Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do pinstripe?
Attached are some sweeps of a circle on a half catenary, and on an euler spiral/clothoid/spiro.
An end point that is blunter would be nice.

Also attached is a trace attempt, with irregular widths.

Hi Bemfarmer, If I understand correctly maybe sweep with two profiles, having a smaller profile for the end?
The end shape could be filleted after.

Otherwise, if you have Illustrator, the "width tool" is quite flexible coming from such a rhumatized program.
Inkscape with spiro splines and custom profiles applied to the stroke might do the trick also.

Marc

Hi Brian, for a blunt tip you could try doing a revolve which can form a rounded tip easily and then do a curve-to-curve flow for mapping the revolve onto your bendy pattern, you would use a centerline for the flow.

Example here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5316.6


It can be difficult in general though to model a raised relief type pattern in NURBS, there is some other software called ArtCAM which is specialized in making raised patterns which can be easier to use for doing these types of patterns.

You could also try ZSurf, but it probably will have difficulty with narrow pieces like you want to do:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3825.2

- Michael

Thank you, Marc and Michael, for the great ideas and methods.