Creating Three Point Circles

This task shows you how to create a circle that goes through three points. In this task, we will use the Sketch tools toolbar but, of course you can create this circle manually. For this, move the cursor to activate SmartPick and click as soon as you get what you wish.
By default, circle centers appear on the sketch. In case you create circles by clicking, if you do not need them you can specify this in the Options dialog box. For this, go to Tools > Options, Mechanical Design > Sketcher option (Sketcher tab).

  1. Click Three Point Circle from the Profiles toolbar (Circle subtoolbar).

  2. The Sketch tools toolbar displays one after the other the values for defining the three points of the circle: values for defining the horizontal (H) and vertical (V) values of a point on the circle or else the radius of this circle.
    Position the cursor in the desired fields and key in the desired values for the three points on a circle.

  3. In the R box, enter the radius value and press Enter.
    You can switch from the radius mode to the diameter mode by selecting the Diameter mode option and enter the diameter value for the circle. Alternatively, you can right-click the radius or the diameter constraint and select Radius.x object > Switch to Diameter dimension.

The three point circle appears:



The constraints are assigned to this circle on the condition that you previously selected the Dimensional Constraints option in the Sketch tools toolbar. You can also select Automatic Dimensional Constraints to create following dimensional constraints for the profile elements, automatically.