Silly question...Joining spheres at surface.

[Mrwesty]

Hi.

How do I get different sized spheres to touch each other, say a 20mm sphere and a 15mm one... get them to sit against each other

Or three? Imagine three balls roll to the bottom of a hill, and all three end up touching in a triangle?

Or four?

I cant figure it out, it seems simple, I must be missing something.

Is there a way to make a sphere, then another of a different size, then have them touch, then add a third of say 5mm, which would 'rest' against the other two, and so on.

K

[LMD001]

Hello Mrwesty,

Welcome to the forum.

Maybe not exactly what you are looking for but here is a thread with a similar question: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/mating-a-sphere-to-a-cylinder/m-p/5855933#M35...

Hope is of some help.

Best regards,

Ludo

[Oceanconcepts · Accepted solution]

Contact sets is a good way to get objects to touch but not overlap. It’s the “and so on” that makes me think that might not be such a good approach as too many bodies would bog down the system. It would work for a few objects, though. How many do you need? 

Placing a joint will default to the center of each sphere. If you offset the joint in the dialog to the sum of the two radii then the joint will place the two spheres tangent to each other. Adding a third ball jointed to both would result in a conflict, though. A joint to one with a contact set would solve that. 

If this is a static situation on a single plane, you could just make a sketch of the diameters using tangent circles and use the center points to place your spheres. 

[Mrwesty]

Thank you for the reply guys....:) Contact sets. Thats what I needed.....:)