New to app, having some trouble

Is it possible to twist a shape so as to achieve this effect? When I try,it just twists over itself in the middle then unwinds.

This doesn’t really cut it

Hi There,

I can’t speak for the team at Shapr3D but I don’t think this is possible yet. If there were to be a future version of, let’s say, the Extrude tool where you can define ‘either’ a draft angle (currently) or a rotational angle similar to the Revolve tool then it might work.

Here is an approximation of what you’re trying to do and the trade-off, I can’t make a smooth spiral but I can create a faceted spiral shape. Again, this is only an approximation.

FWIW, here’s what I did. I created a body 4x4x8. Rotate the top surface 45°. The center of the shape get’s scaled down to a cross section of 3.696 x 3.696. I then scaled the top and bottom surfaces by .924 (3.696 / 4) so they equal the cross section. I then took the shape and copied, moved 8 and rotated 45° several times. The result is a faceted spiral bar.

Regards, Mike

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Hi,

You can achieve what you want with the loft tool.

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I stand corrected!
Thank you Istvan. The Loft tool works beautifully!

Regards, Mike

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Thank you both

Edit: ok, I either have no clue how to use loft or it doesn’t get me there.

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Hello again,

There are tutorial videos that show how use the various tools. After my incorrect advice previously, the least I could do is briefly show you the Loft tool in action and how I created the spiral bar.

I sketched a square and copied it vertically and rotated it 45°. Did it again and used the Loft tool which created a body with a spiral curve to 90°. I then moved/copied a few times to get the desired spiral. Afterwards you can use the Union tool to make all the bodies into one.

Hope that helps. Regards, Mike
(Thanks again Istvan for setting the record straight :^)

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Ok, I gotta figure out what I did differently as I did basically the same thing, but it didn’t continue “twisting” in the same direction. I also wonder if there is a way to control that as what I’m trying to model here is the leg of a bar which will have four of these twisted square rods, but each will twist opposite of the rod next to it.

Edit: mirror is working well enough for reversing the twist, but I’m having some issue with the sections not quite lining up as I lengthen the rod.

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It also seems hit or miss which way the loft tool will take it.

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The use of 45° appears to be a max angle and when used in multiple instances it appears to reverse the direction of the curve as you noticed. If you use 45° for the first link it will curve in one direction. Do it again using 46° and it will curve in the opposite direction. I’m sure there’s a reason for this that I am not able to explain. That is why I created the last spiral bar in segments using the 45° angle.

Here I created a continuous spiral bar using 30°.

Regards, Mike

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Thanks for that tip. I figured out another way around it if you do for some reason have to do the 45. Before clicking done, as you’re selecting each plane to connect, the four corners of each have white dots. You can drag a dot around from corner to corner, changing the orientation.


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Thanks for that Hux83.
The versatility of S3D never ceases to amaze.

Did this in an existing Design at 45Âș. Hide Sketches.

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If you’re still having trouble with this I have a solution involving rotation and subtraction. It leaves you with a twist that doesn’t have joints. You can even give the sides different shapes.

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Why not do a movie for the community? Spielberg, Almodovar, etc started small. Thanks,
Tommy

Just filling the gap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAig27GLZ04

closer and closer. not tedious at all 
 :slight_smile: