Designing

The tools you use for 2D and 3D sketching and editing are found in DS Mechanical's Design Closed tab. With the design tools, you can sketch in 2D, generate and edit solids in 3D, and work with assemblies of solids.

In DS Mechanical, there are three modes you can use to design: Sketch, Section Closed , and 3D mode. You can switch between these modes at any time.

When creating designs, you will use the following tools most often:

	Use the Select tool to select 2D or 3D objects in your design for editing. You can select vertices, edges, axes, faces, surfaces, solids, and components in 3D. In 2D, you can select points and lines. You can also use this tool to change the properties of recognized or inferred objects.
	Use the Pull tool to offset, extrude, revolve, sweep, draft, and blend faces; and to round or chamfer corner edges.
	Use the Move tool to move any single face, surface, solid, or component. The behavior of the Move tool changes based on what you have selected. If you select a face, you can pull or draft it. If you select a solid or surface, you can rotate or translate it.
	Use the Combine tool to merge and split solids and surfaces.
	Use Section mode to create and edit designs by sketching on and editing any cross-section through the design.

Design Closed tools are grouped into the following ribbon groups:

Clipboard	Cut, copy, and paste 3D objects.
Orient	Spin, pan, and zoom your design. You can also select or create a view.
Sketch	Create and edit lines, arcs, splines, rectangles, circles, and points in 2D.
Mode	Switch between sketching in 2D, editing a cross-section, and creating and editing objects directly in 3D
Edit	Edit 2D and 3D geometry.
Intersect	Merge or split solids and faces.
Create	Create other components for your design.
BodyA solid or surface.	Create other components for your design.

If an operation runs more than three seconds, the Stop icon is activated in the status bar. Click to cancel the current operation. You can also press and hold Esc to cancel out of any design action that is taking too long.

When using any tool guide, you can click an empty point in the Design window Closed to clear the tool guide selection and return to the previous action within the tool.