Advance Steel – Elliptical Plates & Curved Beams

Have you ever wanted to create an elliptical plate? Maybe as a cover to a tube with an angled cut. Or perhaps you want a curved beam following and elliptical path. Well both items are really very simple to create once you know a single secret.

The main secret is very simple. You can use the standard AutoCAD Ellipse commands to draw the ellipses you need as construction lines. However, normally these are ellipse elements, and you cannot do anything else with them. What you need to do is change an AutoCAD System Variable to make these ellipses into Polylines that you can use for other tasks. Just type PELLIPSE then 1. This makes the right setting.

Now you can draw your ellipses using the normal AutoCAD ellipse commands but the resulting shapes are actually polylines.  You can use these polylines as the bases for various Advance Steel commands.

• Beams following an elliptical path = Home > Objects > Beam, Polyline. Then choose the Polyline option and select the elliptical polyline you have created.
• Elliptical Plate = Objects > Plates > Plate at Polyline. Then choose the elliptical polyline.
• Elliptical Gratings = Objects > Gratings (slideout) > Grating at Polyline. Then choose your elliptical polyline.