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I have an SVG which is in the shape of a bone.

I need to have this shape wrap around a cylinder and have it extrude to have depth, however not be solid. Essentially a cookie cutter wrapped around a cylinder.

So far I've managed to import the SVG into Blender, that's as far as I've gotten. Most of the tutorials I see are about extruding a solid shape, but I'm not sure how to add thickness to the line of the bone and extrude from that.

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  • $\begingroup$ Is your bone shape SVG solid-filled or an outline? $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2021 at 2:26
  • $\begingroup$ There should be various options in the curve geometry for this. Please upload your blend file or a downsized version of it. $\endgroup$
    – TheLabCat
    Feb 13, 2021 at 2:37
  • $\begingroup$ It's just an outline. When I "covert to mesh" it is a series of points that make up a line of the bone shape. $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Feb 13, 2021 at 3:03
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    $\begingroup$ If you are able to post the exact SVG, I could most likely provide a demo of how to do it. $\endgroup$ Feb 13, 2021 at 3:50
  • $\begingroup$ See share link below for the bone SVG. Any help or pointers are appreciated. drive.google.com/file/d/1UZwZ3R7KRDY3Hy_xxm3CWG-Zck9ech9Q/… $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Feb 14, 2021 at 10:56

2 Answers 2

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There is no need to convert the curve to mesh.

Start with the curve you imported.

enter image description here

Extrusion can be done in the curve's geometry section. To add some thickness use some bevel as well

enter image description here

Create a lattice object, make it so the resolution on the w axis is only one segment.

enter image description here

Use the lattice modifier on the curve, and have the lattice be the deforming object.

enter image description here

and then shrinkwrap the lattice to the cylinder.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Ah, a lattice! Good solution. I might try this with a W resolution of two and a target normal offset on the second layer to get the edges of the cookie cutter to face outward instead of up though. $\endgroup$
    – HISEROD
    Feb 17, 2021 at 4:19
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    $\begingroup$ See: How to add a curve modifier to text $\endgroup$
    – susu
    Feb 17, 2021 at 4:20
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Preparation

Start by importing the svg and entering edit mode. Then, select two handles on opposite sides of the center and press ⇧ ShiftS for the snapping pie menu. Drag the cursor down before releasing the keys to choose Cursor to Selected.

cur to selected

In object mode, press W or RMB RMB for the Object Context Menu and find Origin to 3D Cursor.

orig to cur

With the origin now correctly positioned, ⎇ AltG will center the object in the scene.

Now convert the curve into a mesh via Object Context Menu > Convert to Mesh

conv to mesh

To clean up the mesh, delete all but one quadrant since it is symmetrical across two axes. I like to quickly press X followed by V (the underlined letter in the menu) to quickly delete vertices or edges, faces etc. by using their corresponding underlined letters.

del verts

The mesh has a ton of extra verts on this corner. Let's clean those up.

bad corner

Zoom in, select the unnecessary vertices and press ⎈ CtrlX to dissolve them.

oh no bad verts

Also delete every other vertex in the denser area on the right. Select > Checker Deselect can speed this part up significantly.

aaa more bad verts

Now that the vertices are nicely distributed, the mesh can be symmetrized via Mesh > Symmetrize. Use the Direction settings +X to -X and -Y to +Y in either order.

Your mesh should now look like this:
oooOOOooo aaaAAAaaa

Press F to fill the interior of the shape then press I to inset the face, creating faces around the edge. Delete the large face to be left with just the outer face loop.

outer loop

Extrude this loop upward to the desired height with E.

extrusion

Deformation

The shape can now easily be deformed across any surface by parenting it to a Grid mesh (Add > Mesh > Grid), adding a Surface Deform modifier with the grid as the target, and shrink-wrapping the grid to a cylinder, for example.

weee we're done

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