I am trying to create an image that is a vertical spiral going from 2" on top to 8" on Bottom with a vertical rise of 7". How is this done?
There are other plugins too - for example Spirix, or SU Parametric Shapes from the SketchUcation Plugin Store.
You can also draw a helix manually, but it is tedious if you want a lot of segments per rotation.
Thank you for your help.
DrawMetal has several relevant plugins. Their Curve Maker does spirals.
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Thank you for your help. I will try to find Spirix
You can click on the link in the previous post, or go here:
Thank you again. I just looked at your youtube video and it seems very complicated - after all, I am an old dog and this is a new trick. Does the code work on a a Mac?
Deane
I’m pretty sure it works on a Mac. In its simplest form, start with a new (empty) model and create a circle of the diameter you want (I used 0.5" D or 0.25" R). It needs to be vertical in X and Z. Move it 2" along the plus X-axis (red). Run Spirix with the following parameters:
This creates a spiral helix that rises 7" and expands outward 6". The number of segments in the circle determines the circular segments in the result. The number of segments specified in Spirix is the number of turns around the z-axis times the number of segments desired in one revolution. That is, I wanted 24 segments around each loop, so I multiplied 7 * 24 = 168. Using a higher number of segments in the original circle as well as more segments when revolving will give smoother results. However, it’s easy to create 100,000 polygons or more by using too many.
Jim, when I repeated your steps on my Mac, I got a lot of reversed faces and holes, even when I tried with everything supersized by 100:
Due to the author’s simplistic input algorithm, the order of the segments in the circle are sacred. If you aren’t careful about how the circle is “handled”, it will process the segments out of sequence. This is usually noted by something like this at the end:
Creating a circle in the x/y plane and moving it shouldn’t cause a problem. I was trying to keep the example simple. If you create a circle in an empty model and use the Spirix Create Group function, this will lock in the order. You can then move, rotate, stretch, scale the group and it won’t change the order of the edges. If using a group, you will need to enter the group name on the appropriate line:
You could also try using a triangle instead of a circle … the segments will always be contiguous 
I would appreciate any feedback … I was pretty sure that this was tested on a Mac several times in the past, but maybe not.
curve maker’s helix and then use Fredos scale taper on the helix group, once shaped you can “follow me” a circle to get tube or use the “pipe along path” plugin.
interesting solution here but not as easy as the other suggestions
