I will use an scale of 1/8 here for two reasons -
1. Since the sphere has a diameter of about 4 meters it will be almost impossible for me to make a sphere of this size using a scale of one.
2. The rotating stairway is less than a meter wide.
So this example is based on an scale of 1/8 or, if you like, all measurements are multiplied by 8.
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I found one these radar towers
while browsing on the Web and I thought it would be a very interesting
project to make.
To start with I will first make the main tower body structure using the Tower tool. I only need to make one side of the tower as this tool only makes symmetric objects.
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Using the Cube I will
place a thin surface, or deck, on top of the tower. This is not too difficult to do
as you can see. Then, using the Fence tool, I will add railings on top of this deck. |
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I have placed a small
cube as the base for the sphere as it gives a more realistic
finish.
Finally the sphere goes on top. Notice that the sphere stands on a large surface and not over its lower point. A closer view of this can be seen below. |
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This shows
that the sphere lies on a flat surface rather than the lower
cone of the sphere. This is possible if you set the Level 1
height to zero. I use the shaded option almost every time I use an sphere as it gives the object a more rounded shape and a brighter color. Finally, and why not, I'll place a red light on top of the sphere and make it blink at night. Don't forget - the more points you use, the smoother the sphere will be but I only use 20 if the sphere I need is very large. This finishes the tower itself and now I will start to add the stairway round the tower. |
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I could use a skewed
cube to make the stairs but I've decided to make it all using lines.
This is done using the Bridge tool. The bridge, or stair, width
is 6 meters and since I don't use any textures I
don't have to take care of any other arguments of the bridge like road
lengths. You can see that points 1 to 9 (in blue) have connector points shown by the Y in the Con column of the grid - this is to make the steps of the stairs. |
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This is a closer look at
the first stairway on the tower. We will need to add an small part, as shown on the right, to make the corner. This is made using the Fence tool. |
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Detail of the fence design to make the stair corner. The yellow point indicates a vertical post or line at that place. |
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Finally I will add a
small platform in the corner using the Cube tool.
We now have all the modules to make the stairway go around the tower and up to the top. All that is left to do is to copy the 3 modules and place each stair section at different positions and altitudes.
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On the left you can see
all the parts of the stair around the tower. Since I am using the same
modules with different angles I will need to change this
angle in the Maximize panel as shown below. By copying each module and
placing them in a different position it also allows me to maximize
the final code of the macro. I now need a final piece to close the gap on top so I will add another small platform and a corner to it. The tower is now complete and finished. |
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This is the Maximize
table once everything is set up properly.
I have traced some dotted lines to show how each module of the stair
is repeated and also the different rotations. There are some important points to watch out for:
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