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(continued...) In dragging the T shaped frame along a spline the tangent and normal are displayed.
Once the Moving Frame has been locked onto the spline, the frame handles can be dragged to alter the shape of the spline or have constraints added.
An intersection curve tool enables 2D or 3D curves to be generated for any intersecting planes, surfaces or parts.
By creating a planar curve for the inside and outside surface of a part the wall thickness can be readily measured.
3D intersection curves can be useful as sweep paths and by generating curves from imported geometry parametric sketches and hence models can be derived.
Edges can be converted directly into 3D sketch entities and the trim and extend tools are now supported in 3D.
One of the simple but obvious sketch tool omissions has been rectified with the new polygon tool that allows between three and twenty sides and is entirely controlled from the PropertyManager.
Patterns within sketches can fortunately now be driven parametrically and can be subsequently edited.
A significant enhancement for part manipulation is the capability to apply a non-uniform scaling factor by entering X-Y-Z co-ordinates.
This is of particular importance for mould making applications for which the Mold Tools toolbar has been created incorporating tools such as draft, split line and radiate surface.