Drawing line between circles

[Anonymous]

Ok, I have a small nit: I am drawing a line between two circles. I want the line to be tangent to both circles. When I choose 'L' and wish to connect to Circle-A, I don't have a way to tell it to be tangent. When I select Circle-A and drag it over to Circle-B, then I get that tangent icon. But I always have to go back to Circle-A and tell it to be tangent to the line. How can I do this without having to always go back and tangent the line? Is there a way?

[jeff_strater]

Is this what you are trying to do?  You have to start by dragging on one circle - that establishes the tangency with that circle - it will persist no matter where you put the other end.  For the termination end, you have to eyeball it, until the tangent is recognized on the second circle.  Personally, I find it pretty easy, but I'm used to it:

[docara]

Hello Jeffrey,

Welcome to the forum.

When you have the two circles on the screen and you are in the line command, you will notice that a little blue cross will appear when the cursor hits the circumference of the circle. This is a Coincident marker it means that the two points are 'bonded' (BUT might still be able to move around depending on other constraints). If you move your cursor to the 12, 3, 6,or 9 o'clock positions you should see the Tangent constraint marker appear and just click when you see it.

In your scenario just draw a line in the approximate position where you want the line to be making sure the blue cross appears both times on both circles. Then on the right hand side of the screen in the Constraints menu you will se a tangent icon towards the bottom of the list click on this and then click on the line to circle(s) and Fusion will do the rest.

Remember of course that you can also select the small dot on the end of the lines /arc and if you keep your mouse still and left button is pressed and held you will see a list of the entities under the cursor to choose from.

Check out Lars Christensen Tutorials on YouTube - Great guy and Autodesk employee also the starter tutorials here.

Matt