How to Draw 3D Ring (Torus) With Vector Graphics (Tutorial)


Looks pretty cool, huh? I could only find a tutorial for how to draw a torus from the angle directly above it (here). But I wanted mine to be from a different angle, so I created this tutorial. I created this in Inkscape (it's free), but this should work fine for any vector graphics package (even photoshop). Just download the SVG file which contains the tutorial and example shapes at each stage of the creation.


The above link opens in Google Drive. From there, press Ctrl+S to save it to your computer so you can open it with Inkscape.

Hope it helps!

8 comments:

Bohdan said...

This is great! How did you also add those 3-d arrows on top?

Richard Coombs said...

Ah, thanks a lot!

I think I just added the lines on top by drawing them manually (e.g. with a bezier curve). I probably used clip/mask to stop the lines going outside the torus shape.

For the arrows, I added lots of tiny lines, each with an arrow-head end. I coloured the arrow head to match (in Inkscape you have to use the tool "color markers to stroke" or something, find it in the menus). Point the arrows in the right direction and line them up on your line.

You can experiment with putting the line under the shadow (or some of the shadows) to make it look as if the line is 3D too, but I found it made the line too faded so I don't think I did this in the end.

Hope this helps!

Anonymous said...

Dude, this is exactly what I need! Thanks a ton

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much!!!

Anonymous said...

thanks very much. I'm trying to adapt this to include a cross-section cut away. Do you by any chance have any tips?

Richard Coombs said...

Hi Will, wow that sounds really tricky! No sorry I wouldn't know where to begin with that, it has been so long since I first made this. If you google images "exploded pie chart doughnut" you might find some reference images to work from. Alternatively, some chart applications may allow you to show a "pie chart" as a "doughnut" and then "explode" it to separate the segments (maybe even Microsoft Excel). Perhaps this could work! Good luck...

Anonymous said...

Hey, its amazing! Could I use the torus template for a paper?

Richard Coombs said...

Thanks! Sure, feel free to use it!