Houdini 20.0 Nodes Geometry nodes

Spiral geometry node

Creates spirals and helices.

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Overview

This Operation is used to create spirals and helices.

Placing a Spiral in the viewer

To...Do this

Place the spiral anywhere in the scene

  1. Click the Spiral tool on the Create tab.

  2. Move the cursor into the scene view.

    Note

    You can hold Alt to detach the spiral from the construction plane.

  3. Click LMB to place the spiral anywhere in the scene view.

    If you press Enter without clicking, Houdini places the spiral at the origin.

Place the spiral at the origin

Press ⌃ Ctrl + LMB on the Spiral tool on the shelf.

Parameters

Primitive Type

Type of geometry created.

Order

Sets the spline order when building a NURBS curve type. The lowest order is 2 (linear); the highest is 11. Cubic curves are built by default.

Family

Specifies how the curve moves away from the central axis as the angle increases.

Archimedean

The distance between turns is a constant.

Logarithmic

The distance between turns increases in geometric progression.

Mode

Specifies how the spiral’s number of turns should be specified.

Height and Pitch

The number of turns is determined by the height and pitch settings.

Turns

The number of turns is explicitly specified by a parameter.

Height

Height

Vertical distance between the start and end of the spiral.

Pitch

Change in curve’s height between each turn.

Turns

Number of rotations from the start to end point of the loop.

Height Ramp

Whether to use a ramp to define a scaling factor applied to the height from the spiral’s origin.

Profile

A ramp defining the a scaling factor applied to the height from the spiral’s origin.

Radius

Radius Mode

Change per Turn

The parameter specifies the amount the radius changes each turn.

Explicit End Radius

The end radius is explicit specified by the End Radius parameter.

Start Radius

Start radial distance from the spiral’s origin.

End Radius

End radial distance from the spiral’s origin.

Increase per Turn

Specifies how much the rate an Archimedean spiral’s radius increases each turn.

Scale per Turn

Specifies how much the rate a logarithmic spiral’s radius increases each turn.

Radius Scale

Uniform scale for the radius.

Radius Ramp

Whether to use a ramp to define a scaling factor applied to the distance from the spiral’s origin.

Profile

A ramp defining the a scaling factor applied to the distance from the spiral’s origin.

Construction

Direction

Whether the curve spirals clockwise or counterclockwise about the spiral’s origin.

Start Angle

Rotation about the spiral’s origin at the start of the curve.

Divisions Mode

Specifies how the number of divisions should be specified.

Divisions per Curve

The number of divisions is explicitly specified by a parameter.

Divisions per Turn

The number of divisions depends on the number of turns.

Divisions per Curve

The number of points + 1 used to describe the curve. The more divisions a curve has, the smoother it looks.

Divisions per Turn

The number of points used to describe each turn of the curve. The more divisions a curve has, the smoother it looks.

Uniform Division Spacing

When enabled, each divisions represents the same change of angle along the curve.

Spiral Count

Total number of spirals. Distributed by dividing 360 by the number of spirals.

Transform

Translate

Location of the origin of the spiral.

Rotate

Amount of rotation about the spiral’s origin.

Uniform Scale

Uniform scaling.

Output Attributes

Output Angle

Turn this checkbox on to create an attribute on the points containing the angle from the spiral’s origin.

Angle

An attribute with this name will be created on the output containing the angle from the spiral’s origin.

Output X Axis

Turn this checkbox on to create an attribute on the points containing the vectors perpendicular to the curve tangents (z axis) and up vectors (y axis).

X Axis

A vector attribute with this name will be created on the output that is perpendicular to the curve tangents (z axis) and up vectors (y axis).

Output Y Axis

Turn this checkbox on to create an attribute on the points containing the up vector, perpendicular to the curve tangents (z axis).

Y Axis

A vector attribute with this name will be created on the output that corresponds with the up vector, perpendicular to the curve tangents (z axis).

Output Tangent (Z Axis)

Turn this checkbox on to create an attribute on the points containing the curve tangents.

Tangent (Z Axis)

A vector attribute with this name will be created on the output that corresponds with the curve tangents.

Output Orient

Turn this checkbox on to create an attribute on the points containing the curve’s orientation.

Orient

An attribute with this name will be created on the output containing the curve’s orientation.

Output Distance

Turn this checkbox on to create an attribute on the points containing the distance along the curve.

Distance

An attribute with this name will be created on the output containing the distance along the curve.

Examples

BoltSpiral Example for Spiral geometry node

This example demonstrates how to use the new Spiral node to create a bolt.

Geometry nodes