Aligning features on sketches in different planes?

øyvind_kaurstad

This might be non-sensical, but I'm asking anyway.

Assume I have drawn a ellipse in a sketch on the top plane. Then I draw a thin, slightly tilting rectangle in a sketch on the front plane. I want to sweep this rectangle using the ellipse as the sweep curve, ending up with a solid shell.

Now, the issue is that I'd like to have one point of this rectangle aligned to the edge of the ellipse, but there seems to be no way of locking/inferencing features on different sketches.

To make this work, I then have to use the distance tool to position the rectangle correctly, but if I then try to resize the ellipse, I will manually have to move (enter a new distance) the rectangle.

I suspect that there is something fatally flawed with my workflow, so I am asking how to correctly accomplish this.

Narayan_K

@ øyvind_kaurstad , You can project the ellipse and make end point coincident with point of rectangle as below,

jakeramsley

Use a pierce constraint.  It will find the point where the curve intersects the sketch and attach the point there.  The problem with using the projection is when the silhouette of the ellipse isn't the part that is crossing the front plane.  The rectangle will be offset from the end.

With a pierce, just select a curve and a point you want to pierce to it.  This will find the point where the curve intersects the plane and make the selected point be on that point.

Narayan_K

@ øyvind_kaurstad , You can project the ellipse and make end point coincident with point of rectangle as below,

øyvind_kaurstad

Thanks. That solves my question.  :-)

shashank_aarya

There is one method which I would like to suggest you as given in below picture.



I created the ellipse and construction line in top plane. Both end points of construction line should coincide with ellipse. After that in front plane you can project the end point of line where you want to create rectangular cross section, then you can coincide the rectangle corner with projected point. So, when ellipse changes, construction line length will update and rectangular cross-section will remain coincident to ellipse. 

shashank_aarya

@ øyvind_kaurstad  I think @Narayan_K  already answered you before me but I delayed to post   Apologize for same answer.

øyvind_kaurstad

shashank_aarya said:

@ øyvind_kaurstad  I think @Narayan_K  already answered you before me but I delayed to post   Apologize for same answer.

No need to apologize. You both gave the same answer, both with excellent illustrations. However, since @Narayan_K was first, I am keeping his as the accepted answer.

jakeramsley

Use a pierce constraint.  It will find the point where the curve intersects the sketch and attach the point there.  The problem with using the projection is when the silhouette of the ellipse isn't the part that is crossing the front plane.  The rectangle will be offset from the end.

With a pierce, just select a curve and a point you want to pierce to it.  This will find the point where the curve intersects the plane and make the selected point be on that point.

Narayan_K

@ jakeramsley , Thank you for sharing appropriate method.

andrew_troup

+1 for pierce

shashank_aarya

@jakeramsley+1 for pierce Thanks a lot!

viru

+1 for pierce