Is it possible to make a cone shape follow a given curve?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Dear all,

I don’t know if this is possible, but if it is then it would be an excellent solution for my problem.

A piece I’m working on has a conical bore taken out of it. The bore needs to be conical in that it has a circular cross section and tapers in a linear fashion. However, it doesn’t have to be straight, so my vision is to have a curve a bit like a squashed sine wave graph and then run/flow the cone along this curve to get a lot of cone in a small space.

So far I’ve tried the “bend” command, which is not bad but it’s hard to control the resultant shape.

I’ve also tried sweeping a circle along two rails, which I think will work if I arrange the two rails so that they get steadily closer even when going round bends, although it will take some calculation.

Is there a neat way that I’m missing. A sort of “generate a cone that runs along this rail” command?

Thanks for your thoughts!

Phil

2

One method: Pipe along a center curve with different diameter/radius at each end if you want the cross-sections normal to the curve.

1 Like
3

Thanks, David. That’s brilliant. I just tried it and it’s exactly what I wanted.

I can find the length of the line using Analyze, so I know what length of cone I’m creating, and it allows me to have the end circle with radius of 0 so it goes to a point.

Thanks again!

Phil