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Author Topic: Paving Pattern Help  (Read 1705 times)

cboogie

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Paving Pattern Help
« on: October 31, 2016, 07:08:49 PM »
I'm trying to re-create an existing paving pattern in front of one of my projects . . . and my initial thought was to challenge myself to build it all in rail clone and to use a few pieces of geometry as possible.  I'm getting close . . . but I'm running up against a few issues that I can't seem to work around. 

The plaza is a long rectilinear pathway that's about 15' wide and about 180' long.  It's broken up into 15' sections with paving bands to break it up - essentially creating 15' squares.  Each square is filled with a harringbone pattern that mirrors from square to square.  Each square also has a soldier course border around it.  There are some tricky bits in the corners and at the ends of the paving bands, but I'm starting to sort that out. 

So, I'm struggling to create the border around each paving area.  As you can see in my screen shots, there are some issues with how the band of pavers relates to the harringbone field. 

My second issue is how to flip the harringbone pattern from section to section.  I've attached my max file and some photos of what I'm trying to do.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

Paul Roberts

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Re: Paving Pattern Help
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2016, 01:36:00 PM »
Hi,

Thanks for contacting us. This will be very difficult to achieve in a single style due to the way that RailClone's arrays are calculated. Each Row's height is defined by the size of the largest segment so you'll have trouble making the boundary and the herringbone work correctly. You can read more about this in our RailClone guide.

The best solution therefore is to split a base style over two generators, an A2S for the herringbone and an L1S for the boundary. I've tackled the problem slightly differently and created a closed spline for each herringbone section, as shown below.



Each spline uses a separate RailClone object, which has the ability to change the type of corner segments used and the rotation of the herringbone. In that way you can piece them together like a jigsaw. It uses the following techniques.

- To create the Herringbone, Extend X/Y size to Area is used to create the size of the array and clip the bricks at the boundary.
- For the boundary an L1S generator is used with corners that can be changed. This is achieved using a Selector operator. To make this easier I've exported the Index and wired it to a Numeric node.
- Corners are in placed in position using the X Fixed Size property, Fixed Transform, and by Disabling Bend and Align to Path.
- The L1S Generator is limited to spline sections with a Material ID of 1. In that way you can remove a side if it isn't needed.

I've attached a sample file for you to take a look at. I hope that helps, please let me know if you have any further questions.

Many Thanks,

Paul
Paul Roberts
iToo Software