Ahhgghh! Anyone good at modelling stairs?

[tricky]

Real problems modelling this staircase.

Glass treads, glass ballustrading, stainless steel handrail. There is also a spine 'carriage' support running beneath. On plan, the stairs bend in multiple directions, so each tread is slightly different. Half way up the staircase is a landing.

Honestly, this is a real pain in the a**!

[Morne]

that is pretty easy in AutoCAD, just dont have the time right now
But I would draw each step individually, for the rest I'd use lofts in AutoCAD (AutoCAD 2011 has some pretty impressive modelling tools)

draw your path in plan
then for example the balustrade draw the profile (lets say 10mm thick glass 900mm high) with it standing upright at the beginning of your path, then copy it to the next height, (ie up say 750 or whatever height) where the landing is. (that will be your 1st path)
then just type loft (enter) select beginning profile and end profile (p for path) and whola
very simple

you can also put your profile an the beginning, landing start, landing end, next height (so 4 profile) and then select all 4 profiles same time and then (p) if your path is whole sitance and it will do it one shot
pretty cool

[tricky]

that is pretty easy in AutoCAD, just dont have the time right now
But I would draw each step individually, for the rest I'd use lofts in AutoCAD (AutoCAD 2011 has some pretty impressive modelling tools)

Ordinarily I'd agree, but I can't create 3d curving lines in Autocad. Any tips?

[Morne]

same for the railing etc

[Morne]

Ordinarily I'd agree, but I can't create 3d curving lines in Autocad. Any tips?

see my modified post on top

[Morne]

I'll post some pics just now with pics for a short description

[Morne]

ok here you go
1st draw your path flat in plan (using a polyline) while in polyline mode press "A" for arc then "s" for second point and click second point of arc and then where ever you want the arc to finish, press "s" again to specify second point of second arc while still in same command, or "l" to make a straight line.
flip you ucs and draw your profile starting at one end of your path, copy and mirror it if neede to to other end of the path.


then move the profile up on the one side however high it must go


then type loft (enter) and select both profiles (press enter again) it will seem asif it just extrudes the profile to the other in a straight line (dont press enter yet)


but then while in the loft command just press "p" and (enter) and click your path.

and whola! pretty cool

here is another view sort from the side to show it is a 3d curve

it will also work if say you have some steps then landing then steps then landing again. Just use 4 profiles then for the various height changes and select them one shot. It will also work

Hope that helps

[tricky]

Mmm. I'm looking into this. I had no idea you could use a 2d path with cross sections (profiles) at different z heights and create 3d geometry! I've been using cad for 15+ years!

I can get this to work with a simple arc path, but at the moment, if the path is made of two different curves, it isn't working...

[joconnell]

Would railclone by Itoo not be useful for this type of thing?

[tricky]

I did put a thread up with itoosoft as we use RailClone. No reply yet, but I think it will be quite difficult. Railclone is a great and powerful bit of software, but very difficult to use (for me anyway!).

I think DVP3D is getting me there, but atm, I can't get it working woth a path made of more than one arc.

[glorybound]

Revit handles Stairs very nicely.

[tricky]

I can only guess that the version of AutoCad I am using (2009) does not allow you to use polylines made up of multiple lines/segments. Any suggestions?

[tricky]

Here is an example. I can't get the loft to work in my version of Autocad - can you?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20833384/loft.zip

[dlparisi]

Would railclone by Itoo not be useful for this type of thing?

I'd opt for the railclone option too. Just yesterday I did a spiral railing with railclone (below) and it worked beautifilly and esaily. I tried using the loft in ACAD and it worked OK it was just a pain if something changed. Using railclone I could just adjust the components or the curve and it would get updated.


BTW: is there a way to get a similar lofting tool in MAX that Autocad has? Everything I tried in max (Loft, 1 & 2 rail sweep) either twisted it, put it somewhere it wasn't supposed to be or plain didn't work. Could be user error, but seems to never work as expected.

[joconnell]

It's really old alright - I was looking at a job recently with a ribbon spiralling around the shape of an aircraft and neither loft or sweep could really do it. I also tried looking at accessing loft with maxscript to up the amount of segments it used but there's no support either - loft is reeealy old