How can I create this?

Hi Guys,

Can anyone give me some ideas how can I create the handrail end but on on Sketchup Pro?

I would create a path and a vertical profile of the railing and then use Eneroth Upright Extruder to extrude the rail. As for the bottom, that can easily be dealt with using Solid Tools.

3 Likes

Cheers mate for your support. How can I create the spiral?

I used the Helix tool in the Curve Maker extension from the Extension Warehouse and then added on the straight segment at the top.

Honestly I don’t think that’s the proper shape.
The handrail hand is not just a protruding rounded shape.
It actually doesn’t protrude at all.
It just a matter of grooves fading away toward the end and flowing into each other.
You can’t get away with just extrusion and/or booleans.
You better off modeling it lowpoly to take care of the grooves termination and then subdivide it.

Here’s a quick and dirty proof of concept of what I mean.
It can (and should) be done better with actual drawings, proper reference images and a bit more time to spend.

I wasn’t trying to duplicate the exact shape of the railing at all. Just show a method.

1 Like

Yeah, but the hard part is the groove, the spline extrusion is trivial.
He asked about ā€œthe handrail endā€, I believe he really meant that.
The extrusion should be done low poly to allow for further detailing of the ā€œflowing shapeā€.
You can’t achieve the proper groove whith booleans at the end of the process (good luck with that).
You need subdivisions, or (at the very least) lofting.

Thanks guys for the help, I would like to try to see the exact shape on my handrail. The issue is that I’m still struggling with the spiral shape - there is no proper tutorial for curve maker.

The issue Im also facing is that since the staircase is a winder stairs, the handrail is quite angled. I have attached the sketchup file if someone can help.

COMMON AREA.skp (1.3 MB)

@panixia
@DaveR

Is the design of the stairs messy on purpose, I mean the shape I understand that follows the shape of the internal part of the building, but the height of every step has different sizes. I“m going to try to fix that if i have your approval, that would make it easier to make te handrail, By the way your file has some of the classic beginner issues, length and radial sapping is activated and by some reason the linear dimension was set to millimeters while areas and cubic dimensions were set to square and cubic meters respectively, and for my workflow I consider that working just with one decimal could lead to inaccurate measurements.

Hi Francis,

Thanks for this.You’re right, I’m still a beginner. Im also European which means that we use metric system, however for the sake of the exercise, feel free to choose whatever you are comfortable with.

Re stairs - this is my house where I am going to have an extensive renovation and extension, therefore it’s almost impossible every level has the same stair height.

Atm I have deleted the existing and done it again using the Extrude Lines by D.BUR. Please find below a cleaner version.

COMMON AREA.skp (1.3 MB)

I’m not European but I also use the metric system, like the 99% of the countries.

I’ll check your file and fix it if it’s necessary.

Bro, you are trying to model such a fine detail more than 170 meters away from origin (in negative space)?
Are you kiddin’me? :sweat_smile:

Plus, the actual section of the rail (or at least decent reference images) are not included.. how do you think you can produce ā€œthe exact shapeā€ without that?
At best you can try to do something that ā€œresemblesā€ that shape.. but we have no information about the actual thickness of the rail, the size of the grooves and how the grooves are terminated (the front one is barely visible in your photo, the back one we cannot see at all).

BTW I’m not sure what are you trying to do with that spiral.
There’s no spiral here.. Just a curved rail.

Another couple of things, I’m not an architect, just a humble 3d modeler, but…
Are you sure that you want to leave that gap at every rounded angle of the rail?

The rail tickness is supposed to go outward (Magenta) or inward (Green)?
In both cases I see design problems.

You could step it down a notch..
@Josef1 clearly states that he’s still a beginner at SketchUp!
Maybe it’s better to explain why that’s not a good idea..

3 Likes

So, if you think it’s better, just explain it.
I at least suggested that is not a good idea at all.
He can just trust me (which he should), or read your detailed explanation (when it’s done).

If you feel that you’re too much of an expert to handle the mistakes in my file, feel free to move on to another post.

2 Likes

I’m working on your file, I fixed the steps and now all have the same height, I haven’t had much time but I’ll try to share today the fixed file.

1 Like

I’ll move for sure, but still you’ll need to use proper sections and dimensions to do the exact shape. Otherwise it will just resemble it and will not be exact.
That’s what I said and I confirm it.
Then you’ll have to solve the issues I highlighted.
And when you’ll do, you better draw near model origin. Learned ones will explain you why.
I’m done.

Update, I moved the model closer to the axis, I made a small redesign to the stairs so the handrail can be done with the shape you want without any gaps, that took me some time cause the stairs do not follow the same pattern on its path, some corners have rectangular breaks and some doesn’t, I didn’t change that cause I guess that’s how it’s done in situ. The only thing left to do is the handrail that after all the other problems fixed it’s not going to be the ā€œeasiestā€ part to model, I had a long day and I’m very tired but I’ll keep working on it tomorrow, I really like a good challenge.

1 Like

For someone aggressively demanding accuracy you might consider tidying up your profile. I’ve not heard of the ā€˜vertex tools’ operating system.

2 Likes