Curvy Lines on curve surface

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Birk Binnard on October 15, 2016 at 2:18pm

Do you mean something like this:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1724626

or maybe this:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1724626

The basic technique is fairly simple:

1. Create a 2D curve in the XY plane that looks like the outline of a gear wheel

2. Scale a bunch of copies of the curve to different sizes (I use 11 different sized curves.)

3. Move each curve vertically to a different Z-height

4. Rotate each curve to get the desired wavy/wiggly effect

5. Create a Loft surface using all the curves.

A critical step when creating the Loft is to add the curves in order - either top to bottom or bottom to top.

Step 4 can be omitted if you want a constant curvature throughout the final part. In this case all you have to do is Twist by the desired amount the Loft surface made from un-rotated curves.