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  3. Modeling in Material&Component Tool

Material&Component Tool: How to Draw Line, Rectangle, Arc and Circle?

  • Introduction

Introduction

In Material&Component, there are 4 kinds of tools to draw lines, including Line, Rectangle, Arc and Circle. These drawing tools can help us draw different modeling lines.

  • Line

Line

Select Line, choose a start point in 3D mode, and then click on the end point. Or you can just input the length of the line at the left corner. Enter button can help to confirm the value of length.

Note:
lines can’t be existed individually in Material&Component.The straight lines must form a closed figure. If no closed area is formed, the line disappears automatically. When drawing lines, use the left button to start drawing, and the right button to end drawing.

Endpoint capture helps us to know where the endpoint is, Material&Component tool provide these 4 captures: End Point, Middle Point, Intersection Point and On Face.

You can also confirm the direction of a line by the three-dimensional coordinate system. The green arrow, red arrow, and blue line represent the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis respectively.

By using the coordinate system, we draw lines more easily in the 3D space.

1. Select a starting point and move the pointer over an axis direction and the x, y, or z-axis appears.

2. Click Line (L), move the pointer over a point on a shape for multiple seconds, and then move the pointer along the x-axis, y-axis, or z-axis to display the corresponding extension line.

A field appears in the lower-left corner when you draw a line. You can enter a value for the length of the line as needed.

  • Rectangular

Rectangular

Click Rect (R) in the toolbar, click to select a start point, and move the pointer to a destination to specify a diagonal of the rectangle that you want to draw. Click again or press Enter to draw the rectangle. Enter values for the length and width in the fields for precise drawing.

Note:

Press Tab to switch between the L and W fields. After entering values for the length and width, press Enter to draw the rectangle.

A tooltip showing On Face appears when you move the pointer over a face. An auxiliary line that represents the x-axis (green), y-axis (red), or z-axis (blue) is displayed automatically when you draw a shape. This feature is common in other 3D modeling software.

  • Arc

Arc

Click Arc in the toolbar, click to specify the start point of the chord of the arc that you want to draw, and then click again to specify the destination of the chord. You can also enter a value for the chord length in the CL field. Move the pointer to specify the chord height and click to draw the arc. You can also enter a value for the chord height in the CH field. Click again or press Enter to draw the arc. Right-click to exit drawing arcs. You can push, pull, and offset arcs.

  • Circle

Circle

1. Click Material&Component. On the Material&Component page, click Circle (C) (shortcut key: C) in the toolbar.

2. Click to specify the center of the circle that you want to draw.

3. Move the pointer or enter a value in the Radius field to specify the radius of the circle that you want to draw. Click or press Enter to draw the circle.

Right-click to exit drawing circles.

Note:

Currently, you can only specify arcs and circles as loft paths. Specifying arcs and circles as cross-sections is not supported.

You cannot create torus and conical surfaces by using Loft.