topic Re: Making Oval Handrail ? in Modeling

Making Oval Handrail ?

Anonymous — Thu, 25 May 2023 15:36:04 GMT

Would rather not spend time tweeking the stair maker tool as it hasn't been that productive in the past.

any hints on how to model a handrail for an oval stair, as shown attachement?

Perhaps a 2D profile applied to a primitive form?

Will appreciate any ideas/suggestions.
Thanks,
Cedric Araica

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 00:46:17 GMT

Cedric,
By coincidence, I very recently modeled a stair and railing very similar
to the one you are showing.
StairMaker would not make the stair I needed so I had to model
the treads and risers using slabs.
I modeled the hand rail with volutes with the mesh tool.
Peter Devlin

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 09:49:31 GMT

I modeled the hand rail with volutes with the mesh tool.

Really? How hard was that to do?

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:10:26 GMT

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=3350&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=curved+handrail

I think you can do it with the profiler tool just fine.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 13:21:13 GMT

Steve wrote:
http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=3350&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=curved+handrail

I think you can do it with the profiler tool just fine.

Profiler won't do this. It is only for "flat" objects. It cannot go upward like a stair railing would need to.... unless you mean the CADImage 3D Profiler? Even that would be pretty difficult to curve around in plan like the example shows.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:04:55 GMT

Tom,
It wasn't that hard.
I drew the handrail top view and then used the magic wand
to trace it as a mesh. I gave the mesh skirt the elevation of
the lower volute from the floor, inserted pairs of edge nodes
at regular intervals along the path of the handrail and then
assigned each pair of nodes an elevation.
Peter Devlin

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:35:02 GMT

TomWaltz wrote:
Profiler won't do this. It is only for "flat" objects. It cannot go upward like a stair railing would need to.... unless you mean the CADImage 3D Profiler? Even that would be pretty difficult to curve around in plan like the example shows.

Do I need to post the pictures again? go the the link and see for your self. I can make an oval hand rail that comes down the strair, turns the corner and goes on down.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 19:49:22 GMT

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/download.php?id=1370

This is a simple version of a oval hand rail I made with the profiler tool
because someone else said you can't do it. I love it when people say that. My answer is always the same....sure you can, its just a little tricky thats all.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:16:16 GMT

Steve wrote:
TomWaltz wrote:

Profiler won't do this. It is only for "flat" objects. It cannot go upward like a stair railing would need to.... unless you mean the CADImage 3D Profiler? Even that would be pretty difficult to curve around in plan like the example shows.

Do I need to post the pictures again? go the the link and see for your self. I can make an oval hand rail that comes down the stair, turns the corner and goes on down.

I looked at your link, and it did not seem to apply to Cedric's actual situation. There is a huge difference between the pair of straight-run stairs you show and the spiral stair shown in Cedric's example. The question was not how to do an oval-profile handrail, but an how to put a handrail on an oval-shaped stair (as shown in the example plan).

True, you technically CAN do some sloping elements with Profiler, if you have a lot of time to spend on doing it. Cedric said he was interested in time, and if Stairmaker was not productive for this in the past, I'm betting the "can be done with substantial effort and zero ability to be edited without repeating the process from the top" won't be too time-effective either.

There is a difference between "can be done" and "can be done quickly." I think Peter's Mesh method would be probably not be much faster in the beginning but will have the ability to be quickly edited later if/when the need arose. That can carry a lot of weight, since the whole point of CAD should be the ability to make quick revisions, not to start over from scratch any time a change is made. At some point, should we at least TRY to be efficient? At some point, in some situation, is the model so inefficient that it's faster to just draw something in 2D?

I think the CADImage 3D profiler might work well for this too, but I could not say for sure. I've used it a lot, but not for this kind of oval-plan condition. It can be a little tricky sometimes, and may cause more problems than it solves.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:30:22 GMT

Cedric wrote:
Would rather not spend time tweeking the stair maker tool as it hasn't been that productive in the past.

any hints on how to model a handrail for an oval stair, as shown attachement?

