SpaceClaim Online Help

Inserting planes

You can define a plane by selecting various faces, edges, axes, or lines in your design. You can select any combination of coplanar axes, curves, edges, and coordinate axes.

The plane will extend a small amount beyond the edges of the face to make it easier to work with. The plane will maintain this margin around all the objects in your design, extending and trimming itself as you add, remove, or move solids within your design.

Planes are useful for creating layouts and annotations. Planes are not linked to the geometry used to create them; they must be explicitly selected to move along with other items. You can also use a plane to quickly clip your design to show only the geometry behind the plane.

To insert a plane

1. Click PlaneConstruction geometry consisting of a flat surface. Planes can be used for a 2D sketch, section view of a model, a neutral plane in a draft feature. in the Create group on the Design2D or 3D model that contains at least one top-level component. tab.

2. Select one of the following:

    

   Select a:	To insert a plane:
   Planar faceFaceSide or other surface of a solid. Some examples are the inside surface of a hole or the six sides of a rectangular solid. See Surface. that lies within a plane.	That contains the face
   Planar face and point	Through the point and parallel to the face
   Planar face and edge	Through the edge and perpendicular to the face (useful when creating a sweep path)
   Two parallel planar faces	At the midpoint between the two faces
   Axial or cylindrical face	TangentLineA 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 PullTool used to distort or deform geometry. Use the Pull tool to offset, extrude, revolve, sweep, draft, and blend faces; or to round, chamfer, or extrude edges. When converting a sketch to 3D, pulling a line creates a surface and pulling a surface creates a solid. tool, lines become edges. 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. to the face at the selection point
   Two axial faces with parallel axes	Tangent to both faces as close as possible to the selection points
   Planar edgesTwo or more edges that lie in the same plane. You can select planar edges and select the Plane tool from the Insert ribbon group to insert the plane defined by the edges.	That contains the edges
   AxisStraight line that an object rotates around or that objects are regularly arranged around. See Alignment axis.	That contains the axis
   Two axes	That contains the axes
   Two origin axes	That contains the axes
   An origin	Three orthogonal planes
   Axis (or line) and one point	That contains the axis (or line) and the point
   End point of any line	Through the end point and normal to the line at the end point
   Control point of a spline	Through the selected point and perpendicular to the plane that contains the spline
   Three points	That contains those three points
   Line sketched on a plane	Through the line and normal to the plane
   Line and point on the line	Through the line and the point
   Two planar lines	That contains those two lines
   Two points	Through the two points
   Two points and a Plane or planar face	Through the two points and perpendicular to selected plane or planar face

3. (Optional) Click the Build Plane tool guide to select reference objects, then select a temporary (dotted) plane to create the one that you want from the possible planes. See Inserting temporary points, axes, and planes for detailed information about creating temporary planes.

    

   

4. An error message is displayed in the status bar if your selection does not define a plane.

    

To insert a plane tangent to a cylinder and parallel to a plane

Select a plane, Ctrl+click a cylinder, then click the Plane tool.

To insert a plane tangent to a cylinder and perpendicular to a plane

Select a cylinder, Ctrl+click a plane, then click the Plane tool.

To insert a plane through the mid-point between two points

1. Select the Plane tool.

2. In 3D mode or Section modeSee SectionDesign mode in which you edit solids by working with their edges and vertices in cross-section. ViewOrientation settings that you can apply to your design, including spin, pan, and zoom. You can adjust these settings individually or you can apply one of the following preconfigured views: Trimetric, Isometric, Top, Bottom, Front, Back, Right, Left. You can also select Snap View and click a face to view it head-on. is cut away to show interior detail., Alt+Shift+click two points to create a temporary plane that includes the midpoint.

3. Click the temporary plane.

To insert a plane parallel to the screen

1. Select the Plane tool.

2. Activate the Align to Screen tool guide  

3. Hover over geometry to preview the plane through the selected geometry and parallel to the screen.

4. Select the geometry to create the plane.

To clip your design with a plane

Right-click a plane and select ClipHide all geometry in a design above or below the grid or selected plane. with Plane. To restore the view of your design, right-click the plane and select Clip with Plane again.

Planes, axes, and annotations are not clipped.

Examples

An edge and the axis of a coordinate object selected to create a plane.

To change the appearance of a plane

You can use the FillUse the Fill tool to simplify or clean up geometry by extending surrounding faces to eliminate a selection. The selected region is filled in or healed with the surrounding surface or solid.,Outline, and Clipface options to change the appearance of a plane.

• Fill: Set to Automatic by default. Automatic causes geometry behind the plane to look lighter than geometry outside the plane boundaries. If you change to No Fill, all geometry will have the same opacity.
• Outline: Set to Automatic by default. Automatic you see the outline of the plane. If you change to No Outline, the plane is invisible unless selected.
• Setting planes to No Fill and No Outline is useful when dimensioning parts. It is easier to see annotations when planes are less visible.
• Clipface: Sets the Clipface color override for each clipping plane in the design window. It does not change the color of the plane itself, just the color of the face the plane is touching.