Ron Parker wrote:

> Why do the ends have to be vertical, exactly?
>
> Try my spring include file or my torspline include file at
> http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html for a couple examples of
> interesting things you can do with lots of toruses.  The spring
> include file is old (POV 3.0) so you'll need to make a few small
> syntax changes, but it uses four toruses per revolution.  If you feed
> the torspline file a series of points in a helical shape, it will
> obligingly generate the corresponding helix.  It can even do a
> conical spring if that's what you need.  You *might* have to
> calculate an appropriate starting direction to smooth out the
> "wrinkles" though.

I meant shear, not skew.
Vetical assuming your spring goes along the Y axis.
If you have a 90 degree section of a torus, and you scale and rotate it to be
part of a helix, if one end were along the x-y plane the other would not be
along the y-z plane. Which is what you would need for two to evenly meet up.
(And simply reversing the ends on the second one would give the same result as
a half-torus.) However, with shearing, I can take any degree section I want and
shear it along Y to keep both ends vertical.

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