Follow me along irregular path/surface

I wish to use the follow me tool to drag a semi circle across a curved arc, so the semicircle would be wider in the middle and thinner at the ends. I have attached pictures, hopefully it’s clear what I’m asking. If not using the follow me tool, how would one go about this? I tried twice, using the follow me tool to go across the top path, and then once across the bottom (arc) path, but they both showed unsatisfactory results. I tried selecting both the top bar on the side and the arc on the bottom as a path, but it told me the path was incorrect. Thanks for any help.

Followme simply extrudes the profile shape along the path; it does not scale it along the way. I’ll let the others chime in with their favorite extensions or basic tools to do this :wink:

Alright, I figured it probably wouldn’t be able to do this. Thanks anyways!

Here’s one way, using only built-in tools:

  1. work with only half of the length, as the shape is symmetrical
  2. use the two-point arc tool to draw a semi-circular arc from each vertex of the bottom curve up to the top edge (which looks straight in you figure). Rotate the view first so that the tool will draw in the same plane as the end and use inference tips to make the diameter line along the blue axis.
  3. stitch the vertices of the adjacent arcs to each other using the line tool
  4. for any places that don’t form faces in step 3 (probably most of them) draw a diagonal line from vertex to opposite vertex to triangulate
  5. reverse any faces that happen to come out wrong way out
  6. select all the geometry (triple-click), move a copy out along the long axis, flip along that axis, and move back in to form the whole shape
  7. soften/smooth the edges if desired.

or something like this…

john

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Just what I needed! @john_drivenupthewall that works great. Thanks

I must be missing something, John…it looks like the bottom surface in your example isn’t curved, as you are only scaling horizontally. Wasn’t the original issue the curved bottom?

@slbaumgartner,
Steve, I only looked momentarily at the images as he states they are unsatifactory, so I was only considering the line

I was unsure exactly what was required and my comment was meant more as a question
or something like this?
lucky guess it seems…

john

Well you see, an arc, like a circle (in SU) is divided into segments/sides. You can adjust the number by typing in a specified number before creating the arc, and hitting enter. Those sides of the arc are actually straight, but all together, they form an arc. Thus pulling and re-scaling each piece of the semi-circle to the arc actually works and fits perfectly. I didn’t even think of doing this, so again thanks!