Creating a plane at an angle

bob z. has a little macro that creates a plane normal to your view (line of sight). it is pretty cool. don't know where it came from and it runs from excel.

I always have the 3 default planes in there (carry over from Pro/E days), so I just click on 2 of them, and insert a "Reference Axis". Then I have the edge or line I need.

Other than the macro way that Bob Zeeeeeeee mentioned.

Mr. Pickles

Create an Axis on the intersect of 2 planes. then select the Axis and one of the planes insert a Plane, then in the FMT select angle.

You may then need to offset a plane from here, to get to the location you want.

-- Tony O'Hara Melbourne, Australia.

Working in the program is about being as effective and quick as possible. And I am sure that we all have little quarks that we wold like to see happen with the program. SW as a company does try to incorporate what we ask for, admittedly, alot better than other CAD software.

But, the work around sometimes can just get on my nerves. That said creating a plane at an angle and then being able to offset it at a distance to that angle, I think would be a nice little edition.

I agree, nice suggestion...

BUT, this is on the verge of making features over-complicated, IMO. I believe feature definitions should be kept as simple and 'standard' as possible. If you start adding to many options to a single feature, it becomes very un-friendly to use. Instead, it may be less complicated if two features were used instead of combining them into one.

Take sketches, for example. Most would agree that a sketch should be kept as simple as possible. Thus, when someone edits it, they are not presented with a cluster-f*** of lines, dimensions, and relations. The same applies for feature definitions; keep them simple.

Just something to think about when making suggestions such as this one. Keep in mind that the power of 3D parametric CAD lies in its ability for changes. While some enhancements may speed the creation of a model, these same enhancements may hinder how quickly and easily changes can be made down the road.

my $0.02

I create an extruded surface out of a single line segment. This way, you can explicitly dimension the line to other model entities and it creates a much more controllable surface for a future sketch plane. Just hide the surface when your done.

Of course the limitation is that you need a normal plane on which to first place your surface sketch.

HTH,

Erik

(long time listener, first time caller)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what's the key issue here, but in the situation I think you're describing, rather than extrude a surface from a single line, why not use that same line as the "hinge" axis for a "Plane at Angle", with the angle set to 90 degrees, and the datum plane being the sketch plane?

I think of this as being like "standing a plane up" on the sketch plane, like a bookend, or a concrete tilt slab for a building wall.

I do this so much, I wish the default for "plane at angle" could be changed from 45 to 90 degrees.

If you want it offset the "hinge line" from an existing sketch line, simply offset a new line and (if necessary) change it to construction geometry.

I agree 110% with whoever said "keep the tools simple"

SolidWorks users are now paying a heavy price in usability and reliability because the application has moved (in my view) too far to appease those who equate number of options with power, and can't get enough.

The business convention that software purchases have to be justified to people whose minds tend to work that way doesn't help. Whoever it was who said "accountants would prefer to build slums than cities because it is hard to justify the incremental costs" was not being entirely flippant.

COMPLEXITY DOES NOT of itself ADD VALUE

usually, quite the opposite.

While we are on the subject of planes.

If you were to have the option to offset and rotate. What would you be rotating about? There are a million line combinations on a plane that you could rotate on and have a completely diferent plane, how would solidworks know which one to use? It may be somewhat deceptive when you have a simple part and are working off of 3 planes (Front, Top, Right) you would to offset the plane 3" along the top at 45°. I think we are fogetting that planes go on infinitely in all directions, solidworks may give them a boundry but in reality infinity is a long way. Although it would be nice to beable to create an axis at an offset like this. Axis 3" from Plane "Front" along Plane top. Then rotate a plane about this axis. It would save making an extra plane and it would be fully defined.

Second

I have had a few instances where I make a sweep. Well then I want to add some revolve features at the end of the sweep. I make sure there is a temporary axis at the end and the face is square to that. All I want is a plane perp to the face at the temp axis, but again this is not allowed for some reason. I guess there would be no way to figure the rotation about the axis. I would be happy if it defaulted to the x-axis or something (I know AutoCad does this).

And that's all I have to say about that. atleast for now =)

Corey Scheich