FreeCAD: Increase Your Sketching Speeds and Sketch Faster With This Single Tool

so we're going to look at a quick tip of using the polyline to switch in and out of modes when you're tracing images or when you sketching images and this can actually make your sketching a lot quicker I've already started in the Sketcher I'm going to create a new sketch I'm going to go along the X Y plane hit OK in here I'm going to drop some circles I'm going to make a part and the idea with this part is that these circles are going to be in the arms and we're going to sketch around the outside so I'm going to take all these and make them the same diameter of around about 15 mil and hit enter we'll set some distance away from here and here as well of around 30 mil and the same for this one and this one so if I wanted to surround this with some geometry to make an L shape with curvature in here then what I would normally do is use some endpoint and rimpoint arcs and come in and start basically sketching what we need in here but we can do this with the polyline rather than placing geometry down and start bringing these all together what we can do is let's get rid of these two is use the polyline this one here if we roll over this polyline you can see we've got create a polar line in the sketch m key Cycles Behavior now this you may have come across by accident if you create an arc like so and then create a polyline it connects to one of these points these arcs notice how this comes out this is actually tangent with that point so you can see that's coming out and if you don't know about this what you probably have done is use the polyline Yukon the other way and connect it up like so but all we have to do if you do get that is to use that polyline connect to that Arc and press the m key and it swaps between different modes so we go released and we get our normal polyline back here so you see if we can go in any direction press M again we can Arc around this way I click that you can see we're on Arc we now tangent to that Arc and again we got 90 degree angle 180 degree angle if press m a number of times there we go 180 degree so depending on what mode you're in pressing M Cycles through to the next mode and this is handy because we can take what we're doing here use the polyline and I'm going to first drop the first line so I'm going to create it straight across here another tip is to come down and come down to your constraints and see where it's got high listed just click that that hides them all so now I can start sketching the polyline I'm going to click and I'm going to make a line to around about midway between here make sure that's nice and straight click now I'll get the next line but I want to make an arc in here so I'm going to hit m and cycle through we get our Arc so I'm going to say about here now I'm looking at where that Arc finishes so you can see we get this helper in the middle which is the two angles that connect up the two points showing the center point of the arc so you can see that in there let's assuming a bit that Center Point is there so you can see we can move and as we move out the center point goes up and we can get our Arc so I want to make a 90 degree angle click come up not exactly 9 degree but I can hit M again to make sure I get that straight that goes up here I'm looking to bring it in line with here so that center of the circle straight line going up click and I want to come over to the other side here and rather than click and I'll press m a couple of times and we get that Arc we can Center it right about there come down all the way down and I'm going to go and connect it to this horizontal line come around to the other line rather than click in press m to create the arc a couple of times and you can see we get the Arc Center that we can manipulate into position it's going to attach to that vertical line there and come across to the other one and we'll pull this over and looking to be in that position there so you can see we're looking to be in position there the good thing is is that I've come across I'm I'm in the mode that's allowing me to move out so I can move out to here so if I hit M on the keyboard you can see the different modes so I'm going to come over just making that sure that's nice and straight I've got the horizontal constraint I've got the auto constraints on so I get that horizontal constraints I can see that straight if I clicking I hit m and we'll hit M again and again until we get this line and I can find where I'm going to place that so I can place that in line with that Center click and we get our line set in line and I'm going to come round to the other side to here so I'm coincident with that point but I'm not clicking I'd hit M once twice three times to make that Arc and create our Arc and drop the arc so now I can go through and making sure he can escape that the two Center points are coincident there we go lots of coincident constraint then and highlight those two coincident and we can go through and just change these making sure we got the constraints in just fixing the constraints and placing those two in line we may need to say put some tangent constraints if we've got a line we could make tangency against those we can see how quickly we can actually sketch by using that polyline and decide how the lines are going to fall so that's a quick tip of using that polyline this is really good when you're tracing something as well allowing you to go around that object but you just use hitting the m key rather than flipping in and out the different constraints and the different geometries here for instance we may need to create a line like that hit Escape create an arc so it's less clicks than doing all this then we will need say tangency between those two like so there's no need to do that all we need to do is we create with the polyline the first line click hit M and decide to create our Arc this is automatically contingent to here and then come out this way and carry on with the different arcs Etc so an arc around that way click and connect back up like so so that's the polyline the different modes of the polyline takes a bit of getting used to but once you start practicing it then you can actually really sketch out Geometry especially if you've got a reference material really quickly and efficiently to save your time hope you enjoyed that quick tip and I'll see you again soon if you like what we've seen please subscribe to the site I also have a co-fire or a coffee site that you can donate to if you so desire and that's at Ko hyphen f i.com forward slash m-i-n-g-0 also run a patreon where you can subscribe and get extra content and that's at www.patreon.com mango jelly Solutions any money that's kindly donated will be used to span the channel thanks a lot for watching and subscribing and I'll see you again soon

Channel: MangoJelly Solutions for FreeCAD

Views: 27,127

Keywords: CAD, three, 3D, CNC, Printing, solidworks, autoCAD, freecad 0.19, freecad 19, freecad basics, basic course, fundamentals, learn freecad, freecad beginners, freeCAD 0.20

Id: dIXkQ4daDLg

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022