cable rail

[natete]

is there any way to create a cable guardrail?.
i'm working on a parking structure and we have cable rail throughout the edges.

thanks

[patricks]

You mean like with some sort of turnbuckle on each end? The cables can be a simple round profile of small diameter, and then you could create the turnbuckles as a balluster family and set it to be at the start and end of the railing run. I've never done it, just saying how it could be done.

[natete]

how do you change the rail profile?.
it seems that there are few (1.5, 1") sizes available from the dropdown list when you get into the railing edit mode. But it doesn't seem to have any option where you can go in and change the rail diameter....

[patricks]

Expand your list of loaded families, should be somewhere under railings or something, and you can open the properties of one type and duplicate it to make a new type with different diameter.

[Scott D Davis]

make a new profile for a 1/4" dia circle for the cable and load it into your project.

[natete]

i see.
i had to duplicate the 'profile' family for the rail in order to do that.
thanks guys!

[patricks]

make a new profile for a 1/4" dia circle for the cable and load it into your project.

You meant duplicate the circular handrail profile right? Should be no need to create a whole new profile just for a cable.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

This brings up one of those 'reality vs practicality' issues. Assuming there are miles of this stuff on the project, and that the cable is only 1/4" in diameter, would modeling the cable as a square profile provide a noticeable performance difference than modeling as a circular profile? I doubt you would really notice the difference even in a rendered view.

[natete]

i see your point.
think i'm actually going to try what you said and see how it improves the performance.
it's gotten really slow since i added all the rails,,,,

[patricks]

This brings up one of those 'reality vs practicality' issues. Assuming there are miles of this stuff on the project, and that the cable is only 1/4" in diameter, would modeling the cable as a square profile provide a noticeable performance difference than modeling as a circular profile? I doubt you would really notice the difference even in a rendered view.

great observation, never thought of that. :)

[tomnewsom]

Or, for a further 25% saving, use a triangular profile :)

[patricks]

Or, for a further 25% saving, use a triangular profile :)

I think square would be better, as it would still appear correct in all elevations and plan views as a round section would, and would also dimension correctly. A triangular section would look odd in plan views.

[tomnewsom]

Not if you used a 90 degree triangle. That would appear as two lines in any orthogonal projection.