Curve Tube

A 3D tube that follows a Blender Bezier curve. Each control point’s radius (Alt+S) controls the tube thickness along the path, enabling tapered and variable-width tubes.

Basic Usage

  1. Create a 3D Bezier curve object in Blender
  2. Shift+A > Chisel > Curve Tube or use the Pie Menu
  3. In the Object Properties panel, set the Curve pointer to your curve object
  4. Adjust Tube Radius for overall thickness
  5. Use Alt+S in Edit Mode on individual control points to vary thickness along the path

Parameters

Curve Object

  • Description: Pointer to a Blender Bezier curve object
  • Effect: Defines the tube’s center path. The curve object is automatically parented and locked

Tube Radius

  • Description: Base tube radius, modulated by per-control-point Alt+S values
  • Range: 0.001 to 5.0 (soft max)
  • Default: 0.2
  • Effect: Controls the overall thickness of the tube. Individual control point radii scale relative to this base

Rounding

  • Range: 0.0 to 10.0 (soft max 2.0)
  • Default: 0.0
  • Effect: Rounds the tube caps

Profile

  • Options: Round / Sharp / Soft / Tight / Chamfer
  • Default: Round

How It Works

Curve Tube uses native Bezier SDF evaluation with a Newton + Cardano solver running directly in the shader. This gives exact distance field results without texture sampling, producing clean surfaces at any scale.

Unlike the 2D Curve primitive which extrudes a flat profile, Curve Tube creates a true 3D tube that follows the curve in all three dimensions.

See Also