I do a fair amount of artwork. There are often times when I need to take a distance and divide it up into equal parts. The distance and the number of parts vary. Anywhere from 2" to 2' in length with anwhere from .5" to 6" sections. What would be the mechanics involved with creating something that you could grab the two end points (1 and 7 if you wanted 6 equal parts) and pull them away from one another until the distance between them was total length you were looking for, and at the same time, the inbetween points would stretch equally to form the equal sections? I'm thinking along the lines of the line below, where the vertical lines are points (1 and 7 defined) and the x are the physical connections between the points when they are spread. Scissor-styled, like you would see in the old cartoons where a automatic boxing glove punches someone. The dimensions would be about a foot in length when closed. The distance the points are from each other when closed would be restricted by the scissor mechanism between them, so I'm not sure what the smallest section could be.
1xxxx|xxxx|xxxx|xxxx|xxxx|xxxx7||||||||||||||
I'm sure that this whole thing will make sense to only a few, but it's those few I'm hoping will have some ideas.