From the course: HBIM: Historic Building Re-creation

Fine detail column base

- In this movie, we're going to begin looking at the fine detail version of our column and we'll start with the Base. Now I have opened here the Fine Base_Start file and it's just a copy of the medium detail version of the Base and I've saved it as and to create the starting point for the fine detail version. Now if I look at the front view, you may recall that when we look at this previously, there's a couple of sweeps in here that establish the overall shapes and we got some parameters already configured to set the heights and the proportions of everything. Now this top one is 6.250 and this bottom one is 6.625 and where those come from is just a quick glance back to our scanned illustration. You can see that the bottom torus here is 6 5/8 and the top torus is 6 1/4. So we really have two options for how to approach that here. We could simply edit this sweep and edit the sketch to create the bottom one and then repeat the process to create the top one. And that might be the simplest thing to do. But I like to use profiles wherever I can because if I create a nicely shaped profile that's flexible, I can reuse that profile and other contexts. So what I'm going to do is switch over to this other file that I have opened. This is called PRF_Torus_Start and it's just a copy of my seed profile family. And what I want to do first is kind of take a look at the numbers here. I've got an x and a y that came from the seed family and they both set to 60. So let me go to my Family Types and make a couple of adjustments. I'm going to start with a y of eight and an x of 10. And then while I'm here, I don't like x and y for this family so I'm going to rename that. And y, I'm going to change to the Height. Actually, let's be more specific. Let's call that the Torus Height. And then let's take this and also modify it and we'll call it the Torus Width. Now while I'm here, I'm going to need one more length parameter. So I might as well just create it right here. So I'm going to put it under the Constraints grouping and I'll click OK. Now that starts at a value of zero so let's just put in 5.000 there. Okay, so that's my parameters and I've put all of those under Constraints. Now I'm going to click OK and you'll see that everything flexes. Now I'm going to take these two dimensions and just move them a little bit closer. And these actually I'm going to delete. And then let's zoom in and see what we've got. Now the reason why I deleted those is because I want to put a new dimension here and a separate dimension here. Because what I want to do on the right is label that one with the Torus Width. And notice that that immediately flexes the location of this reference plane. And this one I'm going to assign to the Projection. That won't flex because it was already 5.000. So that gives me the basic framework but now what I want to do is apply a few formulas to this so that we can control the proportions in a more predictable way. So back to Family Types and I need two new parameters. I'm going to call the first one Height Mult. Mult is short for multiplier and I want to make that a Number Parameter. Rather suggest putting that under Other and I like to move it to Dimensions. Add new another one called Projection Mult, Multiplier. It's also in Number. It's also in Dimensions. Now you can put these in any grouping you want. I like them in Dimensions because I like all my variables that my users will import values into the Dimensions grouping and anything I'm going to set formulaically I like to put elsewhere. I like Constraints or other, something like that. Now for the Height Multiplier, I'm going to put in one of my starting values here. 6.625 came from the Scan Diagram. So let me go ahead and put that in. And for the Projection Multiplier, let's just try a slightly bigger number than what's there. Now, so it's currently 5.000. I'll change it to six. So I need formulas now up here that are going to multiply. Part Length are smallest unit so I'm going to select that in Control C, paste it in right here with Control V, times my first multiplier. Make sure you type the case exactly. Otherwise, it won't work. I'll select the whole formula. Copy that with Control C. Paste it in with Control V and change the multiplier to the Projection Multiplier. If we click Apply, you're going to see that adjust slightly and this adjust slightly. Now for the width, I want to select the name of the Height, Torus Height, pasted in here and divide by two. So now the width will be half the Height and you'll see that flex. So now we've got everything flexing the way that we want. So up here my only Type is called Flex. Let's rename that. This is going to be my Bottom Torus and then I'll create another one and that's going to be my Top Torus. Now my Top Torus has a slightly different height, 6.25. When I apply that, you're going to see both the Height and the Width adjust and you'll see them adjust slightly on the screen there. Now for the Top Torus, I want my Projection Multiplier to be 0.5. So when I click Apply, that's going to pull that in much closer. For my Bottom Torus, I want the total distance between left and right to be 8.5. So I could do the math but it turns out that you can actually just type equals here, 8.5-. And then, what is my Bottom Torus Dimension? It's 3.31 but don't put three. Put in 25. Because remember it's taking this divided by two so it's really half of that. And when I press Enter, it will do the math for me. You can play it in your calculator and do it just as easily but I like doing it that way and Apply it. So now this is my Top Torus and this is my Bottom Torus. So now we're ready to draw the Geometry. Let's zoom in nice and close. Go to Create, go to Line and I'll start with a Center-ends Arc. Put the Center right there at that intersection and draw a 180 arc around that way. I'll select the arc. Turn on the Center Mark. Align to reference plane and then the arc and lock, reference plane, arc and lock. Do it again for the end points in both directions and again. If you get an error about over constraining, just click Cancel. It's perfectly fine but make sure you check the other direction too. If you don't get any error, go ahead and lock it. Straight line this time and finish it up with align and lock in all three sides. If you get the constrain message, just click Cancel. So let's zoom out, move over here. Go to our Top Torus, click Apply. It looks like that. And our Bottom Torus, apply, it looks like that. The final step is I want the intersection right here at the bottom left corner to be the insertion point of this family. So I'll select both of these reference planes. Check the Defines Origin check box. And then I'm going to load this into my project. Now that will switch me back to my Base Family. If you look at your Project Browser, expand Families and then expand Profiles, you will see your PRF_Torus_Start. Expand again and you'll see the Bottom and Top Torus. So now all I have to do is select one of my sweeps. I'll start with the bottom one. Edit the sweep. Currently it's got a sketch rectangle for the profile. But if I click the Select Profile button from the drop list, I can change from <By Sketch> and choose whichever one of the two Torus profiles I want. In this case, I want the Bottom Torus. Now, you'll notice that that brings it in, flip the wrong way. So we have two things that we can do to try and orient it correctly. We can either Flip but you could see that's a left and right or we can use the Angle Parameter. So it turns out we're going to need both. 180 angle and Flip. And that will get it oriented in the correct location and then I'll click Finish. Now, the only trouble with that is notice that it moved the entire Torus down on the floor there. Now I've got a distance right here of 0.875. What I've done is I've defined a parameter already in the file. We're going to set that parameter to 0.875. So I'm going to select the sweep. And if you look over here on the Properties palette, there's a Horizontal Profile Offset and a Vertical Profile Offset. So I'm going to click right here on the Associate Family Parameter. I'm going to choose my Lower Profile V Offset Parameter that I've already predefined in this file. Click OK. Now at the moment, it will stay at zero. So what I need to do next is go to Family Types. I'll grab one of these Formulas, Control C, and then for my Lower Profile Offset, Control V to paste it. And instead of 82, I want it 0.875. When I apply that, you will see that that actually moves it the wrong way. So just simply click right here and put in a negative and try again and now it shifts it the correct way. And so now we've got the profile in the right spot. And then you just repeat the process for the other sweep like so. Now the distance for the second Profile Offset is 10.25 and we're going to try negative because that's what work well for the other one and you could see that when we apply, it shifts it up into the correct location. And if we check it here in the 3D view, we now have a nice fine detail version of the Base that uses these Torus moldings instead of the squared off corners.

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