Hello,
I’ve been designing a scalextric (slot car) track design, using ketchup and downloaded an excellent set of track components (thank you, Robertzw). I’m getting better at sketchup but still very much a beginner so I apologise if this is a stupid question which i should have figured out.
I can get all the components to line up and connect on a single plane but I want the track to spiral upwards in parts. When I tried to connect the components and then change their angles to make them slope upwards, it was very messy and slow. I am wondering if there’s an easier way to make these components all connect seamlessly (like when they’re flat) and spiral up a curve. If anyone wants to look at the track to see what i’m talking about, I have loaded the model to 3D warehouse and should be viewable by searching ‘scalextric’.
Thank you in advance
If you want to create a spiral (or loop) and can’t find the pieces ready made,you will need to make them yourself. If you specifically want to make spirals, I would suggest looking into the Spirix plugin.
Here’s one that might work:
If I search for scaletrix then an number of possibilities are shown, search by author name returns total track model and parts, so question in my mind is what is the real question? How to make spiral, make total track follow a spiral or just one component to follow spiral. I assume you want only track to follow curve but the one needs to address what is the banking?
Drawing only spiral is probably less than 1% of the total problem and there are number of plugins to do that. DO a search for how to model a spiral. The above post is one of many. Model a track and follow the spiral will be more complex for you. Start with spiral then watch some of Su videos to get ‘MORE’ up to speed before you tackling that.
Just some thoughts.
Suetel:
Suggest you down load the robertsz component models, select the straight track section, download from rthe sketchucation plugin store Chris Fullers shape bender and see if that will do what you want. Here is example I copied from his post made by a commenter. You should watch the how to videos Chris has on the plugin sit. helixBend_Mac1.skp (1.7 MB)
Good Luck
There’s a new version of ProfileBuilder to check out too, regarding parametric component placement along a path.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I’ll let you know how I go. I downloaded the plug in from Chris Fullmer, that seems to be my best option. Here’s hoping it works (or more accurately, can I get it to work 
)
The link I posted above is helix, not a spiral. The are a number of spirals you can draw; Bernoulli, Archimedes, Euler, Fermat, Golden, and Hyperbolic. Attached is bent tack section along portion of a Bernoulli spiral. There is a plugin called curve maker you can use to draw many different type of curves. Think it is listed uner what is call draw metal link because it is used to make decorative iron work. I drew the curve and then rotated into a plane set at an arbitray angle since had no info for it. Same for number of turns , height etc.
bernouilliSpiralTrack.skp (153.4 KB)
BTW you can make the track curve less " bumpy" by using more segments for the curve. Think I used 24 just to keep file size low.
A lot depends on what you are making this for. You can make you own path and profile and use Upright extruder to follow wherever you want your track to go.
You can adjust the path as much as you want to simulate the segmentation of the track. Plus from memory everything is made of specific curves, so you can prett much create everything with circles and straight lines.
Here’s a basic track.
Sutek:
I do not understand your design intentions fully so just a word of caution.
Tools like the followme, followme + keep have problems of distorting the profile geometry . Follow me will rotate, follow me and keep will distort he vertical dimension going up / down inclines. Have not used Upright E… above so do not know and have not checked Shape Bender. In addition they are not adaptive in sense profile cannot adapt because using just the one edge to follow. If you design requires an adaptive profile say like track dimension changes etc a different approach will be required, maybe profile builder v 1.2 free, v1.3 $ but small cost?
Just some things to think about.
I’m a bit late to this party, but it may be helpful to have a direct link to the Curve Maker plugin. This is probably going to be the most valuable tool for what is described. The extension offers nine different options for creating curved and spiraled entities.