topic Re: Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature in Inventor Forum

Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature

nathan_degusseme — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 21:52:09 GMT

Hey, I recently came upon a problem when designing my rollercoaster. I want to let the triangles follow a spline (from the coaster) so that they strengthen the track. My problem is that i can't let the feature follow the spline while touching with the rails using a rectangular pattern. With some it works but in turns it won't.

Is there another way to do this? Or can i use a setting thats says that I want a point of the triangle to be touching a rail?

Thanks in advance!

Re: Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature

kacper.suchomski — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 22:31:39 GMT

Use iCopy tool.

Re: Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature

nathan_degusseme — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:53:35 GMT

Hi @kacper.suchomski,

I tried using the icopy feature. I googled some tutorials, but on all youtube tutorials it automaticly selects a work plane. When i try to use the function it doesn't generate that and i can't select one because it gives me an error saying it doesn't intersect with the path.

How can I fix this? Or did I do something wrong in the icopy template?

Re: Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature

johnsonshiue — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:53:20 GMT

Hi! I have been taking a look at this case on and off. This is actually quite challenging to do in Inventor, due to lack of patterning alignment control. I end up having to use surface modeling techniques and also Frame Generator to get the desirable result. Though it is not a one step process, it should be highly scalable. Please take a look at the RollerCoasterRailSystem.ipt in attached file.

Many thanks!

Re: Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature

nathan_degusseme — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 16:55:49 GMT

@johnsonshiue

Hi! Thank you so much for helping me out! I appreciate you searching for a solution!

Could you give me a tutorial how I need to do this? I would like to understand a way to do this, because I need some other things to be done like this (diagnal bars). I took a look at your files and can't quite figure out how you did it (as there are numerous files of each triangle and multiple of the track itself.)

Eventually my track should look like this:

Thanks a lot!

Re: Letting a feature follow a line and let it touch another feature

johnsonshiue — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 21:20:40 GMT

Hi! Unfortunately, I don't think I can record a video showing the workflow. It is quite elaborated. I tried quite a few techniques and the attached model is the best one.

The most challenging thing is to get the projected points of the support posts along the path. I created three offset surfaces based on the railings. Then project the patterned workpoints normal to those offset surfaces. This guarantee the shortest length. Then create a 3D Sketch and connect the points. Next, use Frame Generator to create the posts individually. Lastly, use Derive Assembly to combine the posts and the railings.

Many thanks!