Feature request: allow circle centers as points for defining a 3-point plane

kenn_sebesta167

After all, the circle can be used to create a sketch and drop a point which can then be used for the plane. It's just a little messy and somewhat gratuitous to create up-to three sketches for this.

matthew_stacy

@kenn_sebesta167, what am I missing?  Select the Three Point Plane tool, then select the centers of three sketch circles, or any other three points of your liking:

• https://cad.onshape.com/documents/a7cdff5f39441ade8061a5a9/w/dd1d75475226b26e71e8e45c/e/249cfc05f2ae61eb7b5c9926

alnis

@matthew_stacy it works with sketch circles, but the specific case where this is useful is when you have three circles that don't have associated sketches (e.g. in an imported part, made with implicit mate connectors, they are on the opposite side of the sketch for an extrusion of a circle/hole, etc.). Here's one example:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/502d97bf2acd69fa970fe3a6/w/5f6cc353bbff0620afa095dd/e/a0bc42b85e2b08fd92391c7a

I don't think it's something I would use a ton, but it makes sense that something like this could be useful for keeping the model tree clean and clear in some cases.

matthew_stacy

@alnis_smidchens,  you raise an excellent point.  Here's the part that is driving me nuts.  Your Hole 1 feature is actually located on three mate connectors situated in precisely the correct locations to hang the 3 point plane.  But I can't figure out how to display/select them.

I had to cheat by creating three brand new mate connectors, located on the hole centers.  But that is wasted effort and clutters the feature tree.

So how do we hide/show the mate connectors belonging to the Hole 1 feature for reuse?

kenn_sebesta167

@alnis_smidchens, that's a perfect description, thanks! The exact issue I ran across was with a derived part, where there were lots of good holes for the plane, but I had to create three sketches to capture each of them.

If I were to do it again, I would do it with a mate connector as @matthew_stacy shows.

I'm hopeful that since there's no required UI change, this could reduce the implementation effort to something OnShape feels is reasonable.