Australian MSTS @ steam4me Tutorials Uses for Pipe Builder Plug-in #2

3D Canvas Tutorial - Inventive uses for the Pipe Builder plugin #2

by Paul "Decapod" Gausden

Ladder with Curved Top

Start with a default Cylinder   use a rotational shift operation of 90 degrees to put it on its side.   Use the multi-select tool on the right with the Ctrl + Alt keys held down to delete all the points *below* the centre line. This leaves half a cylinder (see image left).

Add a default Cube.   Select the half cylinder object and run my "3DC Butt Objects" plugin. Select the cube from the tree view and Centre on X and Z, Maximum Y (There are other methods of doing this, but I find this quickest).   Merge the two objects into 1 with the Merge tool on the right.   Run the Weld to Range plugin to make sure there are no double points.   We now have a single object (see image left).

Scale the object to the right dimensions (usually about 0.4 in X & Z directions, about 0.7 Y).   In select face mode, right mouse drag the lower face to give the full length of the ladder.

Hold down the Ctrl key and select the edges that make up both sides of the ladder.   Run the Pipe Builder - I used 5 sides, 0.04 diameter.

There should now be 2 pipe objects in a single sub group - drag this out of the way.   Reverse the process of extending the lower surface so it is now at the position of the first rung.   14) Use the extrude operation, using the rung separation value (about 0.3).

Select all the rung edges and run pipe builder (here I used 5 sides and 0.03 as values).   Delete the first object.   Some of the rungs were formed inside out - I needed to select each in turn and run the invert operation.

Using the hierarchy, drag the "rung" pipe group into the "sides" pipe group so it becomes a sub-group.

Change the position property of the rung group to XYZ of 0,0,0.

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