Touch point along two 3D objects

[christian_frey2]

Dear forum,

I have drawn several railings in Autocad, in particular a non-standard spiral railing (i.e. not aligned along a circle or ellipse). This railing needs posts, so I have drawn the requested position of the railings posts on the floor plan (yellow rectangles, after generating the touching points "visually"). But now, of course I need the railing posts to touch the railing at two different points, in particular, the hand rail needs to be touched by some part of the posts (see attached DWG-file).

I just moved the railing posts along the z-axis and inspected the most likely touching point visually as already mentioned. But this, is after all, if I send the data to the manufacturer, not very satisfying. 

Does someone have an efficient and effective way to reach a satisfactory result with more sophisticated means ?

Thanks a lot!

[leeminardi]

1. Make a copy of the railing on top of itself (copy [Enter] 0,0,0 [Enter]).
2. Give the subtract command and select the balusters then hit [Enter]
3. Select the railing.

One of the railing copies is consumed in the Boolean subtraction process.

The center of the baluster ends is the point you are looking for.  For better precision use smaller diameter balusters for the calculation or better yet,  temporarily use square cross section balusters that will yield vertices you can reference at the ends to find a midpoint.