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Extrude along path and twist along the path?


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Hello, I am trying to create this wavy pendant light (see attached photo). I have tried:

 

1. Extrude along path (1)

2. Loft with 1 rail (2)

 

None gives me the result I am looking for. Does anyone know how I can achieve the look in the photo?

 

Thank you,

 

 

Screenshot 2024-07-15 094925.png

Screenshot 2024-07-15 095802.png

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2 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

It appears there are two spirals here.  The tines spiral around each other and then the tines themselves spiral.  If this is a correct statement and the cross sections is simple, this is an easy way to do this.

 

 

Yes, this is it! Thank you. This is exactly what I am looking for.

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21 hours ago, markdd said:

Others will no doubt chime in, but this is how I would approach creating the object in the image above.

 

 

Interestingly, this throws up a bug with the Extrude Along Path Command. The Profile should twist around the Curve, and indeed, it does when the Helix Spiral is set to a radius setting of 20 and above. In the setting I eventually settled for (12), the Extrude along Path profile takes the shortest route, which is why the profile doesn't seem to twist as intended. Bug report on its way.....

Thanks, Mark, for your solution! 

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  • 4 months later...
8 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

each tine has its own twist

@VIRTUALENVIRONS  Hi, Paul! The OP image shows, I believe, the splines flowing around an imaginary cylinder. ie, one face of each spline is continually facing the cylinder surface. Each spline does indeed have a twist. Demonstrate this by wrapping a flat shoelace, or tailor's tape measure a couple loops around a cylinder shape, keeping one face continuously on the cylinder.  Hold the ends in same orientation, loosen the lace enough to slide it off the cylinder, then pull it straight. It will have twists equal to the number of wraps.  This is the twist in the images employing the Deform tool.  I think your method works well, but in this case, adds extra twist to each individual spline which is not present in the OP image.  If desired, the Deform>Twist can certainly twist each spline (eg around its axis), prior to another twist operation to twist it or a group objects around some other point.  Check out the deform tool.  I think you will like it.  The twists, bends and bulges are quite reliable.

 

@Steve S. Fun!  you could also use the Shell tool instead of Push/Pull.

 

-B

Edited by Benson Shaw
I got no Cris Craft to cruise
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6 hours ago, Benson Shaw said:

adds extra twist to each individual spline which is not present in the OP image

HI Benson,  I forget if I messaged him directly as this is a while ago, but somehow I determined that the tines did not have a constant surface that faced centreline.  It was that each of the curves centreline wrapped around the cylinder, but twisted around their own centreline (if that makes sense).   Which is why I used that method and why I asked if you could do the double twist.

 

But, it might not be, in which case the twist method would be far superior.

 

I have used deform tools forever (C4D), but seldom in Vectorworks.  Deform tools are great animation tools, but leave little room for editing, etc. in either VW's or C4D.

 

  

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@ all - Having fun with the double twist idea (Paul - Did you just invent a new dance craze?).

 

The command does what it's told, and made me laugh. Example shows extrudes with twist, one rev, one in each direction.  Then twist applied to the pair.

 

First one clockwise rev to the pair - It adds a twist to the clockwise extrude and removes the twist from the anti clockwise extrude.  They both wrap, but not one face constant on the cylinder as in prior posts.

 

Second, starting again with single extrude to each rectangle, two revs to the pair - similar result, adding twist to the extrudes, but only in one direction - clockwise extrude now has 3 twists, anti clockwise extrude now has 1 twist (1st rev removes the anti, 2nd rev applies a clockwise).  They wrap as expected.

 

Soooo, I think, if both directions of twist are requested, one on each spine (splines? tines?), Paul's helix with DAP rectangles to NURBS loft is the way to go.

 

-B

 

TwistWrapLOL.thumb.png.c1912fb88eebee8176650a6cb22b7fe0.png

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@Benson Shaw  Hi Benson,  Well, from a simple request the original user got a lot of info, maybe more than they can handle, but they should be able to build it now.

 

I started wondering after a while on how it would be fabricated out of metal.  I suppose today it could be printed, but how in traditional methods.  First a single tine would have to be heated and twisted into a shape, but then it would have to be wrapped around a metal tube.  The odds of having the surface face the tube would have been pretty slim, but if that is how it was fabricated , the same olds today.

 

Anyway, good demo you produced.

 

Paul

 

 

 

 

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