Wall curving in 3 planes

[Matt D]

Can anybody help me with creating a wall that curves in 3 planes: plan, elevation and section. The wall in elevation dips into the ground and disappears in places. It leans back an average of say 30? and sweeps curves in plan. Do you know how I can do this? Simply? The wall has a thickness of say 12". It's a rammed earth wall or similar if you're wondering.

[Travis]

If you cut a section at two places, will both sections look the same?

If so, do a 2D version of a section. Then create a NURBs curve that follows your plan and elevation sweeps. Extrude the section along the NURBs curve.

If the section (height, thickness, general shape) also changes throughout, you've got a much more difficult task on hand. Someone with a better grasp of the advanced 3D tools will have to weigh in.

Goodl luck,

[islandmon]

To follow up on Travis .. the key concept to grasp is that the NURBS path can't be flat ... the dihedral angles must be equal to the slope of the wall and they

must fluctuate in the Z Plane with the terrain ... if this problem was modeled

as a Helical spiral ( give it a try for fun ) then you would see what i mean.

The solution is a worthy challenge ; )

[islandmon]

Okay .. now that you've discover how peculiar ExtrudeAlongPath can be ..

try this..

1)Create 2dProfile of the wall in frontY or sideX view

2)Convert the Profile to NURBS

3) 3dTop >place the profiles all over terrain , as required

4) 3dX&Y move the profiles > Z elev to match the terrain

5) Loft all the profiles into a single solid wall ... OpenGL render to check fit.

6) UnDo Loft and re-fit ... repeat, as required