Wow! Thanks so much pbacot!

@pbacot said:

P.S. It looks like your rib may have a third surface or a double ridge--though the 2d drawings don't look consistent on this. And the section view has a complex profile. I used the plan drawing for my approach, with a single ridge, but I think the same approach would work if you need that detail.

Yes, there's a flat ridge at the top of the rib, the plan diagram does not show it well. There's a cut section of the rib showing the width of b and height h.

Here's another bar profile with 3 ribs and actual bar (with different profiles here) found via online search.

Here's what I got playing around. The first is using your method, the second using Shapebender.

I just need a short section of it. With a template, I can draw bars with different rib profiles (eg. 2 ribs, same direction, criss-cross pattern, different dimensions and angles, etc)

I had the idea to draw out the protruding bit separately flat as a component, then have it wrap around the cylinder, but I'm not quite sure how to go about modelling the rib.

How do I taper the ends to make it narrower?

The 2nd part is to have it wrap around the cylinder. I'm looking at Shapebender and past forum posts on array along path, but have not found a solution so far. Am open to any help and suggestions.

Thanks.

Hi,

I'd like to model a ribbed bar from a given diagram such as this

.

I'm not too sure how to begin making the protruding bits that wraps around the cylinder. Any pointers to other tutorials or tips is appreciated.

Thanks.