Sketch Planes

Use the tools in the sketch toolbar to define the sketch plane and adjust the grid settings.

When in sketch mode, a sketch plane is displayed and is represented as a grid with major and minor lines.



Figure 1. Sketch Plane
Tip: Click in the view controls to rotate the model so that the sketch plane is normal to the grid. Successive clicks will toggle back and forth between fitting the entire model in the view and zooming in on selected sketch curves.

Define the Sketch Plane

When a sketch tool is active, select a face to define the sketch plane.

  1. On the Geometry ribbon, click a sketch tool.
  2. Designate the sketch plane and enter sketch mode:
    • If there is geometry, click a face.
    • If there is no geometry, you do not need to do anything. The global x-y plane is designated as the sketch plane and you automatically enter sketch mode.
Tip:
  • Click New Plane to select a new sketch plane.
  • Click Move Plane to open the Move tool and translate or rotate the sketch plane.

Modify Grids and Grid Snaps

Adjust grid and grid snap settings using the Options tool on the Sketch toolbar.

Location: Sketch Toolbar



Grid # spacing
Change the default spacing for a grid. There are five progressive levels of grid spacing.
Snaps every # fine grids
Use to adjust snapping behavior for minor grid lines.
Snap to grid
Deselect to disable grid snapping entirely. Press ALT to tempoarily disable snapping.
View normal to plane on create
Automatically rotate your view when a sketch plane is created, so that the sketch plane is normal to the view.

Create 2.5D Sections

Extract sketch curves from optimized results.

Placing the sketch plane on an optimized part will automatically create 2D sketch geometry through the section plane. This works best with 2.5D (extruded) optimization results.