Creating a spline along a curved surface with equal distances to each sides

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I would like to create a sketch curve as shown below in blue:

Problem with this curve is that it is not equal in distance to the neighbouring edges. My idea was to create many different points on the outer edge and draw tangents/ perpendicular lines through them, then measure the distance and chose the midpoint but I can't get it to work and maybe there is an easier way of doing that. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you and best wishes,

Patrick

[JamieGilchrist]

hi Patrick0049,  your process sounds right, can you share your model?

[Anonymous]

Hi Jamie,

Please find the attached model. Shoudl've done that right away. I'll remember next time.

Best,

Patrick

[etfrench · Accepted solution]

One possible method is to use 2 point circles, but you still have to guess where they're tangent:

One way to generate lines quickly would be to use a circular pattern:

If you just draw the lines in your first proposed workflow as close to perpendicular as possible, you don't need to create any tangent lines, just trim them in the same way as the screencast and use their midpoints for the spline points.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Why not simply offsetting the profile?

[TrippyLighting]

Before you start working on something more complex you may want to clean the yellow icons in the timeline.

Out of 15 operations in the timeline 7 are yellow, meaning 7 warning messages have popped up and have been ignored.

Ingeneral your design methodology of using unconstrained and then moving and scaling the bodies created from those sketches is very questionable.

Have you watched any of the tutorials in the Suppoert and Learning section ?

[Anonymous]

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@etfrenchwrote:

One possible method is to use 2 point circles, but you still have to guess where they're tangent:

One way to generate lines quickly would be to use a circular pattern:

If you just draw the lines in your first proposed workflow as close to perpendicular as possible, you don't need to create any tangent lines, just trim them in the same way as the screencast and use their midpoints for the spline points.

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Hi etfrench,

Very interesting solution. Thank you! I see what you're saying with the circles and guessing the tangents. Still quite close in case you just want a rough approach. The drawing of perpendicular lines with trimming could also be used in that way when you don't need the exact solution.

The second method using a circular pattern is much more elegant I think. A bit tedious with the manual deletion but yields exactly the result I was looking for. Thanks again.

Best,

Patrick

[Anonymous]

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@lichtzeichenanlagewrote:

Why not simply offsetting the profile?

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I see your point and in the end I actually used this approach as a workaround but since the profile won't be offset in extended length, the endpoints will be missing and also finding the midpoint is still guesswork. It helps for a quick and dirty solution though

[Anonymous]

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@TrippyLightingwrote:

Before you start working on something more complex you may want to clean the yellow icons in the timeline.

Out of 15 operations in the timeline 7 are yellow, meaning 7 warning messages have popped up and have been ignored.

Ingeneral your design methodology of using unconstrained and then moving and scaling the bodies created from those sketches is very questionable.

Have you watched any of the tutorials in the Suppoert and Learning section ?

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Hello Peter,

I appreciate your feedback. The warnings were generated when I was using a more complex design and just deleted additional irrelevant bodies and sketches. I didn't bother fixing it afterwards because I didn't see the need. I do agree that the scaling approach is questionable and I'm glad you pointed it out again. I've restarted this design and chose the right size from the beginning. I'm still at my early stages of Fusion360 (this was actually kind of my first design) and learning along the way.

By the way, your company name really stood out to me 🙂 As a fellow luminaire manufacturer I have to say I really like your work. Everything that opposes the dull and monotonous designs of most current manufactures is a great step towards better lighting from my point of view. Will keep an eye on it!

Best,

Patrick