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Chapter 12: Drawing and Editing 2D Splines and Shapes

FIGURE 12.10
The Character Map application shows all the special characters that are available.

Helix
A Helix is like a spring coil shape, and it is the one shape of all the Shape primitives that exists in 3D. Helix
parameters include two radii for specifying the inner and outer radius. These two values can be equal to
create a coil or unequal to create a spiral. Parameters also exist for the Height and number of Turns. The
Bias parameter causes the Helix turns to be gathered all together at the top or bottom of the shape. The CW
and CCW options let you specify whether the Helix turns clockwise or counterclockwise.
Figure 12.11 shows a sampling of Helix shapes: The first Helix has equal radii values, the second one has a
smaller second radius, the third Helix spirals to a second radius value of 0, and the last two Helix objects
have Bias values of 0.8 and –0.8.

FIGURE 12.11
The Helix shape can be straight or spiral shaped.

Section
Section stands for cross section. The Section shape is a cross section of the edges of any 3D object through
which the Section’s cutting plane passes. The process consists of dragging in the viewport to create a cross-
sectioning plane. You can then move, rotate, or scale the cross-sectioning plane to obtain the desired cross
section. In the Section Parameters rollout is a Create Shape button. Clicking this button opens a dialog box
where you can name the new shape. You can use one Section object to create multiple shapes.

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