SpaceClaim Online Help

Sheet metal lines

The Sheet Metal 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 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. tool is primarily used to sketch freeform shapes and to draw lines that will become bends. See Bending a sheet metal wall.

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 use 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.

When sketching lines for a profile wall, the attachment edge for determining inside or outside radius follows the same paradigm as flat-sketched walls. In the images below, both lines start at the top corner. Sketching vertically downward creates an outside wall, while sketching vertically upward creates an inside wall.

To draw a line

1. Click on the Sheet Metal tab.

2. Click Line in the Sketch group or press L.

3. (Optional) Click the Profile option if you want to create walls as you sketch.

4. Click to set the first point of the line.

   You can dimension the points relative to other sketch objects.

5. Click to set the next points of the line.

   If you want any section of the line to be an arc, right-click and select Switch to ArcCurved line of constant radius; part of a circle. See Sweep arc, Three point arc, Tangent arc., then click to set the radius. Right-click and select Switch to Line to return to drawing straight lines between points. You must create at least one line segment before using this option.

6. End the line:

   • Double-click to set the end point of the line.

   • Right-click and select Finish Line.

   • Press Esc.

   • Connect the end point to the start point.

   • Click any tool (except the Clipboard and Orient tools).

Do it faster

Click and drag to draw one straight line.

Example

Sketching a polyline using the Profile Sheet metal option.

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.

• Snap 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 modeModeThree ways of designing: Sketch, Cross-section, or 3D. You can switch between modes at any time. 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 objectObjectAnything recognizable by the tools. 3D objects include vertices, edges, faces, surfaces, solids, layouts, planes, axes, and origins. 2D objects include points and lines. created by importing an STL fileFile format native to the stereo lithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. You can export parts and assemblies (.stl).See Stereo lithography. 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 lines and arcs to form splines. Splines are displayed pink.