Creating and Animating Line Segments? I have a zig-zag figure I want to import and manipulate in Blender, preferably on a segment-by-segment basis.

The canonical method for doing "line art" in Blender appears to be to create a curve object then, in the Properties, crank up the Bevel Depth to a suitable value.  The problem is that, for "curves" having hard, acute angles, you end up with a very thin, distorted shape.

Here's an example curve.  All handles are set as vectors:



Here's the same curve with a bevel applied.  Note how the generated tube is flattened, making it nearly invisible when viewed along the Z-axis.  The sharper the angles, the thinner the resulting tube:



I'd like uniform "thickness" no matter what angle I view it from (particularly along the Z-axis).  How can I best achieve this?
This mesh is maden by 7 vertices only, with a skin modifier. Tweak the thickness with Mean Radius values, and don't forget to select one of the starting vertices and use the "Mark Root" function on the skin modifier.