TITLE: famous space curves in geometry history?
QUESTION [7 upvotes]: For an university assignment I have to visualize some curves in 3 dimensional space.
Until now I've implemented Bézier, helix and conical spiral.
Could you give me some advice about some famous curves in geometry history?

REPLY [6 votes]: Though is it is not 3D, the Clothoid or Cornu Spiral is an amazing curve. It surely can be made 3D by adding a simple extra parameter $z(t)=t$. It has infinite length but converges to two points in the plane. It has several applications in optics and road engineering, for example. An it looks quite nice:

I found a 3D plot too: