SpaceClaim Online Help

Sheet metal tangent lines

Use the Sheet Metal TangentLine that touches a curve (arc or circle) at only one point, without crossing over, and is perpendicular to the radius at the point of tangency. You can sketch a line tangent to a curve or you can sketch an arc tangent to a line or curve. LineA straight line, arc, or spline drawn in Sketch mode or on a layout plane. Lines have length but no area. When you pull a sketch into 3D with the Pull tool, lines become edges. tool to sketch lines that are tangent to curves in your design.

Lines, splines, and arcs are extruded to the thickness of a sheet metal wall when they form a closed profile. You can change the default wall thickness in the sheet metal properties.

In addition, you can choose the ProfileLine in space; outline of an object; used to describe objects when sweeping or blending. option to create a wall that is perpendicular to the sketch plane as you sketch.

To sketch a tangent line in sheet metal

1. Click on the Sheet Metal tab.

2. Click TangentLine that touches a curve (arc or circle) at only one point, without crossing over, and is perpendicular to the radius at the point of tangency. You can sketch a line tangent to a curve or you can sketch an arc tangent to a line or curve. LineA straight line, arc, or spline drawn in Sketch mode or on a layout plane. Lines have length but no area. When you pull a sketch into 3D with the Pull tool, lines become edges. in the Sketch group.

   Curves are highlighted as you move your mouse over them, and the tangency indicator appears at your cursor location. If there are no curves in your design, this tool is disabled; you must add a curve to create a tangent line.

3. (Optional) Click the ProfileLine in space; outline of an object; used to describe objects when sweeping or blending. option if you want to create walls as you sketch.

4. Click the curve you want to draw tangent to.

   As you move the mouse, the start point moves so that the line remains tangent to the curve.

5. (Optional) Dimension the line with a length.

   You cannot dimension from another sketch object when creating a tangent line.

6. Click to set the end point of the line.

   If you move your mouse over another curve, the line snaps so that it is tangent to the second curve. Hold Alt to stop your cursor from snapping to curves.

Options

The following Sheet Metal sketch options allow you to choose between sketching a flat wall or a wall that is perpendicular to the sketch plane:

The following options are available for every sketch tool:

• Cartesian dimensions: Select a point in a sketch and then click this option to see Cartesian dimensions from the point. Cartesian dimensions show you the X and Y distances from the point you select. If you don't have a point selected, it shows you the X and Y distances from the origin.

• Polar dimensions: Select a point in a sketch and then click this option to see Polar dimensions from the point. Polar dimensions show you an angle and a distance from the point you select. If you don't have a point selected, it shows you the angle and distance from the origin.

• SnapConstrain to objects, angular and linear increments, or grid points while you are sketching or editing solids. You can customize the snapping behavior in File>Options. Pressing Shift while dragging snaps the tool based on your snap settings. You can use the Snap to grid tool to constrain or lock all drawing to grid points only. to grid: Select this option turn snapping on or off while sketching. The cursor will snap to the minor grid spacing increment while you sketch. The defaults are 1mm for Metric and 0.125in for Imperial units. See Units options to change the minor grid spacing.

• SnapConstrain to objects, angular and linear increments, or grid points while you are sketching or editing solids. You can customize the snapping behavior in File>Options. Pressing Shift while dragging snaps the tool based on your snap settings. You can use the Snap to grid tool to constrain or lock all drawing to grid points only. to angle: Select this option to turn angle snapping on or off while sketching. The cursor will snap to the angular snap increment while you sketch. The default is 15 degrees. See Snap options to change the angular increment used for snapping.

• Create layout curves: The sketch curves are created as layout curves. If you move the design to a drawing sheet, with Sketch modeMode for drawing in two dimensions using the sketching tools on the sketch grid. A sketch is a collection of lines and other 2D objects on a sketch grid. Sketching creates regions that can be pulled into 3D. When you pull your sketch into 3D with the Pull tool, regions formed by intersecting lines will become solids and lines will become edges. selected you must select the Create layout curves checkbox again in the Sketch Options group of the Options panelArea of the user interface that enables you to modify functions specific to tools. in order to create layout curves on the drawing sheet. See Layout Curves.

• CurveIn 3D, any line in space. Fitter Options: If the Sketch plane passes through a Mesh objectObject created by importing an STL file lightweight (facets only). Mesh objects have the ability to snap to the facets., the system will fit curves through the facet points. Lines are displayed green and arcs are displayed blue. The following options apply to the system-generated curves.

  • Fit curves - Uncheck this option if you do not want the system to fit curves through the points.

  • Tolerance - Determines how many points will be found, which also determines how many curves will be created. The smaller the tolerance, the more points will be found and the curves will be generated.

  • Auto-merge - When checked On, the system will merge linesd and arcs to form splines. Splines are displayed pink.