topic Re: How to draw tangent at an angle? in AutoCAD Forum

How to draw tangent at an angle?

jaskiratspanesar — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 17:49:02 GMT

Please refer to the drawings below

I want to draw a tangent to a circle. we can do this by selecting a line and then I do shift + right click. This allows us to track tangent.

But now, my problem is that I want to draw it to an angle of 30 degrees also.

How can I do that?

Thanks

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

Kent1Cooper — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 18:37:23 GMT

Will this work for you? Draw a Line from Osnapping to the CENter of whatever Arc/Circle/Polyline-arc-segment you want the result to be tangent to. From there, draw it in whatever direction you need, or draw it in the 0° direction and then ROTATE it about that center to the angle you need. Then OFFSET the Line with the radius of the curve as the Offset distance.

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

Michiel.Valcke — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 19:01:27 GMT

This is the geometric composition of your figure. Not every shape can be drawn without auxiliary geometry. Draw whatever extra geometry you need and you'll be able to trace or trim/boundary your way to the result.

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

jaskiratspanesar — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 19:09:34 GMT

Many thanks!
Have you also rotated the line -60 degree(if we draw line initially at 0 degree or horizontal) and then off set it by radius of circle to get that resulting angle as 30 degree?

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

Michiel.Valcke — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 23:04:03 GMT

I drew the line from the center of the R10 circle first, directly under a -60° angle, no need to rotate, and then I did an offset of 10 to get the tangential line. Both options are valid as @Kent1Cooper also explained.

In general there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to draw this if the end result is correct. And for most if not all things in AutoCAD there are multiple ways to get to the same result.

Just try to avoid unnecessary steps in general, because each step can contain a mistake, so the fewer steps you need to get to your final result, the less likely an unnoticed mistake was made. But even this is a very soft rule, and again, if the end result is correct, the way there does not always matter.

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

j.palmeL29YX — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 05:50:43 GMT

One of a lot of other ways:

(view in My Videos)

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

Washingtonn — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 19:49:47 GMT

Another way.

(view in My Videos)

Re: How to draw tangent at an angle?

RSomppi — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 16:29:45 GMT

Draw the line orthagonally from a quadrant to make it tangent and then rotate it around the center of the circle.