Rolled Water Main Alteration

[pcgerlach]

In pressure pipes, I'm trying to layout water main alterations that snake both horizontally and vertically at the same time to minimize bends. Each side of the alteration could have different offsets vertically. I've laid out a 3D wireframe of the alteration but can't seem to get pressure pipes to follow it.

I've tried snapping to the 3D endpoints, but it jumps to 2D plane position. Tried setting a custom UCS on the roll angle of the snake but using Pipes & Bends changes the UCS back to world. Any way to stop the switch to world? Or maybe set a custom angle on the compass plane to match the roll angle of the snake? The best I can do is use a compass plane rotation that is somewhat close and eyeball it.

How do you model this? Any suggestions?

[Charlie.Ogden]

Hi pcgerlach,

Vertically the pressure pipe ends set at the depth of cover below a surface.  So one thought is to create a temporary surface representing where you want the pipes to fall - so using your 3D line (what type of object is that?) as a breakline to a new surface.  Then set the cover to zero (or I guess negative of half the pipe diameter).  Then try to snap to those locations?

[pcgerlach]

I'll try that when I get a chance. Thanks! I've also thought of using the 3D length of the shift to draw it as a vertical only offset, then use a couple 3D Rotates (one on each side since the roll angle is different) to shift it into position horizontally. For now I ended up hacking it to look good on paper, but lost the ability to check deflection angles.