Is their any way to do this?....

It would be easier for people to understand your question and give you a good answer if you could get your terminology straight. You talk about an "arc length of a line created from 3D sketch points". It doesn't make any sense. I'm guessing you have a 3D spline. You can measure the length of a spline, but you can't constrain the length in SW2003.

matt

"joe" wrote in news:4047f16d snipped-for-privacy@newsfeed.slurp.net:

"joe" wrote in news:40481060 snipped-for-privacy@newsfeed.slurp.net:

No, SW2004 cannot constrain the length of a spline.

You could constrain the lengths of a bunch of individual lines and make a fit spline, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're after.

I was thinking about an add-in or macro that would do this. The problem is how (even in 2D) as a spline generally has a buch of degrees of freedom on which you can act (position each control point, alter tangents, even add control points...) In other words, there is no single solution to your problem, so you must define more clearly how you want the spline to be "constrained". In the meantime, you might use our free Spliner addin which shows the length of any curve you select while you edit it.

"Philippe Guglielmetti" wrote in news:40498301$0$709$ snipped-for-privacy@news.sunrise.ch:

Embassy Works used to be able to do this, in particular the nailboard flattener could constrain a 2D spline's length. You could manipulate it however you wanted, but the length would never exceed or fall short of the set length.

This did not happen in the SW window, though, it had a separate window for the nailboard. You could stretch it out tight or scrunch it up. EW splines didn't seem to work like SW splines.

matt

It seems like what he wants to do is to simulate a pre-cut length of wire (rope, tube, etc.). The overall length is fixed, but it can be bent or shaped as needed as long as the total length does not change. Kind of the opposite of the routing package where you determine the curve length based on constraints (thru points). I think this would be a useful function. Anyone want to submit an enhancement request?

"ms" wrote in news:FCo2c.477152$I06.5311531@attbi_s01:

Yeah, no doubt this would be useful. I've submitted it, and everybody else who would like to see it should do the same.