I have been an occasional but long time user of another popular mechanical design package. I’m finding that I am expecting/looking for a certain way of work, but not finding it. Perhaps to be expected. Example:
Take a block that has a hole through it. Is it possible to delete the extruded hole, but not the circle that generated the hole? What I was expecting was the feature to be editable/delete-able independently of the parent geometry. Maybe too long an explanation for something obvious?
Hi,
Select the inner surface of the hole, and press delete.
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I think I see what you mean. The circle that made the hole is part of the sketch. The sketch is divorced from the solid body once the body is created. Once the body is created the two are separate entities. Not linked in a way that deleting the hole on the solid body also deletes the circle on the sketch. Conversely editing the sketch does not affect the body… a new body must be made. You have to edit the sketch to delete the circle.
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You are right. Shapr3D is a direct modeling tool that works a bit different than parametric, history-based CAD – which most well-known CAD apps are. You can read more about the differences and the pros/cons of this approach in this blogpost.
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Thank you for that - it helps to give me a framework for understanding the differences.
If I may, here’s another scenario which I don’t understand. I’m trying to place a vertical line an equal distance between two circles of equal size. I select both circles, tap “symmetry” and then tap the line. I was expecting the line to be moved horizontally to be equidistant from the two circles. Instead I get an ‘error’ message referring to some pre-existing constraints preventing the operation from happening - constraints that I can’t find. If I instead draw one circle and the vertical line, then mirror the circle about line, and then set the size of one of the circles I get the symmetry I want but what I was trying to do was position the line horizontally.
More generally, what’s the fastest way to position one sketch entity symmetrically between two other sketch entities? Thanks in advance…
Yeah, the participants of the symmetry constraint are not, pun intended, symmetrical. The symmetry axis is treated as something that’s anchored and it’s the thing that’s driving the movement of other items, so that constraint can’t be used to drive the position of the axis itself. We chose to do that as it’s a way more common scenario and the axis itself moving if you forgot to fully constrain it would be super confusing if you are not expecting that.
What I’d suggest in this case is to:
- Connect the centerpoints of the two circles with a line (you likely want to turn that into a construction sketch)
- Draw (or move) the sketch entity that’d need to be in the middle to be on the midpoint of this line (marked with a small red dot)
- Define additional constraints, eg. perpendicularity between that sketch entity and the line connecting the circles.
Here’s how it would look like:
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Thank you so much!