I am trying to create the cable for a telephone. I created a long straight spiral curve, then used pipe. I then used the bend command to start looping it around the way I want. For the first 3 bends everything worked fine, but once I got to the end it starts messing with the beginning of the cord which I already have the way I want. I am only starting and ending the bend command on the section I wish to bend but as you can see in the screen caps the beginning of the cord is being affected as well as the end. Is this normal behavior?
Bend appears to affect any part of the object which is “besides” the spline (between planes normal to the start and end of the spline).
Bend the object.
Split the object between the part to be bent and part the part to remain unaffected. Either use the Shrink option in Split; or Shrink both parts after the split.
Bend the desired part.
Also of note, the preview for bend is a bit wacky, it’s possible the part bends fine even though the preview looks weird… give it a go and undo if it’s screwed up for real… then split and re-bend as explained above^^
also if the object is a surface not a polysurface, you can bend the points of the surface not the surface itself and it will not rebuild the surface, keeping the original spans in tact.
The PreserveStructure option in Bend produces the same results as selecting the surface control points. Doing so does not limit the area of the bend to within the the spline.
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assuming this is for visualisation:
i recommend to do it with subD and with Flow
Do a minimum setup of CV’s:
6x6 cv’s per turn
maybe try 6x4 cvs
use preserves structure
draw the main axis
use _length to draw a line with the same length
see more details in the file:
helix-wire.3dm (1.1 MB)
you may also consider to do it with a displacement map.
and if you really want a nerdy approach, of course it would be great if the inner cable-turns touch the neighbours on the inside.
this effect is the masterclass:
the windings touch on the inside of each bend.
i do not have a fast solution for this.
would be a nice kangaroo exercise. (@DanielPiker )
“spiralkabel”
EDIT:
with some coding i get.
I more or less mimic the geometry / distance of each winding… quite static calculation, no kangaroo.
kind regards -tom
Thanks everyone. I ended up figuring out the split option, which worked fine. I then joined them together again. I will give the subd flow a try next.
-J
@JeremySFX For a simple method to create a bent spiral telephone cable see Simple method for bent spiral "telephone" cable
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