I hope that subject line is clear enough!

I am doing a project in which I need to produce shapes like the following:

Right now I'm doing the whole thing by hand and eyeballing it.

I do have the option of having space between the circles, and I've tried that, too, but still eyeballing it.

I suspect that Pattern Along Path will feature predominantly in an elegant solution, but I'm having the following problems:

• The "interpolated" circles are not evenly interpolated, so Interpolate Between Paths isn't really working. I get exactly interpolated circles the diameters of which I need to adjust by hand so that they fit within the outline.
• It's hard to place the circles with non-random spaces between them, so they look decent. Touching was merely the best of the options.

I have created a midline that the rotation centers can snap to, but that's not much help. I've used Stitch Sub-Paths and Measure Segments to give me starting diameters to interpolate from, but again, I still have to do adjustments by hand.

I may stuck with doing so, of course, but it just offends my sense of the fitness of things!

Thanks for any suggestions!

Perhaps like so:

Okay . . . everything after step 1 is very clear, thank you!

I am afraid my brain is not as acute as it was a decade ago, and I am not sure what is going on in the first step, though. Can you clarify that?

My apologies!

I placed 2 separate lines of different length with a guessed space and called the Interpolate feature to insert 6 additional lines inbetween. I lined them up manually with enabled snapping real quick.

No need to apologies: I recently have just minutes to react having no computer or Internet at hand almost always. So I tend to rush when I have the chance.

Ah, I get it! It hadn't occurred to me that one could interpolate lines as well as shapes!

Thank you so much for taking some of your limited computer time to help me. And my condolences on that situation. I've been addicted since the late eighties, and I am scary without my computer and Internet connection.

(Same here; started with the DTP revolution for me on MacIntosh. I'm stranded with my old sickly parents who need all the help they can get. Only with iPad and intermittent WiFi access from a nice neighbor. Studio is an hour away by bike. Haven't been home for over 3 months.)

My sister is right: life can always get worse. Your life has many parallels to mine (same age, ill relative, etc.), but at least I have my computer (albeit an antiquated one) and the Internet!

Let me know if I can ever return the help, although doubtless not on Inkscape!

Well, now that I am actually executing the steps, I find myself confused again.

On the step "draw curvature with alignment to max height and middle of circles." Must I do that by hand or is there a clever way to make Inkscape do that?

It just always looks nicer when Inkscape does it!

If anyone knows of a tutorial that explains it, you can just point me to that. Unless of course it's faster for you to write it yourself.

Thanks again!

Draw a line with snapping to guide and Cusp node to smooth node enabled with 3 nodes - convert the middle one to symmetric and adjust accordingly - no big deal methinks:

FABULOUS!

I'm sorry, my brain doesn't work the same way Inkscape does.  Unfortunately for you, Polygon, I need something detailed and fiddly to stay sane right now, but I am not good at many of the details!

I do appreciate the help. Without this forum, and especially you and David248, I would have thrown out the project long ago and not stayed sane.

Thanks!