Hi Everyone,
I'm sure this is a common question but I have not found anything that can help me out. I've created a railing style, using a block for the glass with built in handrail support. When in a straight line it works perfectly, and on large curves, but when it get's to a tight path curve it starts to facet quite badly. I've changed the block so it's a singular pannel that's mirrored. Am I doing this the best possible way is there a better? How can I get it so the singular pannel fits better into the curve?
Kind regards,
Adam
Ok so I think I was being a bit thick, I've now removed the second block override so it's just one pannel being replicated, i'll update the pannel block so that it doesn't have the balli detail and create that as a seprate block, then add that, maybe that'll work....
I'm no expert with railings but a couple of ideas that might help.
If you create a style that you are happy with straight, save in the drawing or better to a Style drawing and then drag onto a pallete as a tool. Then apply that tool to a curved line (pline? or arc) and I think you might get the curve. There is no way to get the curve from scratch.
The other idea is the above doesn't work is to give in and after drawing your handrail, create the glass as an object ie a Mass element by creating the plan view as a closed pline and extruding. Sometimes for specialist items you just need to do it manually.
It's possible that you might find some good tips over at archidigm.com and his free dev. guide.
http://www.archidigm.com/classroom/adt_4_development_guide/adt_5_dg_cover.htm
Hi Adam - would this railing be built with curving glass panels? Or would they actually be faceted? The mismatch between the panel and the curve is because of the length of the straight panel, which will necessarily become a chord of the arc. The tighter the arc, the greater the mismatch. So if a panel only represents 10cm of glass, you will get very close alignment to the curve. This would mean that you need two blocks - one with the connectors, which could replace the post of the railing style, and one without, which would replace the balusters. The result will be a style that can follow tight curves, but with many vertical facet lines. You can eliminate these in Elevations by using Merge Common Materials.
Hope this points you in the direction of a successful solution.
Regards,
Bill Glennie
AutoCAD Architecture and MEP Team