NURBS curves, revolve & loft
Draw a spline, edit its control points, then spin it into a lathed surface or skin a surface across several curves.
Open in the interactive manual →The interactive version has full-text search, a table of contents, and light/dark themes.
NURBS curves are smooth splines you draw by hand. On their own they make nice tubes and lines; their real power is turning into surfaces via revolve (a lathe) and loft (skinning across curves).
Drawing a curve
Choose Create ▸ NURBS Curve to enter draw mode, then click to place control points in the viewport. Press Enter to finish (you need at least two points) or Esc to cancel.
Shaping the curve
With a curve selected, the Properties Curve section offers:
- Type — Catmull-Rom / Centripetal / Chordal interpolation.
- Closed — loop the curve back on itself.
- Tension — how tightly the line hugs its points.
- Display — render it as a Tube (with a Tube Radius) or a thin Line, in any Color.
The Control Points list lets you nudge each point's X/Y/Z, remove points, or + Add Point.
Turning curves into surfaces
In the Operations section:
| Operation | What it makes |
|---|---|
| Revolve Surface | Spins the curve's profile 360° around the Y axis — a lathe. Perfect for vases, glasses, bottles, pillars. Set Revolve Segs for smoothness, then click Revolve. |
| Loft Selected Curves | Skins a surface across two or more selected curves, like stretching fabric over a set of ribs. Set Loft Segs, then click Loft. |
Both create a new geometry object and leave the original curve intact, so you can tweak the profile and revolve again.