How to generate multiple helical coils in a 3D space?

[Brian_11]

I have the 3D coordinates of start and end points of multiple helical coils and I want to generate these coils in a 3D space. I also know pitch, dia and etc. 

[kdirth]

The method depends on the desired outcome.  A helical coil can be made from Helical Sweep (under Sweep dropdown menu) or by creating a curve from equation and sweeping the curve.

If you need to add extensions to the coil, starting with a curve would allow you to add the extensions to the helical curve and make one sweep.  Adding to the end of a helical sweep is a bit more difficult.

[Brian_11]

kdirth thank you for your reply. I can generate helical coils one by one with the method (Helical Sweep) that you've suggested but I want to generate multiple coils at once (such as 100 coils or more) with certain orientations and locations in 3D cartesian coordinate system. I have the coordinates of the starting point and ending point of the coils which means I also know their orientations and locations in 3D. By the way, coils should be uniform (not tapered) and have constant pitch. I have all the necessary parameters to generate it but I don't know how to do it. Most probably I need write a program which can generate coils iteratively.

[KenFarley]

If the locating features are always the same (i.e. a plane and axis with a point, or whatever) you could possibly do all the tedious work with a user defined feature (acronym: UDF). I had a similar problem where I needed to generate about 70 holes on a contoured surface. Normal holes, with a countersink of a specific angle and diameter.

You've got to carefully define the prototype feature, then generate the UDF. The goal is to have the absolute minimum of references in the feature to get the desired result. I don't know how one would do this programmatically with Jlink and the like, though.

For a helical sweep the number of coils is determined by the pitch and the overall length of the coil. If you made a coil already, just try increasing the length or decreasing the pitch and you'll see the number of coils increase.

[MartinHanak]

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@Brian_11 wrote:

I have the 3D coordinates of start and end points of multiple helical coils and I want to generate these coils in a 3D space. I also know pitch, dia and etc. 

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Hi,

if these coils can be represented by approximating spline curves, you can transform your data file into ibl file and import this file into Creo. (ask Google ... creo import ibl file).