Finally after much fiddling around I'm getting close to finishing a new Twist command - after fixing up a few more loose ends it will be ready and I'll then put out a new v3 beta.

Twist will be a new deformation tool, going under Transform > Deform > Twist, next to the Flow command.

The way it works is you pick a twist axis (defined by 2 points) and then an angle. Your objects are twisted with 0 rotation at the start point of the axis, gradually increasing until rotating by the full angle that you specified at the top of the twist axis. This is how a helix curve is shaped so it basically helix-izes your objects, and in fact if you twist a line parallel to the twist axis that line will turn into a helix.

Some examples - starting with this shape:



With a vertical twist axis, twist with an angle of 40 degrees gives this:



With 180 degrees:



With a whole bunch of degrees:



You can also use it to twist up something like this:





Here's an example of a more complex object being twisted:



Twist with a horizontal axis 180 degrees:



Twist along the corner-to-corner diagonal of 360 degrees:




Should open up a variety of new possibilities. I've just got a bit more work to do on the mouse interactive part where you can use the mouse to define the angle by kind of winding it around the axis.

- Michael