Had Another Go

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Sweep will follow any guide line you draw and like my example the guide was made up of straight sections with a curved transition so the final item is just like a bent piece of metal.

Even if “built up” from straight bits you can apply a fillet or two at the end to represent your bends

You don’t have to have all the part showing in the window, snaps, zooming with a mouse wheel while still holding the mouse button down and using the arrow keys on the keyboard are all ways of dealing with large items. You can also just draw a short line and then click “expend” to make it extend to the next part of a sketch.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

My problem with trying to draw a very long line wasn’t having only an enlarged part of the image visible, but trying to stretch the end of the line from one vertex of a very long, narrow rectangle to the other somewhere way off-screen. Sometimes when it finally reached its destination, I found it had not even started on the right one because the points were all so close together.

I worked out it would be a lot easier to represent the frame just by the vertical webs, extruding the lot downwards by their common depth. The real frame has many things bolted or screwed to webs or flanges, but I don’t think showing them fastened to thin air would matter much.

As I say, I printed those instructions but have spotted a big gap in them. No idea how that happened.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Lots of ways to draw a long line in Atom3D…

• Use scroll wheel to zoom out whilst the line tool is active
• Click+hold middle mouse (scroll wheel) to pan the workspace whilst the line tool is active
• Draw a short line and later dimension it to the required length
• Place Reference Points (you can place points by co-ordinates) in the part at key locations in the workspace, then sketch in lines joining these to form your path
• Use ‘Real Time Dimensioning’ to type in line length and angle when placing the line

If ‘getting the right point’ is a problem – adjust zoom level with scroll wheel AND also check the ‘Snap Threshold’ value in System Options -> Parts/Assemblies -> Sketching –  if too large it’ll be all to easy to chose the wrong point of several close together, if too small it’ll be almost impossible to select anything unless exactly on top of it.  I find 3.0mm to be a good value on my system, but this does depend on display size/monito DPI etc.

If a line end has attached to the wrong point/node and you want to change that, hold down the Ctrl key whilst dragging it away (this overrides the co-incident constraint between nodes).

You can also sketch in the line roughly when zoomed out, deliberately NOT attaching the end(s) – juet place it some where roughly in the right area.  After line is placed roughly, then zoom in and add co-incident sketch constraints between the correct point/node and the line end.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

My problem with trying to draw a very long line wasn’t having only an enlarged part of the image visible, but trying to stretch the end of the line from one vertex of a very long, narrow rectangle to the other somewhere way off-screen. Sometimes when it finally reached its destination, I found it had not even started on the right one because the points were all so close together.

That’s a mindset problem, caused by drawing on paper where the features have to meet from the start. In CAD you draw the line so its shape is what you want and roughly where it needs to be, add constraints so it retains its shape, then dimension it so it is the size and exactly where you want. There’s no need to see the entire part to do this, so you can zoom in on the bit you’re working on. Turning off the visibility of all the things you don’t need to see helps too.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

David –

Thankyou for those methods.

 

Nick –

No, not a problem from drawing on paper – whose accuracy is anyway no more than line width and visibility. A problem of not knowing all the ways possible in CAD.

I know Alibre asks you for the length and angle of a line as you draw it, but not all the constraints available to control its position.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

 

I know Alibre asks you for the length and angle of a line as you draw it,

Only if you have that option (“Real Time Dimensioning”) selected – you don’t have to use it (even if it is active) – you can instead leave the fields blank and add dimensions later (using the dimension tool).

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