| Power Sketch Quick Help |
|  | Quick Help Home nPower Software Home Quick Video |
| Overview |
| Power Sketch is a powerful tool for creating 2D geometry. You can create spline curves or NURBS type curves, circles, lines, and all types of other 2D and 3D curve geometry. The Power Sketcher also supports snapping and intelligent inferencing to existing geometry. In addition, Power Sketch provides editing tools for controlling curve continuity and tangency, for optimal control of curves. Note: We recommend that you define keystroke shortcuts (accelerators) for some of the sketching options. You can set these keystroke shortcuts in the Customize UI dialog (under the keyboard settings). Note 2: We recommend that you look at the sketching videos to get an idea how to utilize the sketch to create desired shapes. We have moved many of the most common tasks into the right click menus to allow much faster sketching. Right Click Options in "Tools 1" Quad: Toggle Sketch Inferencing - Toggle the Inferencing in main panel of Sketch Snap Only Edge - Turns Snapping on and Enables only Edge Snapping to sketch curves and NURBS Brep Edges. Snap Only Vertex - Turns Snapping on and Enables only Vertex Snapping to sketch points or Brep Vertices. 3-D Snapping - Toggles Max Snapping to off or on. Right Click Options in"Display" Quad: Toggle Knots Display - toggle knots dispay on and off for sketches in "Viewport Display Settings" panel. Toggle Sketch Curvature - toggle the curvature quality display in the main sketch panel. Right Click Options in "tools 2" Quad: Edit Vertices - goes into "Sketch Vertex" sub-object mode. This is the same as clicking on the vertex mode in the main sketch panel. Edit Edges - goes into "Sketch Edge" sub-object mode. This is the same as clicking on the edge mode in the main sketch panel. Insert Point - starts mode to allow insert of points into edge. Reference Originals - this is a flag used by the following 3 (Trim, Split, Join) to determine if we reference the original curves or create new curves. Trim Curve - starts mode to allow curve trimming Split Curve - starts mode to allow splitting of curves Join Sketch Curves - starts mode to allow joining of curves Line/Bezier/NURBS/Circles/Drawing - starts mode to allow construction of new curves of the given type Automatic Fillet - turns on Automatic Fillet in main sketch panel. Automatic Trimming - turns on Automatic Trimming in main sketch panel. |
| Sketch Options |
| Control Points: Create a Control Point NURBS curve. This curve produces the smoothest curve with G2 or higher interior continuity. Line: Create line segment curves Arc: Create arcs Bezier: Create Bezier type curves with control handles for adjusting curve continuity Blend: Create a blend corner on the corner of your curves Fillet: Insert a rounded corner on your curve corner Arc Control Hull: Create an Arc using a 3 Point control hull. Circle: Create a circle Interpolate: Create a curve to interpolate a set of points Approximate: Create a curve to approximate a set of points Drawing: Create a curve using a mouse movement across the screen. Fitting NURBS: Fit a NURBS curve to a set of points. |
| Curve Options |
| Standard Curve: Standard curve which will show up when out of creation/mdoifier mode. Construction Curve: Create a curve which will be used to help in the construction of other curves. This curve will not show up when out of creation/modifier mode and will not be selectable by other tools that utilize sketch edges. Global Mirror: The start and end points of this curve will define a mirror plane for subsequently created geometry. Offset Direction: Currently not implemented. |
| Inference / Snapping Settings |
| Start New Sketch: When this option is on, it will create a new sketch and sketch geometry created using the Pwr_Sketch command will be added into the new sketch object. If this option is off, all sketch geometry will be created into the currently active sketch. Inference: Turn inferencing on or off. Inferencing will reference existing geometry as you are sketching so that you can visually align objects. Length Snap: Snap the distance between the current and previous point to a specified length. |
| Automated Drawing Settings |
| Trim: Automatically trim curves when they cross each other. Fillet: If enabled, points created between curves will be automatically filleted. Blend: Use the intersection of the sketch curve with two other curves to define a blend between the two intersected curves. Corner Radius: Corner radius used for automatic filleting. Fillet Type: Specifies fillet type for automatic filleting - "Circular Arc", "Linear", "G1 Blend", "G2 Blend" and "G3 Blend". |
| Sketch Visibility Settings |
| Hide Control: Hide the control polygon. Quality: Turn off or on the curvature quality display. Additional settings can be found in the Viewport Display Settings to control the number of lines and the scale. Hide Z Lines: Hide lines going down to the Z plane of the sketch. Hide Verts: Hide sketch vertices |
| Sketch Offset Setting |
| Z-Offset Distance: amount to offset the sketch. This button can be used to move the whole sketch up and down. |
| Relate To Settings |
| Vertex: If this is checked when two vertices are created near each other they will be merged into a single vertex. Edge: If this is checked and a sketch vertex is created on an existing sketch curve in the same sketch it will become dependent vertex. What this means is that it sticks to the edge as the edge is moved and can only be translated along the edge. |
| Sub-Object Visibility |
| Hide Selected: This button will hide selected sketch points or sketch curves. Unhide All: Unhide all sub-objects of the current sub-object type (sketch points or curves). Hide Unselected: This button will hide all sub-objects that are not selected of the current sub-object type (sketch points or curves). NOTE: The Sub-Object Visibility only hides objects when in sub-object editing mode. It is designed to help simplify Sub-Object editing of complex sketches. If you want an edge to be visible only inside of the sketch, make it a construction curve. |