Using the right terminology

I need to know what terminology to use for searching for answers for a feature that I need.

In my game, I want a mesh to follow a path I provide for it in 3D. The meshes will be used for tubes, wires, hallways, roads, etc. It is inefficient and probably pretty ugly to “plop down” a copy of the mesh every so often, so what I want is a way to arbitrarily extended the mesh over long distances according to a path I provide it.

Is there a term for what I’m describing, and can you provide me with any examples where this is done? Thanks.

Two words that come to mind are ‘extrude’ and ‘spline.’ A quick search of “unity3d extrude spline” yielded this hit that might get you started:

http://www.havchr.net/?p=150

There are third-party packages for this kind of thing. MegaShapes comes to mind.