• TechNotes
• Creating Balusters

Techtip of February, 2008: How to Create Balusters

• - by: Mats Knutsson, Sweden & Adrian Tudoreanu, Romania & Duane, US/California & Steve Jepson, US/Oregon

This is one of those questions every beginner will ask one day. On ArchiCAD-Talk, there were four helpful answers posted within a few minutes so this month also is an hommage to the ArchiCAD-Talk Community.

As usual in ArchiCAD, there are many ways to create balusters:

• the good old method of using Profiler (please refer to the Manual for more details);

• Using a pre-cast GDL object - thanks Duane for sharing yours (to be found on ArchiCAD-Talk);

• Finally, by using complex profiles combined with curved walls - thanks to Mats & Adrian.

The third solution is explained in more detail below:

• Create a complex profile of the Baluster that you want to use. Make sure to keep one edge straight as you will be rotating this profile with the curved wall later.
• Select the new complex profile for your wall and place one half-circle of your baluster in the desired size.
• Select the half-cricle and mirror a copy of it to get to a full 'baluster'.

Place slabs above and below as desired, group and use or save as a GDL object if further editing/parametering is desired.

Hint: Further help came from Steve who highlighted the necessity of modeling real products and provided a useful link right away. Please refer to the original thread for more details.

The original thread can be found at: http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=21455&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=tip&&start=0