Hey guys, this is Aaron.
I'm working on this model of a steam engine here and I need to get some specific geometry
in here.
I have these two lines, these lines represent where I need rods to actually run from this
section down here up into this box.
These rods actually run from the middle of these two pieces right here all the way up.
If I turn on x-ray I can see where those lines terminate.
So this is where my rod needs to start.
I need a circle here and I need to be able to push pull it the direction of this line.
So I actually want that rod to run the full length of this line, and the original circle
to be perpendicular to that line.
If I was to turn on circle right now, I would be able to snap to the end of this line, no
problem, what I can't do what's difficult to do here is to get that circle perpendicular
to the original line.
I can toggle between my different axes.
I can toggle between Green, Red, Blue.
I can even try to use my inferencing line but that doesn't really get what I want.
If I just snap on my original line, draw a circle, if I was to push pull that you can
see that would come out in some weird direction.
That's not going to work.
I need this to run perpendicular to this line.
What we're going to do is temporarily change the axis so that I can draw perpendicular
to this line.
Rather than grab the world axis and reassign it right now, that is going to mess up my
up, down, left, and right for the rest of this model, what I'm going to do is I'm going
to take these two lines and I'm going to put them into a group.
One point about making a group right here: if I select one line I right click, I don't
have the option of making a group.
I have to select more than one line or surface and right click to make a group.
So in this case I'm going to select my two lines and I'm going to click "Make Group."
Alright, so all that did was create a group separate from the rest of the model.
If I double click on the group the rest of my model disappears.
I do have, if I look up at View>Component Edit, I do have Hide Rest of Model turned
on.
So if that wasn't on I would get the greyed out version, but I actually don't need to
see the rest of that so I'm going to keep Hide Rest of Model turned on.
Now, when I first enter a group it automatically assigns the axis to the lower right corner,
or left corner depending on where you're looking at it, but the lower corner of the group.
If I click out I can see my world axis for my model is down here, but in my group it's
the bottom corner of that actual container.
What I'm going to do right now is grab the axes tool and I'm going to click at the bottom
of this first line to pick the first point.
Now it's going to ask me to assign a direction for the red axis.
I'm going to move my cursor up the line and click.
Then it's going to ask me for the green axis.
Rather than picking a direction for the green axis I'm just going to click again.
What that does is it turns the axes so that it is parallel to that red line.
So these pieces all got turned too, so right now what I can do, I can click on my circle
tool.
I can toggle to the red axis and draw my circle.
If I push pull that then, you can see it's going right up that line all the way and I
can actually snap to the top.
So if I look at that in x-ray, there's my line in the middle, and that rod is right
along that line.
So to do that again, I do it a second time for this line over here, axes tool, pick on
the point, move my mouse anywhere along this line, I can go up to the end if I want to
make sure I'm snapping to a point, but as long as I have that square line I know I'm
on the edge and I can click, and then I don't want to pick the green axis I just want to
pick a second time.
that's going to put the green and blue axes perpendicular to red.
Then, again, I can grab the circle, toggle to the red axis, draw my circle, push pull
that up to the end, and I'm assured at that point, if I click out of that group, that
those two rods run from the center of these pieces here, up into the box.
That looks perfect.
At this point I can select on this group and I can explode it.
I don't it to be separate now.
I can bring that back.
So by doing that, by temporarily grouping, I isolated the geometry and isolated the axes
so I didn't have to mess with the world axes or change that so everything else is still
up, down, left, and right like it was before, but I was able to draw perpendicular to those
lines and push pull along those off axis lines.
So that is the general idea of temporarily grouping and resetting axes while modeling.
Thank you!