Working with a Support

You can create a support. It may be a plane or a surface.

This allows you to automatically reference a surface or plane as the supporting element whenever you need one, when creating lines for example. You will no longer have to explicitly select the support element.

It also allows you to create reference points on the fly in the support, whenever you need a reference point to create other geometric elements.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin: Create a 3D shape containing geometric elements.

Create a Support from a Surface

You can define a surface as a support.

  1. Click Work on Support .

    The Work On Support dialog box appears.

  2. Select the surface to be used as support element.

    If a plane is selected, a grid is displayed to facilitate visualization.

  3. Optional: Select a point.

    By default the surface's midpoint is selected.

  4. Click OK in the dialog box.

    The element (identified as Working support.xxx) is added to the specification tree under the Working supports node.

    Note: The children that appear under any feature may not follow the same order as their order of creation.

Create a Support from a Plane

You can define a plane as a support.

  1. Click Work on Support .

  2. Select the plane to be used as support element.

    The Work On Support dialog box is displayed, allowing you to define the plane:



    By default, the Grid type is set to Cartesian to define a Cartesian plane.

    Important: A grid is displayed to facilitate visualization. You can hide it by checking Hide grid.

  3. Select a point, as the support plane's origin.

    By default the plane's origin is selected. Note that the plane representation may not be located at the plane's origin. In this case, the default point is displayed at the origin and therefore not necessarily onto the plane representation.

  4. Define the First direction scale (H for horizontal), by setting Primary spacing and Graduations values.

  5. Optional: Select a direction to specify the H direction.

    You can right-click in the editable field to display the contextual menu and define the direction (by defining its vector, creating a line, and so forth).

  6. If you wish, you can define another scale for the Second direction (V for vertical), thus allowing distortions of the grid. Check Allow distortions to activate the Primary spacing and Graduations fields of the second direction.

  7. Optional: Select theShade grid plane option to visualize the support plane as a solid geometric element.

    Warning: This is possible only if the View mode is adequate.

  8. Optional: Select the Selectable grid option to enable the selection of sub-elements of the grid (lines and points) as a support for a future selection.

    Selected sub-elements are featurized.

  9. Optional: Select the Furtive grid option to see the grid only when it is parallel to the screen.

    Warning: This option is only active only if Selectable grid is selected.

  10. Optional: Select the Position grid plane parallel to screen option to reset the grid visualization parallel to the screen.

    Important: Primary spacing and Graduations are defined in Tools > Options > Shape > Generative Shape Design. Refer to the General Settings (Customizing section) for further information.

  11. From the Grid sub-toolbar, click Snap to point to snap the point being created onto the nearest intersection point on the grid.

  12. Click OK in the dialog box.

    The element (identified as Working support.xxx) is added to the specification tree.

Create an Infinite Plane From a Limited Planar Surface

You can create an infinite plane by selecting a limited planar surface.

  1. Click Work on Support .

  2. Select a face.

    A warning message is issued asking you if you wish to create an infinite work on support from this face.

    • If you click Yes, the plane is inserted in the current geometrical set or ordered geometrical set and is used as the Support. You will be able to create features on this support.



    • If you click No, only the face is used as the Support. You will only be able to create features on this limited face.


Create an Infinite Axis from the Active Work on Support

You can create an infinite axis from the active work on support.

This capability is only available with the Rotate and Helix commands and with a Work on Support defined by a planar element (whether finite or not).

Let's take an example with the Rotate command.

  1. Click Rotate .

    The Rotate Definition dialog box opens.

  2. Select the element to be rotated.

  3. Select the axis.

    There are two ways to create an infinite axis on the fly:

    • Click anywhere on the Work on Support. The point and the axis needed for the axis are created.

    • Select a point in the 3D geometry. The axis is created through this point and is normal to the active Work on Support.

  4. Click OK to create the rotated element.

    The axis is an infinite line normal to the support and passing through the featurized point. This line is aggregated to the Rotate.xxx feature and put in no show.