Plane on curve

Dean_Gardner

Is it possible to develop a plane on curve?  So that you can create a plane simply by clicking any edge or curve, and the preview will allow you to drag the plane up and down the curve staying perpendicular at any given point, percentage or position, just like NX.  This is very useful for surfacing and generating intersections for bridge curves.

S1mon

There’s a bunch of custom features which will create various planes.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/578d3ba3e4b0fe44cbff7c02
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/68455a5d522e81cd65a35211

You might also want this one for adding 3D points using various methods.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/576d1e60c6cb90985345ac37

EvanReese

My 3D Points feature has an option for planes. It's a lot of the same interactions as Freeform Spline, but with a few options that are specific to points and planes.

S1mon

@Evan_Reese
I had forgotten about that. It would be cool to add a few options (in your copious free time, ha):

1. Right now the location on the curve is based on the curve parameter - it would be nice to have an option to locate based on an actual distance from another reference or the actual curve length.
2. Right now the orientation of the plane is normal to the curve - it would be nice to have options for the other two orientations (the osculating plane or the tangent plane).

I'd also say that this functionality really should be built into Onshape, but until then...

EvanReese

@S1mon
I like both of those ideas. We'll see if/when I get around to it. I've definitely never needed the other plane options you describe (and in fact only rarely need the plane option at all), but they's also be really easy to add. I'd probably just make a drop down for "Plane Orientation" with those options or "Custom", which would display the "Normal Direction" query field. I am generally interested in understanding how to work with the arc length parameterization on curves in general, so that could be a good case study. As you know, I have some other feature work higher on my list at the moment . After that stuff, I also want to get back to adding options to offset points from the curve selection via an offset and angle from the normal of the curve. I also want to add the ability to drag a point off of the end of the curve and have it travel in the curve's tangent direction. That would be for this feature and Freeform Spline.

Dean_Gardner

@Evan_Reese, this is just what i need, but also the inclusion of distance from ends would be a really cool addition! as suggested by @S1mon.