has a circle (often called eye of volute) in the center. Most often it can be found on capitals belonging to the Ionian, Corinthian or Composite order. The Ionic volute was also used in renaissance, baroque, as well as neoclassical architecture; besides architecture, it can also be found as decoration on furniture, statues and the like.

 

Ionic volute 3D model
3D model category
Architectural elements
3D model license
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license
3D CAD software used for modeling

Rhinoceros

Available NURBS and BREP file formats

You can download this 3D model in Rhinoceros 3dm or STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product model data) file format.

 

The way how to draw the volute has been described in an old book on architecture. Interestingly, although of spiral shape, the complete volute motif is drawn only by means of circles. We managed to quickly draw a 2D volute motif based on the information in the book, and then it occurred to us to also create a 3D model that is offered here for download. If you need a volute 3D model, please download it below, or watch a video tutorial we have shot while drawing the 3D model and model it yourself with the 3D CAD software you are using. We hope that you will find this 3D model useful or/and that you will be able to easily draw your volute 3D model by following the instructions in the above video tutorial.

Ionic volute ratio: 7 : 6 : 5.143

Model has real-world scale (measurement: mm (SI system)) and is centered at 0,0,0.

Video tutotial (Youtube): Modelling 3D Ionic Volute in Rhino 3D CAD software
Video tutotial (Vimeo - Better quality): Modelling 3D Ionic Volute in Rhino 3D CAD software

Part I: Drawing 2D Ionic Volute
Part II: Modelling 3D Ionic Volute

 

Download 3D model (BREP and NURBS)
Ionic volute 3D model - 3dm file format
Ionic volute 3D model - STEP file format

Submitted by Ceh Jan