Evenly spaced vertical slats around an organic shape – workflow?

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1

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to model a series of vertical wooden slats (planks) with a consistent 3 mm gap between them, wrapping around an organic 3D form in Shapr3D.

What I want to achieve:

  • Each plank should follow the surface curvature (so not just a simple cylindrical array)

  • The spacing between planks must remain consistent (3 mm)

  • The planks should stay “standing” (i.e., oriented consistently relative to the surface)

What I’ve tried so far:

  • Sweep along projected curves → works for a single plank, but not scalable for many

  • Pattern tools → don’t seem to follow complex curvature properly

  • Offsetting curves on a double-curved surface → tricky and not very reliable

My question:
What is the best workflow in Shapr3D to create evenly spaced, repeated elements that follow an organic surface?

Is there a way to:

  • Distribute profiles along a surface?

  • Or generate multiple parallel curves directly on a body?

Any tips, workarounds, or example workflows would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

2

Drakosha made a linear array and then magically snapped the components to a an irregular closed line. Be darned if I can find the thread. I could not catch all of what he did as the video was too small. It was elegant though. Ask him.

3

Unfortunately, my approach won’t fully work in this situation because of the shape of the planks. The easiest solution right now is to create the sketch in another software package and then import it into Shapr3D. Or you can just wait until the Shapr3D team releases a “Pattern Along Path” feature.

4

No way to make them perpendicular to the tangent of the curve?

5

Only one by one.

6

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Additional clarification (with reference example):

I’ve attached an image to better illustrate the intent.

In this example, the geometry works because it’s essentially planar (or singly curved), so each plank can be placed with a simple radial or tangential logic.

However, what I’m trying to achieve goes beyond this:

  • Each plank is a rigid body (not a sketch element)
  • It should remain straight, but be oriented according to the local tangent of a guiding curve or surface
  • The key challenge is not spacing (a minimum gap is acceptable), but maintaining a stable “standing” orientation while following more complex curvature

This means the problem is fundamentally about:

  • Distributing bodies (not sketches)
  • While controlling their orientation using something like a local frame (tangent + normal)

At the moment, Shapr3D seems to lack:

  • A way to distribute bodies along curves/surfaces
  • Control over orientation continuity (preventing unwanted twist)
  • A way to define a consistent “up” direction while following curvature

So while the attached example is achievable due to its simple geometry, the same approach breaks down completely on double-curved or organic forms.

This feels like a core limitation rather than a missing workflow.

7

Practical limitation: manual workflow does not scale

It’s technically possible to solve this manually, but it does not scale in practice.

In my case, this would involve creating and orienting around 70–80 individual planks as separate extrusions/bodies, each adjusted to follow the curve.

At that point, it stops being a viable workflow and becomes purely manual repetition.

This further suggests that the limitation is not whether it can be done, but that Shapr3D currently lacks the tools to handle this kind of repeated, orientation-controlled geometry efficiently.

8

Why this matters (beyond this specific case):

Ultimately, this is about being able to design based on what actually performs best — not just what is easiest to model.

In nature, structures are rarely straight, uniform, or based on simple primitives. They adapt to forces, curvature, and local conditions.

If our tools mainly support:

  • straight lines
  • simple patterns
  • uniform arrays

then we are effectively constrained to designing what is easy for the software, rather than what is optimal.

To move towards more realistic, efficient, and biomimetic design approaches, we need tools that can:

  • handle curvature naturally
  • distribute elements across surfaces
  • control orientation and relationships between parts

Otherwise, we’re limited to approximating organic structures instead of actually designing them.

P.S. This might be worth sharing with the development team, as it feels like a core capability gap rather than a specific workflow issue.

9

Aren’t you asking for an app within the app?