[TheForge] helical railing calculations

[Bruce Freeman]

Mike,
An elliptical helix would be a little more work, but I think it would
be amenable to the same approach I used for round.  The key question is,
"what do you MEAN by an elliptical helix".  For a staircase, the risers
should be uniform, and the steps should be more-or-less uniform.  I
can't see how that would be consistent with a helix.
Bruce
NJ

>>> Mike Spencer <mspencer at tallships.ca> 9/22/2004 12:40:40 PM >>>



I did once try to do some calculations for an elliptical helical stair
and, after some pages of scribbling and grovelling through books,
smacked into something called "elliptical integrals" that I couldn't
hack.  Maybe now that I have Maple V [1] it would be less
impenetrable?

- Mike