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2D profile alignment (left/center/right, top/middle/bottom)

adamohernadamohern Member, OS Professional Posts: 216 PRO
When extruding profiles, is there a way of creating a graphical alignment input for aligning the profile?

For example, when extruding a rectangle, I may want to align it to top/middle/bottom on the vertical axis, or left/center/right on the horizontal. I currently do this with two enum dropdown menus, but it's cumbersome and unintuitive.

Suggestions?

Best Answer

Answers

  • ilya_baranilya_baran Onshape Employees, Developers, HDM Posts: 1,215
    I'm not exactly sure what you're asking for...  Have you used manipulators and would a manipulator do the trick?  One could imagine an angularManipulator controlling an ALWAYS_HIDDEN parameter whose value is rounded to 90 degrees for actual use...
    Ilya Baran \ VP, Architecture and FeatureScript \ Onshape Inc
  • adamohernadamohern Member, OS Professional Posts: 216 PRO
    f

    Here's an example from Frame Generator in Inventor. They're just giving you radio buttons to choose a corner.

    A 3D manipulator could work, I suppose, but I haven't seen one in Onshape that would do what I need. I really want to choose one of six positions as destinct alignment locations, not a free-drag. I suppose I could add a 3D manipulator gnomon and then snap to various positions based on where the manipulator is dragged, but that sounds pretty complicated.
  • emagdalenaC2iemagdalenaC2i Member, Developers, Channel partner Posts: 863 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Maybe it works better if you can pick a point in the profile instead of one of that six positions. Like weldment profiles do in SolidWorks.

    Also you can add the option to rotate and mirror the profile.

    We will be love to help in this development if you want.
    Un saludo,

    Eduardo Magdalena                         C2i Change 2 improve                         ☑ ¿Por qué no organizamos una reunión online?  
                                                                         Partner de PTC - Onshape                                     Averigua a quién conocemos en común
  • adamohernadamohern Member, OS Professional Posts: 216 PRO
    Good idea, but not robust enough. What if the corners are rounded? What if there is no center point on the profile? What if the profile is generated by the feature?

    I think the only clean way to do this is with some kind of manipulator. I'll have to think about it.
  • emagdalenaC2iemagdalenaC2i Member, Developers, Channel partner Posts: 863 ✭✭✭✭✭
    If the corners are rounded you can add a point in the sketch of the profile. As you can see here



    Un saludo,

    Eduardo Magdalena                         C2i Change 2 improve                         ☑ ¿Por qué no organizamos una reunión online?  
                                                                         Partner de PTC - Onshape                                     Averigua a quién conocemos en común
  • adamohernadamohern Member, OS Professional Posts: 216 PRO
    Right, but my feature doesn't use a sketch as an input. The profile is generated by the feature itself, so there is nothing to select.
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