Problem Modeling An Intersecting Double Cone Coil

Support Modeling
1

http://basharspacetimeantenna.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/rendered-sta.jpg

I need to design a 3d model of this for my economics class before the end of the month. My first try is curve + screw, and simple deform. Kind of worked but not the way I’d like it to being the image above.

Where I’m at:

spacetimeant-3d.png960×540 372 KB

Here’s the start of the project file so far.
spacetimeantenna.blend (479 KB)

I’m an avid do it yourselfer so I personally would appreciate it if anyone can help guide me the right way on how I can achieve this effect in Blender. If it helps at all I’m using 2.49 at home cause 2.5 isn’t supported on an the old Windows 2000 comp we got (running Ubuntu 10.04), but using 2.56 at my friend’s house to work on this.

This is all I got done so far, cause I’m stuck and don’t know what else to do to get the effect I want.

2

You could make the spirals using the screw function. I have attached a file with the setup for the screw on layer 1 and the result on layer 2. By adjusting the single edge, you can change the shape of the spiral. When you are happy with the cones, you can manually attach the the ends

Attachments

screw.blend (899 KB)

3

May i suggest download fresh blender from builder.blender.org/downloads, unpack archive(s) and run that for appropriate OS you have?
It comes bundled with addon AddCurve: Extra Objects by using which your task turns into couple of mouse clicks and adjust some numbers on Toolshelf panel.
You could keep 2 folders with blender for win and linux on a flash drive; you can run it from flash too.

curves.png794×723 192 KB

4

Blender 2.49 doesn’t have the screw modifier. So I’ll take a look this weekend when I hang with my buddy. I use Blender 2.5 there once in awhile.

I can’t use the Blender 2.5 series on my desktop at home, when launched my screen goes black, and the only fix is to shutdown and reboot. I can’t switch running apps using ALT+TAB or close current running app via ALT+F4. Only solution is shutdown and reboot. That’s why I use Blender 2.5 at my friends house.

I believe I just need to upgrade the graphics card as my problem is…

*-display UNCLAIMED 
             description: VGA compatible controller 
             product: 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device 
             vendor: Intel Corporation

Here are my entire specs if it helps.

description: Computer 
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     *-cpu 
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          size: 2GHz 
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          capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce  cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2  ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts cid 
          configuration: id=0 
        *-cache:0 
             description: L1 cache 
             physical id: 0 
             size: 8KiB 
        *-cache:1 
             description: L2 cache 
             physical id: 1 
             size: 512KiB 
     *-pci 
          description: Host bridge 
          product: 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface 
          vendor: Intel Corporation 
          physical id: 100 
          bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0 
          version: 03 
          width: 32 bits 
          clock: 33MHz 
          configuration: driver=agpgart-intel 
          resources: irq:0 memory:e8000000-ebffffff(prefetchable) 
        *-display UNCLAIMED 
             description: VGA compatible controller 
             product: 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
             physical id: 2 
             bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 
             version: 03 
             width: 32 bits 
             clock: 33MHz 
             capabilities: bus_master cap_list 
             configuration: latency=0 
             resources: memory:e0000000-e7ffffff(prefetchable) memory:ee000000-ee07ffff 
        *-usb:0 
             description: USB Controller 
             product: 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
             physical id: 1d 
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.0 
             version: 02 
             width: 32 bits 
             clock: 33MHz 
             capabilities: bus_master 
             configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 
             resources: irq:16 ioport:d800(size=32) 
        *-usb:1 
             description: USB Controller 
             product: 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
             physical id: 1d.1 
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.1 
             version: 02 
             width: 32 bits 
             clock: 33MHz 
             capabilities: bus_master 
             configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 
             resources: irq:19 ioport:d000(size=32) 
        *-usb:2 
             description: USB Controller 
             product: 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
             physical id: 1d.2 
             bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.2 
             version: 02 
             width: 32 bits 
             clock: 33MHz 
             capabilities: bus_master 
             configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 
             resources: irq:18 ioport:d400(size=32) 
        *-usb:3 
             description: USB Controller 
             product: 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
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             bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.7 
             version: 02 
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             capabilities: bus_master cap_list 
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        *-pci 
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             product: 82801 PCI Bridge 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
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             bus info: pci@0000:00:1e.0 
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           *-network 
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        *-isa 
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        *-ide 
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             resources: irq:18 ioport:1f0(size=![http://www.blender.org/forum/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif](http://www.blender.org/forum/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif) ioport:3f6 ioport:170(size=![http://www.blender.org/forum/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif](http://www.blender.org/forum/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif) ioport:376 ioport:f000(size=16) memory:80100000-801003ff 
        *-serial UNCLAIMED 
             description: SMBus 
             product: 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller 
             vendor: Intel Corporation 
             physical id: 1f.3 
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        *-multimedia 
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             configuration: driver=Intel ICH latency=0 
             resources: irq:17 ioport:e000(size=256) ioport:e400(size=64) memory:ee081000-ee0811ff memory:ee082000-ee0820ff

I won’t know until this weekend, but If I remember correctly I used the path curve as is with the screw modifier with mods to the 3d curve tab. So my guess is it’s making the curve(s) up at an angle moving in 360 degrees with an array for the screw. I may have to scale down the path, but wouldn’t that give me the same problem I already have?

5

It doesn’t have the screw modifier, but if I’m not mistaken it does have the screw function in the mesh tools panel, and that is the tool I used to create the shape.

6

Just installed the script to home/.blender/scripts and when I launched Blender 2.49 to model this at home I got the following error. Anyway to fix this or work around it?

spirals-error.png1024×768 68.9 KB

7

Start blender from Terminal. Complete error message appears in it then.

8

Here’s the error that showed up in the terminal.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<string>”, line 1, in <module>
File “/home/sherry/.blender/scripts/spirals.py”, line 203
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character ‘\xf1’ in file /home/sherry/.blender/scripts/spirals.py on line 203, but no encoding declared; see http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0263.html for details

9

Yes, i got the same error message - i deleted offending comment text which contained this character on this and later on one more line.
You could edit yours or download edited version here.

10

Thank you bro, this helps a lot.

11

I now have an important question related to this project.

Now I have 2 24ft 16AWG insulated copper wire. Is there anyway to model this corresponding to the amount of wire I have so I can set the diameter, coil windings, and height to relevate the best possible resonance this will give me with vortex based mathematics (rodin coil). I haven’t made my rodin coils yet, the torus’s will be in the mail within a week but should give me plenty of time to wind my larger Space Time Antenna to begin experimentation.

I believe there is a way with Blender, but if there isn’t keep in mind I’m an Ubuntu Linux user (v10.04) so if there’s an alternative application that anyone can suggest it’d be greatly appreciated. (I just want to assure my math is accurate before I wind my coils)

Blender 2.5 series allows modeling in the metric system but not 2.49 which is what we’re using cause we have an old graphics card. (Hence why not using Ubuntu 12.04 or Blender 2.5 otherwise I wouldn’t have this problem). WebGL isn’t an option cause of same reason. If there’s a plugin/script that’d help with this it’d be greatly appreciated. NOTE: It has to be a mesh modelling application though, because of how my coils will be wound.

Specs Image: