Week 4 Sketch Entities and Tools


This week we learnt that there are many different ways to create a sketch to form a solid part. Using different sketch entities and tools we are able to come to the same solution. It helps to ensure all relevant relations are added to entities.

Exercise 4.1 Introduced us to the Trim Entities tool. This tool is effective when you need to remove unwanted/unnecessary lines or entities. Clicking on the sketch and dragging across with the cursor will remove them.

The issue I had using this tool is that you must be careful after you have trimmed an entity. Insure that you have trimmed all unwanted lines or entities and double-check that your sketch is correct and has no faults. Keep in mind some entities overlap more than once.

Working this exercise I thought I had trimmed all the entities that I did not want but had missed a few spots. With the result of this I was not able to extrude the sketch. So I had to go back and Edit Sketch and finely search and fix the entities.

Exercise 4.2 took us back into Adding Relations. If you look closely at the below drawing there is a few Tangent relations icon where the straight lines meet the curves. Adding a Tangent Relation gives us a smooth transition from a straight line into the curve. It is important to understand the difference between the sketch below and the sketch above.

 

Exercise 4.3 introduced us to the Slot tool. Instead of having to use 2 circles and 2 lines to form the sketch below, it is faster to simply use the Slot tool.

Exercise 4.4 let us play more with the Mirror Entities tool to form a solid such as a Steel Beam

In this Sketch I started with the top-left quadrant. Using the Mirror Entities tool I was able to mirror the top left quadrant on the vertical centre line. Then mirroring the top sketch on the horizontal line. 

Exercise 4.5 gave us more opportunity to use the Trim Entities tool to create the bottom sketch. I find that using construction lines and centre lines are helpful when creating a radius from a point in space.

Exercise 4.6 combined all the skills learnt in the previous exercises. Using a combination of Trim Entities and Mirror Entities we were able to create the solid model below. Other tools used were the Centre-point Arc tool.

After assessing the Solid model I found I could have also used the Slot tool.

Exercise 4.7 introduced us to the Polygon tool. When creating this polygon we were able to set how many edges we wanted. This exercise gave us the opportunity to use the Circular Pattern tool.