Spiral ramping form

John DeFazio

Hi,

I would like to make a deminishing sprial form-- Like Frank Lloyd Wright's Gordon Strong Planetarium or early versions of the Guggenheim Museum.

How can I make it?

Thanks, John

linea

You can do this in SU, I don't know if there is a plugin to draw a 3d spiral/helix, somebody here will. You can plot one out yourself. There is a good spiral staircase tutorial somewhere that deals with this.

Or If you have access to 3DS Max you can automatically create a helix with a rectangular path to whatever dimensions you want. There are probably alot of apps that can do this, I'm not sure if Blender can but it's free so worth a try.

.

Gaieus

There are two "drawhelix" and two "helix" rubies in Didiers Ruby Library Depot here.

Maybe you could give us some further clues exactly how these things are supposed to look like.

linea

I used Blender, I'm not sure of the best way to do it in SU.
I imported it as dwg into SU.
I used Didiers "Extrude lines" ruby. Select the helix, and use extrude lines. Or you could use the follow me tool to extrude a shape along it.

helix 3.jpg

TIG

You could also try my Grow.rb. It lets you do spirals that scale as they grow...

John DeFazio

Thanks for help here guy's. Though I down loaded draw.helix.rb, I am still having the problem getting smooth diminishing spiral... I guess there must be away to using the scale tool. I have not quite got it yet.

The helix.rb seems to be a dead file. Gaius you may have someone check into it.

Jon, I am not familiar with Blender... I am Mac User and use PowerCadd for my 2D work.... so I am not sure this would work for me. I can make a spiral easily with PowerCadd (WildTools) but making 3D is not there yet.

So TIG, I am up to you. Where can I find your Grow.rb... and is available for Mac?

Thanks again.

John

pmiller

Suggest you use the Aitop "circleslopes" ruby to make the ramp, then clone several copies vertically, intersect with an appropriately sized trucated cone, delete all the extraneous bits, then use didier's extrude lines vector 2 points to make the parapets. See image below. Both scripts should be on Didier's site. If you can't find them let me know and I will help out.

TIG

http://www.crai.archi.fr/rubylibrarydepot/ruby/em_sel_page.htm

Grow works on any platform...

Didier's site has LOTS of goodies...