Hi Mr JDPReynolds, Sweepers, both Content or Not,
I have gibed out the 6-year-old design with an underlying API blob simulating phone cable cords; old-fashioned ones, not the WiFi connection. Consider visit a museum or the Oval Office if you want to see one.
If I recall correctly, it was one of my first grilling encounters with meanders of F360 API … which, after a blood&sweet&loss-of-hair … resulted in something workable … the object simulating bending a telephone cord dynamically, allowing for its extension, twisting and selection of bending strategies. One of them calculated a 'helical' twist around tightly bent sections, accounting for a cable geometry and avoiding a sweep intersection.
So, I dug out the design … to check it in the context of the post with the title as paraphrased by Mr LippyLighting – "We've answered posts with these spiral "things" for years …" (well said!)
The test design opened correctly… but the underlying API object refused to cooperate. I have not spent too much time investigating what I poorly stitched years ago because… the current UI Sweep Feature also failed with the 6-year-old geometry supplied. Thus, the problem seems to have fungi roots … difficult to trace … and more likely than not, rotten mycorrhiza is on my side also. I would do the task differently now, … anyway.
In order to somehow put a memory stamp on the 6-years-old event and the current encounter with "spiral things" and also encourage TF360 to labour on the issue more intensely, I am attaching a 6-years-old flexi cable example (the excerpt from more extensive design) with underlying input geometry as my contribution to … the potentially satisfactory solution. I hope that the Surface Sheriff will notice how smooth the examples are!
Hopefully, the next 6-years should be enough for TF360 to gib out the practical method of generating a "spiral thing". Too long? What is the 6-years?… the last one went soooo fast!


Attached files:
SpiralThing.f3d F3D ( 14MB) https://a360.co/3RUx0dE
SpiralThing_arcd.png 4K_stereo ( 3.3MB) https://a360.co/45V3kDk
SpiralThing_mono.png 4K_mono ( 2.6MB) https://a360.co/3xLQoTw
SpiralThing_arcd.mp4 4K_stereo ( 46MB) https://a360.co/3XOdAuO
SpiralThing_mono.mp4 4K_mono ( 25MB) https://a360.co/4eRVApu
Postface:
The spiral-type topological object requires a 'dense' numerical definition of their surfaces.
It is a challenge, as in the Fusion, the traditional approach creates a bulky, costly, unresponsive design entity.
What would be the alternative then?
The current mighty computing hardware is vastly underutilized, particularly in the Ultimate Fusion processes. I am unsure what is beyond Ultimate, probably … Nihilness; thus, who would like to progress there? …if one can not go beyond …, start the journey… from scratch … defining spiral-thing as a run-time, close to a silicon procedure with only a few basic and dynamic parameters. The quite different CAD kernel constitution paradigms…
Regards
MichaelT
P.S.
I adopted the phrase 'spiral thing' wildly&widely throughout the post. It is so ... appropriate!
I hope that you don't mind Mr TrippyLighting :)!
MichaelT