Is there an easy way to achieve this plane?

p_j195

So I see that the tangent plane feature seems to only work with cylinders which seems quite limited. I would love to get a tangent plane to a general curved surface. It seems like if I make a minimum bounding cylinder, make the plane around that, then suppress that part I could get the desired plane, but I also cannot figure out the easiest way to make that minimum bounding cylinder.

eric_pesty

You could try using the bounding box FS, although it's an approximation so may not be precise enough depending on what you are trying to do…

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/1191ad078261c48e44f33209/v/96958e98af7ea61654ddd9e5/e/4c39ed16c0185c62272d5c95

eric_pesty

In the case where the part is symmetric you could create a sketch on the mid-plane and use the "intersection" and a normal line that you can use directly to create a mate connector (which can be used instead of a plane for basically everything you would use a plane for).

p_j195

Ok so the way I ended up doing it was by using an isocline. Generating an isocline with the faces and the bottom plane can generate the "equator" which is where the plane would be anchored, because that is inherently the inflection point

EvanReese

Try my 3D points feature, which can produce tangent planes on faces. Just click the face as the reference.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/309e817bcaf616677a834985/v/4ae9c78a3ae54c4e8c682b28/e/b28795ae9aec5a245cccb936?jumpToIndex=1390