"Extents" for Sheet Metal Contour Flange

[DRoam]

Someone please tell me if I'm missing something.

If I do a Contour Flange with "Join" selected, I can choose which Extents type I want to use, including From/To.

But if I'm doing a "New Solid", I'm forced to use the Distance and specify how long I want my contour flange to be. So I can't utilize the workplanes I have in my model.

What is the reason for this? Am I doing something wrong? Is there something I can do to enable the From/To extents option for a new Contour Flange?

[mcgyvr]

Well..

You can utilize the parameter that was used to place/create the plane (its offset distance parameter,etc..)

But it needs some solid geometry to do a to/from..

[DRoam]

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@mcgyvr wrote:

Well..

You can utilize the parameter that was used to place/create the plane (its offset distance parameter,etc..)

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I knew someone would suggest that  the planes I want to go between aren't directly parametrically linked. I have several planes all of which are defined in a specific manner and are indirectly linked, but I'm trying to avoid having to write a book of equations for the distance from each plane to every other plane. It shouldn't be necessary, anyway. The Contour Flange should have a From/To option.

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mcgyvr wrote: 

But it needs some solid geometry to do a to/from..

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What is the reason for this? I must not be understanding what the to/from does for the Contour Flange join operation. I would expect it to just work like it does for Extrude and control the start/end distance of the flange profile, and for this I should be able to select work planes.

Does it do something else?

I've been doing a lot of looking online and experimenting in Inventor and for the life of me I can't figure out what the different Extents options are supposed to do. "Distance" seems to be the only one that will work.

Can you, or anyone, post a Screencast showing how the From/To option (with "Join" active) is supposed to work?