Align or Joint to a curved surface

[RogerInHawaii]

I have a rod with a circular end. I want to position that rod so the end is flush (or as flush as it can get) with a particular point on a curved surface. I can select the Joint operation and, within the Joint dialog, select the center of the flat end of the rod, but how do I select the desired target point on the target curved surface? Is there a way to somehow place a point on a curved surface so that it can be used as the target for an align or joint operation? Or some other way to accomplish this?

[davebYYPCU]

Sketch a line (fully constrained) perpendicular and connected to the curved surface, and join to the end point.

Might help.....

[jhackney1972]

I would position a workplane tangent to the curved surface, sketch a Point on this workplane, which will be exactly on the surface of the curved surface.  Of course, you will have to keep the axis lined up but you get the idea.  Then a quick joint between the center point of the rod end and the point you just sketched.  Take a look at the screencast.

[RogerInHawaii]

Thank you. I'll give that a try, although my curved surface isn't as simple as a sphere, but rather is a fairly complex curve. I think I'll have to use a tangent plane, if it even lets me make one tangent to a point on my compound curve.

Plus, I've actually got a dozen or so of these things to do. I was sure hoping there was a way to just drop a point on the curved surface and say Stick it here! 🙂

[RogerInHawaii]

It appears that a tangent plane only works for cylinders or cones, and NOT to a surface that has complex curves.

Here' the thing that I'm working on.

What I'm actually trying to attach to this are small "rivets". Each rivet is simply a hemisphere, so for the joint I can select the center of the circular backside of the rivet and what I'D LIKE to do is select the circular opening in the cover plate. HOWEVER, each of those circular openings are not QUITE circles. I was unable to figure a way to get them to be precise circles on that curved plate. The best I could do was create a plane some distance in from of the plate, draw a sketch on that plane with each of the holes represented by a nice, perfect circle, and then do a CUT extrude through the plate. It would SEEM that such an  operation would create a really nice, perfectly circular, hole on the plate, but since the plate itself is curved, each one is actually not quite a circle. And that means they're not "selectable" as a target for the Joint operation.

I then figured, well, maybe I can make a separate tangent plane for each one, choosing the surface BEHIND the very center of the hole. But the tangent plane operation doesn't allow that. It either puts the tangent plane in a totally different (weird) location or makes it perpendicular to the surface, instead of tangent. I just can't seem to get it to work.

So, any other suggestions as to how I can get my rivets positioned where they need to go?

[RogerInHawaii]

Oh, MAYBE Plane Tangent to Face At Point might work. I hadn't seen that before. I'll give that a try.

[jeff_strater]

@RogerInHawaii - actually, this is something that we are working on even now.  The idea is to improve the options for geometry to select for creating implicit joint origins, and Tangent is one option that we are looking at.

[davebYYPCU]

Further to message #2 above,  Like this?  (Not rocket science, pun intended)

Your surface appears to be conical, but doesn't matter if it is a lofted surface, 

You created the rivet hole, so the geometry already exists somewhere in your timeline.

For this demo, I cut the hole with a pipe, and the joint origin is on the end point of the path, the sketch articles are not fully defined but can be.

Once you have the Joint Origin somewhere near it, (Placed for effect - definitely not required) the rivet can be offset in the Joint Dialogue for the appropriate depth

For quick demo my Rivet is a new body in-situ, but if made as a component, can be placed the way you want it, 

At the time you made the holes, go back and pattern the rivet the same way.

My demo done with one sketch.  File attached,

Might help....