French curve
A French curve is a template made out of plastic, metal or wood composed of many different curves. It is used in manual drafting to get a smooth curve of varying radii.
The curve is placed on the drawing material, and a pencil, knife or other implement is traced around its curves to produce the desired result.
The image on the right shows the three most common French curves; this set is also known as the Burmester set. The one in the far left corner is most commonly used for hyperbolas; the smaller one in the far right corner is suited for ellipses. The large one below is used most for parabolas. This information comes from excellent page on drawing tools.[1]i tried to click on footnote one and got nothing. however, dear reader, click on edit this page and you can see the name.
Modern computer CAD drafting systems use vector based graphics to achieve a precise radius, so no template is required.
External links
- Weisstein, Eric W. French Curve from MathWorld.
- Use of the French Curve from Integrated Publishing.this link is incomplete showing only the first page
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