Sphere Spiral in Blender: a tutorial

I first learned about Sphere Spirals back in 2002 via a POV-Ray Hall Of Fame entry by Tor Olav Kristensen. The entry points to a nice mathematical write-up of the underlying idea. (source code for the original work) In this post, I’ll show one way to build a similar object in Blender. Blender is a free, open source, 3D modeling software that runs on most platforms. My approach isn’t mathematically exact, but visually it’s very similar. Step 1. Start with a UV Sphere. 8 segments. 8 rings. 1m radius (you can use other units if you prefer). * * * Step 2. Enter object edit mode and select the faces to keep. I like to remove the top and bottom faces to cut a hole at each pole. You can experiment by keeping or removing different sets of faces. * * * Step 3. Invert the selection. * * * Step 4. Delete the faces. We are now left with a single band. * * * Step 5. Add the “Array” modifier. We want the shape to be a circle. Set the count to 4. Pick the Z axis. Enable merge. We now have 4 bands…