CompuServe Messages

<<I would analyze this by making a 2-D model of the tube – basically a flat donut (a circle within a circle). After the analysis, I could obtain a picture of this flat donut with red areas of high stress, blue areas, intermediate areas, etc. However, it would be more dramatic for customer presentations if I could take this 2-D color picture of the tube cross-section and extrude it to actually create a 3-D model of some length of tube.>> Take the image you made of the cross section with it's associated stresses. Crop the image so the tube touchs all of the edges of the bitmap. The height of the bitmap now represents the diameter of the tube. In 3DS create a tube with Create/Object/Tube with the exact dimensions of the tube you created in 2D. Then create a material using the cropped bitmap. Then using planar mapping assign this material to the front of the tube. Hint: use Surface/Mapping/Adjust/Scale with Alt+Click on the object to scale to the size of the front of the tube. The result will be the bitmap extended along the length of the tube as you want. DaviD "Red, yellow, orange, blue" GouID