Creating Standard or Construction Elements

This task shows how to create standard elements or construction elements. Note that creating standard or construction elements is based upon the same methodology.
If standard elements represent the most commonly created elements, on some occasions, you will have to create geometry just to facilitate your design. Indeed, construction elements aim at helping you in sketching the required profile.

 

  1. Click Standard/Construction from the Sketch tools toolbar so that the elements you are now going to create be either standard or construction element.

In this task, you will transform the newly created elements into construction elements.
  • To see the construction elements outside sketcher, select Add construction geometries for the newly created sketch check box under Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Sketcher > Sketch Plane.
    These elements appear as gray dashed lines and their graphic properties are not editable.
  • You can also display or hide the construction elements for an individual sketch. To do so, right-click the sketch feature in the tree and select Sketch.x object > Add construction geometries/Remove construction geometries.
  • If a sketch containing construction elements is selected as an input for feature creation,
    • Although the construction elements are made visible outside Sketcher, they are not considered for creation of sketch based features such as pads and pockets.
    • If the selection contains a combination of standard and construction elements, then only standard elements are considered for feature creation.
    • If the selection of construction elements does not lead to any standard elements in the sketch, then the construction elements (only vertices and edges) can be used to create features.
    • The selected construction elements can be forced to be used for feature creation, with the help of user selection filters, such as the point filter, curve filter, and geometrical selection filter.
 

 

Here is an example of the use of both types of elements.
The hexagon was sketched using three construction circles:
This type of sketch is interesting in that it simplifies the creation and the ways in which it is constrained. Setting a radius constraint on the second circle is enough to constrain the whole hexagon. Just imagine what you would have to do to constrain hexagons sketched with no construction circles!

Standard or Construction Points

Points are represented either by crosses or just by points, depending on the chosen creation mode.

  • In standard mode, which is the default mode, points created on a line, for instance, are represented by crosses. The points and the line are visible outside the Sketcher workbench.
  • Points generated by Break operations are created in construction mode, even if Standard/Construction is set to Standard.