Add a twist to a sketched object

[sdavila6]

Hey Fusion 360 people,

Is there a way for me to twist into an already sketched object?  I need a 20-30 degree twist in relation to the top and bottom of this paddle. 

Thanks guys!

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hi there! I may have a helpful solution for you. It's not directly a "twist" type function that just warps the model geometry, but I used a few different features to manipulate the geometry and create a twisted version of the paddle.

I used a simplified profile of a paddle, just to give me something to test that's similar to your model. Mine's a lot simpler, so it may be easier to work with, but it should demonstrate the workflow well.

The approach I took was to split the body into three segments: the end of the paddle on the left stayed in place, the center section creates the twist, and the section on the right is rotated at the angle of the twist. Here's how I did it:

1. I added two construction planes that cut through the paddle and will create three sections when they cut through the body.

 2. I used the "Split Body" command two times to cut the paddle into three bodies. The paddle is the body to split, and each construction plane is used as a splitting tool.

 3. I hid the center body from the Browser to only show the paddle sections on the left and the right.

 4. I rotated the body on the right to the final twist angle using the "Move" command (you can press "M" to enable it). In this case, it's important for the body to be rotated so that it stays aligned axially with the original paddle body on the left. So make sure that you place the pivot location at the center of the cut face (note how the manipulator is centered on the cut face in the image below).

5. I created a Loft feature between the two bodies, making sure the operation was set to "Join". I used the two cut faces as the profiles to loft between, and set both profile conditions to "Tangent" to help smooth the transition between the two bodies.

This created a paddle with a twist, which can be edited parametrically depending on how much twist you want. If you were to perform the same operations using the Sculpt environment or another freeform method, it would be difficult to control the amount of twist. This gives you that advantage and can be adjusted later on.

Hope that helps, happy modeling!

[TMC.Engineering]

I think what you are after is like this idea.  It is accepted but not implemented yet.

An alternative could be t-splines

[sdavila6]

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll give that shot and see how I like the results! 

[sdavila6]

So would that involve starting the sketch over in the "Create Form" workspace?

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@TMC.Engineering wrote:

I think what you are after is like this idea.  It is accepted but not implemented yet.

An alternative could be t-splines

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[Beyondforce]

Hi @sdavila6,

Maybe this tutorial will help:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/post-your-tips-and-tutorials/tutorial-how-to-create-propellers-or-a-tw...

Cheers / Ben
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[PhilProcarioJr]

@sdavila6

It's a little bit of work but you can manually convert your model into a T-Spline body which would make twisting this a snap.

Can you show us the sketches used to make this?