Project: HiCAD 3-D

Planar Sketch

Sketch > New > Sketch

Sketches are 3-D parts which lie in a plane and have free edges. They are, for instance, used for the creation of extruded solids, bores and subtractions, as well as for c-edge sweeps, sectional views and many other functions.

When you call the function, HiCAD will prompt you to specify a plane on which the sketch will be drawn. In this way the Part CS of the 3-D sketch will be determined.

If the World CS planes for new sketch (also 3-D sketch) checkbox has been activated in the Novice configuration, you can choose one of the default planes shown in the preview with the cursor.

If you do not want this, or if the preview will not be displayed, you can determine the plane using any points, edges, surfaces or processing planes, or right-click to activate a context menu with further functions:

The procedure is identical to that for creating processing planes.

The query for the plane will be omitted if the Prompt for plane when creating new sketch checkbox has been deactivated in the Novice configuration. The active processing plane will then be automatically used as the sketch plane.

Sketches have the part name SKETCH and the geometry type Part with free edges. The part type is Sketch .

A sketch can contain the following sketch elements:

• Polylines,
• Polygons,
• Circle,
• Circles,
• Ellipses,
• Curves,
• Special elements such as straight lines, projections, hyperedges etc.
• Auxiliary geometries.

Use the functions of the Sketch tab to draw the sketch. Please note that the sketch elements are always drawn in the sketch plane. The sketch plane is automatically placed in the active processing plane (unless nothing different was specified in the Novice configuration). If no processing plane is active, the sketch plane is placed in the XY-plane of the active coordinate system. If you want to use a different plane as sketch plane, use the plane functions that you access via Sketch > New.

Please note:
Use the Novice configuration function at Drawing > Extras > ... to influence the behaviour of the Create new 3-D sketch function with regard to the sketch plane.



Please also read the information given in the Novice configuration topic of the HiCAD Basics Help.

Clicking opens a pull-down menu with the following functions:

	Sub-part Select this function if you want to insert a sketch as a sub-part.
	Convert Use this function to convert 2-D parts into planar sketches.

Please note:

• The representation of sketches depends on their purpose.
• In the case of 3-D objects derived from sketches, HCM dimensional constraints assigned to the sketch are adopted as parameter dimensions. This applies, for example, to extruded solids or revolved solids as well as to bores, subtractions etc.
• Sketches have priority over congruent solid edges. In other words, if the cursor is in the vicinity of two exactly overlapping edges, and one of these edges belongs to the active drawing, this sketch edge will always be marked and identified when you click on it. This behaviour is supported both in shaded views and in glass body representations.
• The function for planar sketch creation is also available in the context menu for parts.

Please also read the notes on purposes and representation of sketches.

Working with Sketches (3-D) • Sketch Functions (3-D)