hi hyposmurf;
sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I had a day off!
I was trying to draw a 3D flexible accordian-type hose running along a curved path. I thought that if I could run a helix along the path, that would be a useful visual element in the drawing. I have a few helix lisps, but the only can be created in a straight line. I searched around various lisp libraries, but I didn't see anything that would follow a path.
As a workaround, I ended up creating a helix with a single revoltion, making that a block, and placing an aligned arrangement along the curved path through the "measure" command.
Still, I would be interested to know a good method to represent a bending flexible hose.
BTW, I have extruded shapes other than a circle along the helix, but the alignment of the extruded shape can be unpredicatble. Also, you end up with a very heavy drawing in terms of file size.