Cedric,

I'm kind of curious.... is that a stair "made from selected hatch"? That's a little more complicated than the typical Stairmaker stair!

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:40:07 GMT

i made that hand rail in about 2 min.

I can make them spiral on the end too.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 21:45:14 GMT

Steve wrote:
i made that hand rail in about 2 min.

I can make them spiral on the end too.

Can it spiral along the arc of the stair? I'd be pretty impressed with that one... I knew there were ways to slope the profile, but not slope along an arc.

If so, then I was wrong

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Aussie John — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:14:09 GMT

Yes Im not sure how you can curve profiler in two directions.

Another approach is to use the GDL tube command. You define the profile (handrail shape) and the path it takes (x,y,z values). Caveat, you cant make the path curved but could segment it.

You can manually work out the coordinates using the curser at appropriate places and putting the origin somewhere suitable.

The TUBE command is not the easiest command to master in GDL but the example in the manual is of a ramp which rises and curves at the same time.

The trick with the TUBE is to understand the first and last points of the path (and subsequent length of tube) are actually invisible but are used to define the final direction and end mitre. eg If the last point is at 90º to the main path you will get a 45º mitre. If it is along the same path the end will be square.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Steve Jepson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 23:53:03 GMT

Oval handrail around a curved slope, with spiral on the end. no problem at all. Make a part, view it in 3d at the angle you want, save the part, make the next part, locate again in 3d with the first part, save both parts, Multiply, mirrror a copy, etc...so on and so on....use your imaginatoin a little, SEO some stuff with parts you make with profiler. You can make anything you want to dimensionable and constructable requiremnets. If the part is manufactured by machine, you can probably make it with profiler.

I can make anyting I want with the simple tools ArchiCAD comes with. And fast too. Soemtimes faster than I can to set all of the options needed to make the pre-made Objects look right.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 00:35:25 GMT

There is a small tutorial at Caddtutorialsonline that covers a sloped square curved handrail.. don't know if it can be made oval.. and I think the slope is constant.. The site is not live yet but some free samples are there

direct link http://www.modularmerchant.com/clients/caddtutorials/category.php?id=2&PHPSESSID=3a4e0194998baafe91b27c552b733431

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 00:51:23 GMT

John,
I tried to make such an object using the TUBE command but
TUBE tilts the corners of the facets of the arc to the angle
defined by the incremental elevation change along the path.
This plays havoc with the object when an elliptical shape
is generated and even when the shape is a circular arc
there is distortion caused by this tilting.
This distortion is not apparent when one is setting the parameters
to draw a shape having the proportions of a ramp but is very apparent
when setting the parameters to draw a shape
having the proportions of a handrail.
Peter Devlin

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Aussie John — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 05:01:58 GMT

Not sure I understand Peter I'll need to think about when I have some time

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

Steve Jepson — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:06:00 GMT

a little crude but you get the idea.

paste picture of the original post in to ArchiCAD, draw line 14' 8 3/8" long and resize picture to match. trace curves on one side of railing,copy and past in same location, select new curves, use offset tool to get perfect replica of curves for the other side of the railing and at centerline of railing. split it into several sections, give each section a color, make railing profile, group profile, unify centerline, split into several sections, select railing profile and section of centerline, make profile, save a part 1.
repeat for each section(color) of centerline.

The trick is to view the parts in 3d at the angle of the stair slope and save the part tilted. same for each part on slope. add parts together,
and you have a curved hand rail on the slope.

Final step. Buy archiforma and never do this the hard way again.

If your railing is rectangular the simplest way to do it is to use a curved wall for the hand rail, trimmed to roofs above and below to get your slope.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:22:05 GMT

If your railing is rectangular the simplest way to do it is to use a curved wall for the hand rail, trimmed to roofs above and below to get your slope.

Another way you could do a rectangular railing would be just to use the roof tool, and forego the walls. Just set the roof to be the angle/slope and thickess of the railing. Just playing with that a bit, it works with straight and spiral railings.

Re: Making Oval Handrail ?

TomWaltz — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:22:28 GMT

Another view...