Creating Four–Strand Braids in TurboCAD®©2002 Henry O. HubichThis article describes a method formodeling four–strand braids such as thoseillustrated in Figure 1. The techniquediscussed here requires no mathematics anduses only the tools available in TurboCADv8.x Professional. Stated very briefly, theprocedure is to create four copies of a Pipe,or an extrusion, using a filleted 3D Polylineas the extrusion path.The extrusion pathWe shall begin by learning how toconstruct that extrusion path. The key tothis technique is the 2D template illustratedin Figure 2. Make one of these for yourselfin a new TurboCAD drawing, using Square Figure 1“Point” objects with the colors as shown in Four-Strand Braidsthe illustration. (Don’t include thedimensions.) Select the eight Point objectsand Group them.As I shall explain in greater detail, theextrusion path for a single strand of astraight braid is built by linear–copying thetemplate along the length of the braid andthen snapping a 3D Polyline to a particularcolored Point on each successive copy ofthe structure.Eight copies of the template are needed forone “cycle” of the braid. You’ll need atleast three or four cycles to makeFigure 2something that looks halfway decent. ToThe Braid Templatebegin, copy the template into a newdrawing and orient it normal to the WorldY axis, with the black square at the left and the blue square at the top when seen in theFront view.The braid turns out well when copies of ...
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