Circle perpendicular to line

Jean Lemire · 14 Feb 2008, 16:20

Hi folks.

While answering a question in one of the other SU forums on Google, it occured to me that the Circle Tool could behave as the rotatet Tool to allow to draw a circle perpendicular to a line.

The procedure could be like that :

1 - Select the Circle Tool.

2 - Press the left mouse button (LMB) anywhere on the line (endpoint, midpoint, inferenced point, whatever) instead of clicking to position the center of the circle.

3 - Slide the cursor along the line to make the circle perpendicular to the line.

4 - Release the LMB to set the circle orientation.

5 - Move the cursor to set the circle radius (typing it in the VCB if required.

Just ideas.

pilou · 14 Feb 2008, 17:14

using measure tools? it takes automaticaly the right continuation of the line
So take the lengh wished for the radius
draw the circle
Sure that's use two tools

And how do you do when the line is inclined in the 3D space?

Jean Lemire · 14 Feb 2008, 18:03

Hi folks.

Of course, my idea is for lines that may be skewed with all three axis.

In the meantime, see attached SU file showing the three methods I have found so far.

Circle perpendicular to line.skp

pilou · 15 Feb 2008, 00:31

Thx for your effort : from all the methods, I prefer the axes !
A zen method!

Wo3Dan · 25 Feb 2008, 09:57

@jean lemire said:

Hi folks.

Of course, my idea is for lines that may be skewed with all three axis.

In the meantime, see attached SU file showing the three methods I have found so far.

Jean,
Thanks for sharing. All three are good. I like the p/p method. Have used rotated axes in the pasted to do this and often wondered why the cicle tool does not work like to the protractor or rotate tool (i.e. drag along to set the plane). So my preference would definitaly be the suggestion you made for the circle tool.

Wo3Dan

JClements · 3 Mar 2008, 15:32

Jean, I think this capabilty for the Circle tool is one that would be happily received. I think this is a great idea.

I don't see why the existing circle tool couldn't incorporate this functionality (perhaps by holding the Alt key while drawing on an edge).

I bet it is possible to do with a Ruby script right now (see some of the features in the new Joint-Push-Pull script for interactively setting the "Prileged Plane"). TIG's Pipe-along-path.rb already puts adds a circle tangential to the endpoint of a path.