Digital Art Zone

You would think I would know this but I don’t.
All these years of working with Hexagon and I have never used a custom working plane.
Can someone give me a practical scenario where I would want or need to use a custom working plane?
I am sure it will be ahhh-haaa moment.

It’s mostly a CAD thing.

For instance you are working on a complex space ship and want to add a cargo door to a rounded hull.

You would make a working plane that fixes on the hull so that any modifications would be perpindicular to the hull even though the hull is round in shape.

Think of it as a magnetic “Rubic’s Cube” that allows one to keep things perpindicular to the object they are working on in object mode only.

(X,Y) (X,Z) (Z,Y)  It will allow one to zero out one of the X,Y,Z axis so that the plane can be used to precisely align you work in two axis only.

Symmetry works this way - sort of.

It’s also why robotic controlled arms can work at weird angles on parts.  They use custom working plane geometry to keep two axis control so that the object is always aligned in object space rather than world space.

I’ve never used this in Hexagon, don’t know where it located or how it is used. heh

Here’s an autocad tutorial that demonstrates one use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K-2ntUYJsw

Design Acrobat - 08 July 2012 11:18 AM

It’s mostly a CAD thing.

For instance you are working on a complex space ship and want to add a cargo door to a rounded hull.

You would make a working plane that fixes on the hull so that any modifications would be perpindicular to the hull even though the hull is round in shape.

Think of it as a magnetic “Rubic’s Cube” that allows one to keep things perpindicular to the object they are working on in object mode only.

(X,Y) (X,Z) (Z,Y)  It will allow one to zero out one of the X,Y,Z axis so that the plane can be used to precisely align you work in two axis only.

Symmetry works this way - sort of.

It’s also why robotic controlled arms can work at weird angles on parts.  They use custom working plane geometry to keep two axis control so that the object is always aligned in object space rather than world space.

I’ve never used this in Hexagon, don’t know where it located or how it is used. heh

Here’s an autocad tutorial that demonstrates one use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K-2ntUYJsw

 

 

I did figure out how to use it in a practical application. Now I will have to not forget about it and make the most use of it.
I will take a look at the link you posted.
Maybe an under utilized feature. When I get the ins and outs of using it I will post a video.

johnnybevo - 08 July 2012 05:30 AM

You would think I would know this but I don’t.
All these years of working with Hexagon and I have never used a custom working plane.
Can someone give me a practical scenario where I would want or need to use a custom working plane?
I am sure it will be ahhh-haaa moment.

A common scenario for me is the wing of aircraft. It has dihedral. If I set the custom workplane to the angle of the dihedral, I can then scale and move the vertices on my wing a lot easier to keep the tapering airfoil shape.