How to make a spiral stair case in Inventor

What is the most efficient way of creating a spiral stair case in Autodesk Inventor?
I've seen models already created, but I haven't seen any tutorials.

I've been constraining each step to the center pole manually, but I know there is some easy way around this!

I'm also having difficulties creating and attaching the railing correctly.

5 Answers

You could try the following

1. create a new part. In the part draw a 3D spiral, the length of the stairway with a suitable number of turns.
2. draw a feature (cube, cylinder etc) that you can then pattern along this curve. The feature can be anything. Its going to be used as a reference later. To pattern it use a rectangular pattern, but select the spiral as the direction. You need to adjust the setting of the pattern to make the feature orientation adjust as it patterns along the spiral.
3. create a model of a step
4. create a new assembly file and assemble the spiral part.
5. assemble the step to into the assembly
6 pattern the step using the patterned feature in the spiral part as the reference. The step will be patterned the same number of times as the feature in the spiral

Clear as mud..?

Have a look at the attached file to see if it makes sense.

Its based on a 3D sketch for a spiral curve. I've then drawn a cube feature at the start of the curve. This cube is patterned a number of times along the full length of the curve.

To pattern the cube use a rectangle pattern and then select the 3D curve as the guide curve.

The default option for the pattern spacing is an offset value. Change the option to 'curve' this then allows you to pattern along the full length of the curve uniformly

The attached zip file shows the process. You might find it a useful learning experience but from the result I'm not sure it will produce the result you need

I'm not an advanced user of Inventor, so I'll always have some questions along the way - bare with me ;)

At #1, you say "draw a 3D spiral". Are you talking about a helical curve in 3D sketch mode, or the coil tool in 2D std. ipt. ?

Man, I can not make this work. I think I've misunderstood your guide, cause I must be doing something wrong.

I can't make anything pattern along the railing.