htranbos Posted July 15, 2024 Share Posted July 15, 2024 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, Quote Link to comment
Popular Post markdd Posted July 15, 2024 Popular Post Share Posted July 15, 2024 (edited) 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..... Edited July 15, 2024 by markdd 5 Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted July 15, 2024 Share Posted July 15, 2024 2 hours ago, htranbos said: None gives me the result I am looking for. 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. 4 Quote Link to comment
htranbos Posted July 15, 2024 Author Share Posted July 15, 2024 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. Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted July 15, 2024 Share Posted July 15, 2024 1 hour ago, htranbos said: Yes, this is it! Good stuff. Quote Link to comment
htranbos Posted July 16, 2024 Author Share Posted July 16, 2024 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! Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted November 27, 2024 Share Posted November 27, 2024 Finally had some time to play with this. I think a simple Deform will do the trick. But I do like the other solutions. So many tools and options. -B 1 Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted November 27, 2024 Share Posted November 27, 2024 @Benson Shaw Hi Benson. The problem he had was the two splines have their own twist separate from the overall twist. I never use the deform tool, but can you twist each spline separately first and then perform the overall twist. That appears to be a good solution if that is possible. Paul Quote Link to comment
Steve S. Posted November 27, 2024 Share Posted November 27, 2024 A play on the way BENSON SHAW came up with. 1 Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted November 27, 2024 Share Posted November 27, 2024 @Steve S. Very nice methodology. What you are not seeing though is that there are two twist involved. There is the overall twist which you have shown, but each tine has its own twist. Quote Link to comment
Jonathan Pickup Posted November 28, 2024 Share Posted November 28, 2024 I used the same solution as Benson, I though I had posted this last night, but here is a movie: 2 Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted November 28, 2024 Share Posted November 28, 2024 (edited) 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 November 28, 2024 by Benson Shaw I got no Cris Craft to cruise 2 Quote Link to comment
Popular Post Jonathan Pickup Posted November 28, 2024 Popular Post Share Posted November 28, 2024 I thought this was fun…. I added a glow texture to the inside and outside of the light. I found the texture tool really good for that. 6 Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted November 28, 2024 Share Posted November 28, 2024 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. 1 Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted December 5, 2024 Share Posted December 5, 2024 @ 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 Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted December 5, 2024 Share Posted December 5, 2024 @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 Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted December 5, 2024 Share Posted December 5, 2024 3 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said: I started wondering after a while on how it would be fabricated out of metal. Cut a pipe on a lathe Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted December 5, 2024 Share Posted December 5, 2024 6 minutes ago, bcd said: Cut a pipe on a lathe Can't see how that would work unless lathes have changed since I worked in fabrication. Also, if the twist was double that of the bend, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment
VIRTUALENVIRONS Posted December 5, 2024 Share Posted December 5, 2024 @bcd You got me thinking.....I wish you wouldn't do that.😀 It has been 40 years since I worked in fabrication, except for 3D printing, but I know there have been huge leaps in manufacturing. I am just curious. Below is a tube that is separated into 12 spirals. Is there a way to make this today from a single tube? Quote Link to comment
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