Hi
Can anyone give me any advice on how best to go about sketching wrought ironwork ornamental scrolls. I have played around with the spiral option but cant seem to be able to add any lines to it.
How would you guys go about it? I have used the spiral as a template to trace over with a spline and that seems to do the trick. I just wonder if there is a better more controlled way to do it.
I am exporting out as a wrl to render in cinema 4d.
Thanks
Steve
Can anyone give me any advice on how best to go about sketching wrought ironwork ornamental scrolls. I have played around with the spiral option but cant seem to be able to add any lines to it.
How would you guys go about it? I have used the spiral as a template to trace over with a spline and that seems to do the trick. I just wonder if there is a better more controlled way to do it.
I am exporting out as a wrl to render in cinema 4d.
Thanks
Steve
Attachments
Nice stuff Matt.
Attached is the sort of thing I am after achieving. I have managed it by tracing over a spiral and then attaching lines then using sweeps to achieve the scroll.
Steve
Attachments
Yeah, you can do that. Or you can make a spiral and use Convert Entities and attach a spline to the end to make the rest of the curve. Spirals may not give you the control you want. I've done this with a series of circles and angled lines showing where the spline should intersect the circle.
On the other hand, your manufacturing method may dictate that you avoid splines, in favor of arcs. Check to see what your guys are capable of. It would be a shame to get an astronomical quote because you designed something they can't build. On the other hand, getting a nice shape may be the primary driver.
If they are making this with wire forming techniques, you may be limited to arcs. If hand fabbed, you get what you get. If its cast you have a lot of shape control.
It was the convert to entities that was the key. It took a bit of messing about to convert though. Is there a certain workflow for converting spirals to real sketches.
I am trying to get myself some freelance work as we have just gone a 4 day week here in the UK at my current engineering firm. I am doing these as visuals only so the important thing is that they look perfect, I am hoping for once that the how it gets made scenario is someone else's problem. Once I have a few drawings done I am sending them out to various wrought iron companies in the hope that they need this kind of thing. If not I will have learned something new.
Fingers crossed and thanks so much for your help.
Next on my list of solidworks things to learn is surfacing (something I have not even looked at in 4 years of using solidwork).
Steve
to convert the spiral, just make the spiral (draw circle, Insert, Curve, Helix/Spiral). Then open a sketch on a plane parallel to the plane of the first circle. Then select the spiral and hit Convert Entities. I would just draw an additional spline on the end of the converted spiral and assign the Curvature relation. If you want to make it as smooth as possible, create a Fit Spline that uses the converted spiral and the tacked on spline. Check the curvature comb to make sure its smooth. To smooth it out you may have to delete the original splines, RMB on the Fit Spline and use Simplify Spline, which adds spline points to it, then adjust as necessary to get it smooth. You will have lost associativity to the spiral, but with splines you can't always have your cake and eat it too. If it is just for show, the associativity may be a secondary concern.
Good luck.
Steve
Is there anyway to define my scroll sketch in such a way that I can modify the length and the size of the spiral on the fly. If I am designing a gate I need the scrolls to fit the space rather than the scroll dictating the size of the gate if you know what I mean. I would be great if I could somehow change the length and the size of each spiral at each end independently from each other. The attached file show what auto define comes up with. The minute I modify any of the dims most of the time it over defines. Also the problem with using a spira is that scrolls are not perfect spirals, each revolution has a different pitch.
I hope some of you guys can offer me a suggestion and how best to go about this.
Thanks in advance.
Steve
Attachments
Could anyone point me in the right direction as to how best to approch this one. All I need is to be able to easily change the length and the size of the scrolls independantly.
Thanks
Steve
Attachments