Designing a swimming pool bottom of varying depth.

[mgianzero]

Designed my swimming pool but now trying to add a bottom of varying depth.  The only practical way I see to do this is with polyline solids.  Here's my attempt by using three separate solids and laying them side-by-side.

 

Seems to work okay, but notice how my solid of varying height (the deep end) overshoots the outline of the pool.  How do I fix this?

 

Also, notice that I used a pool cove on two of the three polyline solids.  So I converted two of my polyline solids to countertops to add molding.  However, is there a way to add a pool cove (or molding) to the varying depth polyline solid?

 

Or, is there a simpler, better way to do this?

 

Marc G.

 

Pool w: varying depth V2.zip

[mtldesigns]

Hey Marc,

 

I wasn't able to open your model.

 

There is no easy way, unless its a rectangle.  Even then its multiple steps and layers.  You will have to use a lot of poly solids and a lot of molded polylines and various shapes, depths and widths.  It is trial and error.

 

The walls and edging are all molding, for example the edging is a molding poly Sill 1, 10" wd x 1.5"thk, the walls are a molding poly CA-001. You just change the height of each one to get the build.  Use solids for items like the pool bottom, and misc. items, like I have the stools.   I create each  molding on its own layer, so I can control later.  It hard to pick one to modify, with they are stacked.  This way I can lock the ones I am not working.  

 

I found a video of instructions a long time ago on this blog.. it helped. I will try to find it for you. 

[mgianzero]

So, to state it simply, there's no easy way to add a molding or edge to a 3D shape like this?

 

 

 

[mtldesigns]

I am assuming that's the bottom?  Not that I am aware of to answer your question.  But someone else on here might know of a better way and would be glad to know how myself.  The video I attached below, is what I used as my go-to back in 2016.  He used roads for the bottom, which might work in your case, trial and error i guess.  I used a solid for my pool bottoms and extended the length.    

 

 

  

[johnny]

If this is just for fun the I suppose getting Chief to do back-flips can be entertaining enough.  If this is going to be a real pool built from your plans I'd recommend using another app.  There are free apps like Blender worth learning and then you can just export the model file into Chief as a symbol object to finish your back yard planning.

[mgianzero]

1 hour ago, solver said:

Eric,

 

This doesn't really help me here.  What's it a picture of and how did you do it?  Looks like a polyline solid.  So did you trim out an edge in a molding?  I can't tell.

[johnny]

18 hours ago, mgianzero said:

Eric,

 

This doesn't really help me here.  What's it a picture of and how did you do it?  Looks like a polyline solid.  So did you trim out an edge in a molding?  I can't tell.

 

You can create shapes like that fairly easy with boolean operations on solids - however, accurately controlling and adjusting those shapes is far more effort in my opinion than its worth.  I hope X13 (which Chief said would be greatly improved in this area) will bring some needed relief for accurate shape modeling.

 

(i suppose unless Eric did it some other magical way)

[Chopsaw]

3 hours ago, johnny said:

(i suppose unless Eric did it some other magical way)

 

That looks a bit like a magic molding to me. 

[mgianzero]

7 hours ago, johnny said:

 

You can create shapes like that fairly easy with boolean operations on solids - however, accurately controlling and adjusting those shapes is far more effort in my opinion than its worth.  I hope X13 (which Chief said would be greatly improved in this area) will bring some needed relief for accurate shape modeling.

 

(i suppose unless Eric did it some other magical way)

Fair enough.

 

I know I'm going a little crazy with this pool plan, but it's mostly to learn all about CA and what I can and can't do.  And also what can be done easily.

 

Let's hope that CA X13 does provide some more editing abilities regarding 3D objects, molding, etc.  I know you can apply a 3D molding to a 2D object that is converted to a 3D solid such as a countertop.  But it's not truly a 3D object.  Rather, it's a 2D object the is extruded in the 3rd dimension.  Not quite a fully-editable 3D object.

 

 

Marc

[VisualDandD]

A while back I posted about making  a pool using terrain for the sloping bottom, and using curbs for the transition of the walls to the bottom.

 

Here is the thread.  Just a different approach

 

 

[mgianzero]

14 hours ago, VisualDandD said:

A while back I posted about making  a pool using terrain for the sloping bottom, and using curbs for the transition of the walls to the bottom.

 

Here is the thread.  Just a different approach

 

 

 

Yes, a very clever idea.  I'll have to play around with that.

 

Thanks for the post!

 

Marc G.

[mgianzero]

By the way, I ended up modeling a pool using that technique.  I can get a very realistic pool bottom that way.  But still no way of place a pool cove on a 3 dimensional bottom like that I can think of.  

 

Then, my biggest problem, was trying to get this model incorporated into my existing plan that had other elevations and retaining walls.  It gets very complicated to do.  Still struggling with it.

 

Any way, here is my pool with a variable bottom to it:

 

I've also included my plan for anyone who wants to look at it.

 

Marc.

 

Pool (with terrain bottom).zip