OpenSCAD making complex parts

[curious aardvark]

The simplest way to make an arch is to use the rotate extrude command to create a 180 degree curve and then resize it to get that upward arch.

resize([20,50,3])rotate_extrude(angle=180,convexity = 10) translate([20, 0, 0]) circle(d = 1);

A simple one line Arch generator :-)

Adjust the roundness of the shape by changing '$fn='

So a simple parametric arch script looks like this:

// CA's simple arch generator

$fn=80; // change to adjust roundness of arch ie: numbers between 4&20 make some interesting shapes

ah=30; // arch height
aw=40; // arch width
at=3; //arch thickness
bt=5; //beam thickness
bw=50; // adjusts beam width - larger numbers make narrower beams

resize([aw,ah,at])rotate_extrude(angle=180,convexity = 10) translate([bw, 0, 0]) circle(d = bt);

Not sure you can do it any simpler. Obviously you'd need to make a slightly smaller arch and difference it to thin the top part down.
Although you can also do that by adjusting beam thickness and arch thickness.

But basically that's a pretty versatile one line arch generator :-)

what other shapes do you need ?