How to make paraboloid arches?

Perhaps this is why there are no Antonio Gaudi-inspired buildings in SL, but as a homage to his architecture, I have been creating a 'Casa Gaudi'. I would really like to use paraboloid arches (Gaudi's main structural element), but despite torturing prims ruthlessly, I have not yet found a solution. The best I have managed is to elongate a hollow cylinder and bury the end in the ground, or to stretch some sculptie vault shapes which I purchased.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hermetic%20Palaces/118/119/26

(I did try to add images, but SL refused to let me!)

Can you ingenious people reveal a way to do this, please?

Best wishes from Ainee Kohime

The best you can do if you're not going to make a custom sculpt is to use just a portion of a hollow cylinder or a ring to try and approximate a parabola with a segment of an ellipse.

If you don't find a solution, contact me, I'll try to knock you up something sculpty.
I'll need some drawings or images to follow. And the texture you want applied.

You might try Sculptypaint which is freeware and has an arches tool which bends a pipe or a square column. It doesn't do parabolas, but may be an easy way to get some shapes you can't get from standard prims.

I love Gaudi. Let us know what you come up with.

Gaudi fans unite!

His stuff is impossible to build a tribute to without sculpts - there are just too many organic shapes and curves.

I don't know, it might be interesting to imagine what he would have come up with if he were limited to the prims of Second Life.

Thank you for all your kind comments. Slicing and welding hollowed cylinders was the first thing I tried, but it just does not look right. I was pleased with my tortured chimney pots, and the 50+ textures I made were a joy to use!

I do agree that Gaudi would have found prims a challenge to work with! At the moment, the three upper floors of the Tower can only be flown into, although I have provided landing balconies and sit targets in the furnishings to grab onto... Perhaps Gaudi would have approved of flying!

Yes, a parabolic sculpty may be the only answer... I would love to have shown you the parabolic images I have collected, but now I have tried 6 times to upload the images I wanted to show you... Yet SL STILL claims to be having a "slight problem" and declines to do it!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Hermetic%20Palaces/118/119/26

Best wishes from Ainee Kohime

Send the images to Snapzilla and post links here?

You can also host images for free at www.photobucket.com and use the IMG tag to put them into your posts.

Ok, as a first-time user of www.photobucket.com here is the tag:

Gaudi Palau Guell facade, Barcelona

Ainee Kohime's Casa Gaudi in Second Life

Gosh I hope this works....

Best wishes from Ainee

Check out Ariel Erlanger's Catenary and Half Catenary Arches sculpty packages at AE Designs in-world:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vesta/201/175/23/

They will cost you; but I suspect you'll find what you need there. If not, you'll have to make your own with one of the graphics tools that people typically use to create sculpties.

Gosh thank you, I am shocked at myself for not searching on 'catenary'! lol

..and I STILL can't upload those images!

Best wishes from Ainee

Yeah, SL's system for uploading images to the forums hasn't been working right for ages. I have given up on it and have started posting links to flickr instead.

Ainee - when you upload your images to photobucket they will provide you with a series of tags.

Look for the tag for IMG

Copy that link and just put it into your post

it will look like ""

(remove quotation marks...)

A parabola is a section of a *cone* -- not of a cylinder.

A cylinder is just a special case of a cone.

Unfortunately, SL doesn't include a "PRIM_SECTION" parameter to do things like slicing a cone parallel to the axis, which would make this problem easy.

Harrumph!

Thanks for sharing this, it inspired the Area 55 technicians.. This was spotted flying over there earlier...

i would like to know how to make a 3 centered arch with matching inserts using regular prims..haha

Lol, we seem to have mined a new vein of creativity here! Yes, I would find a three centered or 'Tudor' Arch useful, too!

Best wishes from Ainee (who tried to make a hyperbolic arch by torturing a cone, and ended up with a useful spiral staircase!)

Hint to the ones who make the arches ... if you make an arch - make the trim piece too. An arch is useless if you cant resolve it back into a vertical or horizontal surface next to it or above it!




yes - the tudor arches would be popular with door and window builders


I am also trying to make a Baroque Door that has rounded edges and a sortof S-Curved top with a matching frame too..

hold on to your horses..lol