Creating a 3D "wire" shape driven by 2D sketches

Oct 04, 2007 4 Replies

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james 18 years ago

I'm working on a project for a client. They have legacy 2D drawings depicting 3D parts made from bent wire.

I'm thinking maybe I should create the 2D sketches, then create a 3D sketch that is simply a spline, then constrain the spline points to the 2D sketches. I would then sweep the wire diameter through the 3D sketch.

I have never tried to drive a 3D sketch with 2D sketches. Are there better ways of doing this?

Imagine a piece of relatively stiff wire, contorted into a weird 3D shape

The shapes would be much like those toys you see in waiting rooms for very little kids - where there are wooden beads on bent thick wires, and you push the beads along the strangely-shaped wires.

Thank you for any help you may have!

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Wayne Tiffany 18 years ago

If the drawings have dimensions, why not just create the 3D sketches and go from there?

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ChamberPot 18 years ago

You might be able to take the 2 2d views, place them on planes, align them and use the Projected Curve to make a single curve that does it all. Assuming the original autocrap drawings are accurate, which they never are.

Making a spline that is driven by the 2D sketches wont work the way you think it will.

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Dale Dunn 18 years ago

james wrote in news:1191538653.762580.211370@

57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com:

Insert, curve, projected, "sketch on sketch" can create a 3D curve from two

2D sketches. You may need to make sure that the imported 2D profiles don't have gaps, etc. If the curve needs to be a sketch entity (instead of a curve entity. I don't know why there's a difference), you can create a 3DSketch after the curve is created, then use convert entities to make a spline version of the curve.

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Edward T Eaton 18 years ago

If you want to have a 3D sketch driven by points in a series of 2D sketches, this is valid, especially if you are uncomfortable/ unfamiliar with 3D sketch. There is a lot of weird stuff with 3D sketch, especially depending on your version of SWx and the constraints allowed in your version. It is often easier (and certainly more stable) to nail important routing points in a 2D sketch than with a 3D sketch. I have often used a series of 2D sketches to create points that my 3D sketch would go through (or the old-school curve through points, which you should not use because a 3D sketch spline does the same thing but with wayyy more editing flexibility) Even though I am comfortable with making 3D sketches, I still find myself laying out points in 2D sketches and using them to drive the final 3D sketch because it is consistently stable and fits in with my mindset. When there are multiple ways to approach a problem (which happens often with Swx) go with what you know and are comfortable with to get your job done,

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