Constuction Plane Normals

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to choose or switch the normal direction for construction planes? I've replaced a sketch plane for a sketch and the normal is flipped from the original and I don't see anyway to set this on plane creation.

It would be a big help if plane creation was all contained within one tool so that you can redefine how a plane is created instead of having to delete the original plane in order to constrain a new plane differently.

[jeff_strater]

The short answer, to be honest, is no:  There is no way today to reverse construction plane normals.  I did a quick search in the Fusion Idea Station, and didn't see this request.  However, I agree with you that this would be useful.  Feel free to add it.

However, I'm not sure that this is really your problem here.  Well, it may be related, but it's not the only problem.  I think you need a general "edit sketch coordinate system" - the ability to, after a sketch is created, to change its origin location and axes orientation.  This idea station item: create-coordinate-systems is related, but is not quite it, either.

Anyway, the answer is no, for now.  We hope to address these things in the future.

Jeff

[TrippyLighting]

I don't usually revive old threads, but I did remember this one when I came across exactly this problem within 5 minutes of coming across that problem.

The ability to flip the normal of a construction plane would have saved me quite some time in re-construction work.

A construction plane had lost it's reference to a linked component. I expected that because the linked component was deliberately deleted.

Th e fix I had in mind to pick an origin plane as a reference for that construction plane, and that worked, with the exception the the asymmetric sketch on the construction plane was flipped and other dependent construction features were upside down. In essence I ended up having to fix many more items than I had anticipated. 

This is one of these features that you wish you'd have when you have to repair items in the timeline.

In this case I knew I had broken items in the timeline because there was not other way yo accomplish my goal. I expected to have to  fix things and had a plan how to do it.

What I did not expect were these two issues.

[mroek · Accepted solution]

Like you, I also don't often revive old threads, but this is one of those annoying things that I don't think is very difficult to fix.

I came across this issue again today, where I had done a body split from a body face, and later realized I wanted to offset the split. I then decided to use an offset plane instead, which worked fine for the split. However, I had also sketched on the same face that I originally used for the split, and this sketch also needed to move, so I redefined it to the offset plane. What happened then, is that extrusions I had made from that sketch suddenly reversed, since the offset plane had a reversed normal compared to the face I had offset it from.

It would have been very useful to then just flip the normal of this plane instead of having to edit the extrudes to reverse direction of those.

So everyone, please vote for this (there was already an entry in the ideastation by OP):

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-ideastation/ability-to-set-construction-plane-normal/idi-p...

[Siff3D]

I know that this is old post, but I want to thank you for the workaround!

I have a body that I need to cut in two places and discard the "leftovers". In order to keep the name on the body that I need, I used your workaround and it worked great! Initially, I had issues making the cut with the patch, but after extending it on all sides, the cut worked without issues!

I think that there is a definitive need to have to option to specify (not only reverse, but actually set) the normal of construction planes (and on surfaces), so we can control what is happening.

[CGBenner]

@Siff3D 

Did the information provided by @mroek answer your question? If so, please feel free to use Accept Solution so that others may find this in the future. Thank you very much!

If you still need help please feel free to provide an update here so we as Community know how we can help you best moving forward.

[Siff3D]

Hi @CGBenner, 
I'm not the original poster and I guess that's why I don't see the option to mark a post as "Accepted Solution". Please advise if I'm missing something.

Thank you!