Here are two pictures of both prototype “metal tree” design roof support poles side by side. The left one is the prototype from last week, and the right one is a new one just built today:
When viewed from the top, the left design has a “T” profile, and the right has an “X” profile from the top. The idea is to have them alternate along the pathway in order to reduce the repetitiveness of having the same branching pattern on every post. You can obviously make every post different, but this was easier to design, the “T” and the “X” branches fitting nicely together to support the roof evenly. And I thought it looked reasonable in the FreeCAD design.
I tested the strength of the “branches” by pulling down on the ends (pretty hard). It does feel like it has more than enough strength to hold up the light polycarbonate roof we have planned. So I think we are ready to go ahead and repeat this pattern down the entire length of this walkway (i.e. about 9 poles).