Feature request: Parallel extrude along path

[jaikdean]

The existing “extrude along path” feature extrudes perpendicular to the path, like the red image. It would be useful to allow parallel extrusion along a path, like the blue image.

[nicklockwood]

Thanks for the suggestion - I'm just looking into this now, but I've found some bugs in the current implementation and I'm having a bit of trouble recreating either of these shapes. Do you happen to have a snippet of ShapeScript code to produce the left hand shape that I can use for testing?

[jaikdean]

This gives a rough approximation of the perpendicular vs parallel extrude along paths.

define sweepPoints (
    (1.000157 0.002094)
    (0.998642 0.002569)
    (0.994106 0.003984)
    (0.986575 0.006316)
    (0.976089 0.009524)
    (0.962709 0.013555)
    (0.946509 0.018343)
    (0.927582 0.023810)
    (0.906037 0.029875)
    (0.881997 0.036445)
    (0.855603 0.043428)
    (0.827009 0.050725)
    (0.796385 0.058239)
    (0.763914 0.065870)
    (0.729788 0.073517)
    (0.694216 0.081078)
    (0.657412 0.088451)
    (0.619601 0.095532)
    (0.581016 0.102217)
    (0.541894 0.108401)
    (0.502481 0.113980)
    (0.463021 0.118853)
    (0.423763 0.122921)
    (0.384955 0.126093)
    (0.346846 0.128290)
    (0.309677 0.129441)
    (0.273687 0.129495)
    (0.239109 0.128415)
    (0.206162 0.126188)
    (0.171835 0.122326)
    (0.139362 0.116037)
    (0.109873 0.107670)
    (0.083605 0.097631)
    (0.060740 0.086326)
    (0.041395 0.074153)
    (0.025636 0.061477)
    (0.013484 0.048626)
    (0.004914 0.035872)
    (-0.000128 0.023429)
    (-0.001729 0.011445)
    (0.000000 0.000000)
)

define sweepPath path {
    for i in sweepPoints {
        point i
    }
}

define star {
    path {
        for 1 to 5 {
            point 0 -0.05
            rotate 1 / 5
            point 0 -0.1
            rotate 1 / 5
        }
        point 0 -0.05
    }
}

// Perpendicular
extrude {
    position 0 0.5 0
    star
    along sweepPath
}

// Parallel
group {
    loft {
        orientation 0 -0.5 0

        for i in sweepPoints {
            translate 0 i.y i.x
            star
            translate 0 -i.y -i.x
        }
    }
}

[nicklockwood]

@jaikdean this is implemented in the latest version. Use axisAligned true per the example here: https://shapescript.info/mac/builders.html#extrude