LarryO Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 (edited) Is anyone familiar with how one goes about creating a helix path line? (corkscrew) I have a radius of 4153mm sweeping 10.93° and rising/dropping 473.7mm. Ultimately I want to have a rectangular profile follow the path so I can clip off a series of pickets and posts or merge it with those same pickets and posts. FYI: initially I tried to use the staircase tool to do this for me but I couldn't get the posts to land in the same location on their respective treads with that tool. I also am required to step the bottom rail, which I achieved easily enough. Edited January 8, 2021 by LarryO spelling Quote Link to comment
Kevin Allen Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Model>3D Powerpack>create helix spiral? Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 Have you tried the Helix spiral command from the 3D power pack section of the Model Menu? Quote Link to comment
LarryO Posted January 8, 2021 Author Share Posted January 8, 2021 I've attempted to use it but I'm not sure what object it is expecting one to have preselected and there doesn't appear to be a means to enter the sweep of the arc only a start location. Quote Link to comment
LarryO Posted January 8, 2021 Author Share Posted January 8, 2021 I found a video. Thanks all. Having to use a line to determine the centre axis and with its length defining what I thought would be called the pitch is what I was missing. For some reason VW uses the term pitch to identify the sweep of the arc. I find that puzzling. If I used VW's arrangement of terminology to get some steel rolled it most certainly would not come back as expected. hehehe Quote Link to comment
LarryO Posted January 8, 2021 Author Share Posted January 8, 2021 Well in the end I used the stair tool to create the top rail and just threw away all the posts and pickets it creates. The helix tool rotated the rectangular profile such that I could not see how one was to align the start to the end of an adjacent identical segment. 😞 Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 (edited) On 1/8/2021 at 11:25 AM, LarryO said: I found a video. Thanks all. Having to use a line to determine the centre axis and with its length defining what I thought would be called the pitch is what I was missing. For some reason VW uses the term pitch to identify the sweep of the arc. I find that puzzling. If I used VW's arrangement of terminology to get some steel rolled it most certainly would not come back as expected. hehehe @LarryO You probably already have a working solution, but thought I would put in a visual with the helical spiral and the duplicate array tools in action. Is this something like your goal?Is the total rise 473.7? Is the total sweep 10.93°? This seems like seating rather than stairway? Or maybe I'm totally missing. The top rail would be way better as a single EAP using a helical path with the total sweep and total rise. The axis object is more of a partial pitch, eg pitch for the specified sweep at creation, rather than for a full turn. The Helical Spiral tool has some confusing parameters, but it does work. The sweep parameter should be included in the OIP so that one could extend the spiral at same pitch. The angular direction seems to start at noon and run clockwise, rather that the standard euclidian 3 o'clock heading anti clockwise. I will post a wish to bring it into compliance with standard radial conventions. -B Helical Stairv2021.vwx Edited January 11, 2021 by Benson Shaw add file 1 Quote Link to comment
LarryO Posted January 11, 2021 Author Share Posted January 11, 2021 As mentioned I couldn't utilize the helix line as a path for my rectangular profile due to some rotational issue that I don't quite comprehend. You can see two of my efforts in the picture. The top most was the closest to being correct where I had rotated the rectangle 45° in an attempt to plumb the profile's sides. The middle profile is what the tool produced without corrections. I reminds me of the angle a person might be traveling at while riding a water slide due to centrifugal force. I eventually used the standard sweep tool. I calculated manually what the height of the profile would be when sliced at the angle of the stair's incline along the radial centre line of the railing's location. (geometry courses have a purpose) The result is the pink profile embedded over the profile that the stair tool created. You can also see the helical line I forgot to delete that I was attempting to use as a path along the top centre of the railing. FYI the 10.93° was the angle from post to post, equivalent to three tread nosings. Hence the rise of 473.3 was also across those three risers. 4153 is the radial centre line of the railing. Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 (edited) Have you tried making a stair using the Deform tool? Bend solid mode using the finite length option. I'm not sure what your end result needs to be, but this took me about 90 seconds to model.... Edited January 11, 2021 by markdd Quote Link to comment
LarryO Posted January 11, 2021 Author Share Posted January 11, 2021 @markdd Thanks for the thoughts, The stair profile was thankfully the easy part. My focus in this instance is on manufacturing the custom railing; metal fabrication shop drawings. Quote Link to comment
Matt Overton Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 The Sweep... command allows the profile you are sweeping to pitch upwards as it goes. Allowing it to overlap each full circle and create a corkscrew path like you see on the outside a stadium. That might help you do want you need. Quote Link to comment
LarryO Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 @Matt Overton Yes, SWEEP was the solution. The tool keeps the profile plumb to the work plane rather than perpendicular to the incline of the path. So I needed the slope to determined the distortion required for the vertical face of the profile so that the thickness of the steel bar capping the guard railing remained at 15.9mm. 1 Quote Link to comment
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