How to draw this?

[ecastillor]

I need to draw a simple wall, but the wall turns like a helix, and its ascending.....I have no idea how to...i use 3dviz and autocad

 

this is something like what i need....

 

any help?

[STRAT]

personally, i'd draw the top and bottom edges in splines and surface between them. either in autocad or max.

[slinley]

You could draw your 2 end profiles and your curve, then loft between the 2 profiles using the curve as your path.

[AJLynn]

Draw the bottom in plan as a nurbs curve. Copy it up to make the top and adjust it. Do a U loft between them. You can get into the points in the U loft to further refine it, then put a Shell modifier on it.

[Claudio Branch]

Looks like Richard Serra's sculpture work - love it.

 

I came up with this approach:

 

Create a Helix and adjust parameters to suit, then collapse to Editable Spline

 

Select sub-object "spline" and use "outline" (centered or not), then collapse to Editable Poly

 

Select sub-object "polygon" and extrude to desired height

 

Add "Taper" modifier and adjust parameters to suit.

 

This approach will get you the shape you're looking for. One more thing though. This series of steps is going to generate a helical wall with the bottom edge equidistant from the top.

 

You can do one of two things:

 

Create a Plane and submerge the helical wall into it

 

Collapse the helical wall to Editable Poly and bring all of the bottoms edge vertices to the same elevation (z-value).

 

See the attached for what I came up with...

[Victor Erthal]

"Collapse the helical wall to Editable Poly and bring all of the bottoms edge vertices to the same elevation (z-value)."

 

you can also do that by selecting all the vertices and clicking "view align" when on top view.

[only3d]

i have to say that nurbs seems to be my favourite solution in this case

[Claudio Branch]

"Collapse the helical wall to Editable Poly and bring all of the bottoms edge vertices to the same elevation (z-value)."

 

you can also do that by selecting all the vertices and clicking "view align" when on top view.

 

I cannot get that "view align" to do what I want...

 

However, I would add this third option to what I specified earlier:

 

Use ProBoolean through the helical wall and plane (It ACTUALLY makes a clean piece of geometry in this case...)

[ecastillor]

Looks like Richard Serra's sculpture work - love it.

 

I came up with this approach:

 

Create a Helix and adjust parameters to suit, then collapse to Editable Spline

 

Select sub-object "spline" and use "outline" (centered or not), then collapse to Editable Poly

 

Select sub-object "polygon" and extrude to desired height

 

Add "Taper" modifier and adjust parameters to suit.

 

This approach will get you the shape you're looking for. One more thing though. This series of steps is going to generate a helical wall with the bottom edge equidistant from the top.

 

You can do one of two things:

 

Create a Plane and submerge the helical wall into it

 

Collapse the helical wall to Editable Poly and bring all of the bottoms edge vertices to the same elevation (z-value).

 

See the attached for what I came up with...

 

wow!

 

thanx man!.....any chance you could share the object you posted to study it as i try your advice?

 

thanx---

 

it is richard serras work....fantastic!

[Claudio Branch]

 

any chance you could share the object...

 

Here is a file (Max 64x).

 

 

personally, i'd draw the top and bottom edges in splines and surface between them. either in autocad or max.

 

Following STRAT's suggestion, I came up with an approach that I believe is more robust than what I previously posted.

 

The helical walls of these particular sculptures by Richard Serra have a helix shape with 0' elevation (floor) and a helix shape with N' elevation (top wall).

 

So here is a refined approach:

 

Create "Floor" Helix and adjust parameters to suit, then copy it as "Top Wall" Helix

 

Move "Top Wall" Helix to desired height, change elevation parameter to desired value and use scale transform to change size (keeps vertice count uniform between floor/top wall helixes)

 

Collapse both helixes to Editable Splines, select sub-object "spline" and use "outline" (centered or not) to enter desired wall thickness, then collapse both to Editable Poly and use "Attach" to join all of the polys.

 

Select sub-object "polygon" and use "Bridge" to enter desired segments. (NOTE: Floor/top wall polys will disappear and form helical walls)

 

Select sub-object "edge" and pick edges of top wall. Use "Bridge" again to rebuild top faces. Repeat for wall bottom.

 

I used this approach and had the forms built in less than 5 minutes. The speed of Editable Poly and Bridge made this possible. I also played around with a few modifiers (Taper, Bend, MeshSmooth) and that's about it.