3D Modeling Special Interest Group – February 2017

In this session the attendees wanted to look at how to create a helical ramp for a car park building. This might sound complex, but using reasonably simple Vectorworks 3D modelling techniques it was quick to create. The users then wanted to make it more complex by adding handrails and uprights. Then we looked at using the helical ramp as a site modifier.

• 00:38 we started by creating the flat portions of the car park building using simple rectangles and polygons and then extruding them. The technique we going to use to create the helical ramp is the Sweep command. The sweet command will take a planar object and will sweep it around a centre point. We started by creating the cross-section through the ramp and placing the locusts at the centre of the sweep. However, the object was drawn on the layer plane, not screen plane, so when the sweep was carried out the object was sweeping in the wrong direction. To correct this we undid our sweep and change the object to a screen plane object. We also realised that we had created our object at the wrong angle. All these things are able to be corrected if you double click on the sweep and edit the appropriate part.
• 03:41    once we have the object as a sweep we can then change the pitch of the sweep to create the helical part.
• 04:32   now that we have the ramp going from one floor of the building to the other the users wanted me to add curbs and change the shape of the profile so that it had more curves and less straight lines. While we were editing suite object we also looked at what would happen if you change the location of the 2D locus relative to the planar object. Since the locus creates the centre of the sweep, changing the relationship between the two parts will change the radius of the sweep.
• 12:13   it appears that having the helical ramp is not enough, users also wanted to know whether I could create an upright and have a duplicate along the ramp, following the downward spiral. The technique you can use for this is Duplicate Along Path and for this you need to create a three-dimensional path that follows the ramp. The Extract tool can be used to extract the edge of the ramp to give you exactly the path that you need. After we created the uprights the users also wanted to create horizontal protection to the ramp that would follow the ramp as it spirals down. Again, we need the path of the spiralling ramp which we can get by using the Extract tool to extract the edge of the ramp.
• 33:02    having solve the problem of the curving ramp, the users wanted to see how I could use this ramp on a site model. The ramp is copied from the existing file and placed on a file with a site model. The ramp itself cannot be used as a site modifier, but you can extract the underside of the ramp using the Extract tool. If the extracted object is assigned to the correct class, it will be a site modifier and therefore, it will modify the site to follow the underside of the curve.
• 38:53    we looked at this technique again by using a symbol stair object and extracting the underside of the stair to create site modifiers. This would allow you to create simple stairs and have them modify the site.

3D Modeling February 2017 am
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