Creating Tri-Tangent Circles

Circle tangential to three elements can be created using the Tri-Tangent Circle command.

Before you begin:

To perform this task, create two circles and a line.

Related Topics
Creating Circles
Creating Three Point Circles
Creating Circles Using Coordinates

  1. Click Tri-Tangent Circle in the Profile toolbar (Circle sub-toolbar).

    Important: Ensure that your sketch is consistent before creating tri-tangent circles (you can use Sketch Analysis for this). Otherwise, the system will not compute the tangencies properly.

  2. Select the first circle.



  3. Select the second circle.

  4. Select the line.



    The tri-tangent circle is created. Constraints are similarly assigned to this circle on the condition that you previously activated Geometrical Constraints in the Sketch tools toolbar.



    Important:
    • If you select a point the created constraint is a coincidence.
    • As there are several tangencies for a considered curve (circle, conic, spline, etc), tangent is created as close as possible to where you clicked on the curve.

    Note: By default, circle centers appear on the sketch. In case you create circles by clicking, if you do not need them you can specify this in the Options dialog box. To do this, go to Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Sketcher > Sketcher (tab) dialog box.