Column thickness

[danton]

Can anybody tell how to insert a column where the thickness at the bottom is larger than the thickness at the top?
I'm particularly interested in rectangle solid decorative columns (with a shape resembling a pyramid).
Thanks

[Allan Chesney]

Hi,  Welcome to the Forum.

There are no pyrimid shaped columns within the program (that I am aware of) but you could make one just using a roof (By Picking Points).  It will take a bit of experimenting to get it to the size you want and it will create a point at the top unless you use the roof Custom Shape option to put a 1 degree slope top on it (see BLD file attached - the centre column is the custom roof).  .

You will have to put it on its own location so you can set the floor height to the same as the floor you want it to sit on (or a little lower) the wall height to 1mm or fraction of an inch.  The roof inserts at top of wall height hence the low wall to make it at ground level (or lower the floor level for the "Roof" column Location or change the roof Insert height).  Set the roof Slope Type to Degrees and set the slope to what you want (anything up to 89).  

I have exported the column and pyramid as 3DS files in case you want to use those instead.  Using these the slope will vary depending on the height to base size ratio. In the image and BLD file, the column on the left is the 3DS imported and the Pyramid is the other 3DS.  You can either import them using the 3DS files or open the BLD select File/Catalogues/Save Element to Catalogue and just click on the 3DS columns. It will probably add them to Interior Accessories which is where I imported them to.  

If you import the 3DS files into Plan view you may think they are not there - they imported for me with a white lines! Select it and in the Properties Appearance change the line style to some other colour. That happened because I had been playing with white lines for another project.  The Catalogue add method should be OK. As with all 3DS files you may have to use the Elevate to get them to sit on the floor.

Hope this helps - ask again if there is not enough explanation.

Allan

[danton]

Thanks Allan. I'll fiddle around.
Btw, couldn't open the bld file as I have the PRO version (v12). Any chance to save it in this format?
Thanks again

[Allan Chesney]

Hi again,

Sorry I took a while to get back to you - I have had a busy few days and had to start up an old PC to get the V12 version.
I have imported the earlier 3DS files into this V12 file and recreated the Roof used to make the tapered column so you can see how it was done.

Select all the edges of the "roof" and look at the Properties of the two roof surfaces.  On the Appearance tab you need to select all of the surfaces and set them to the same material, or you will still see the facia etc as different.

If the two 3DS 'stone' colums are useful as they are then you can add them to your catalogue in File /Catalog / Save Element to Catalog. (I have just noticed that they have fixed the spelling of Catalogue in V14!)

Hopefully this BLD will now open for you.

Allan