lofting within an assembly

[Jasper]

I have a simple assembly that consists of two cylinders (two distinct parts). I wish to connect them with a third part - a rectangular bar - sort of like a barbell shape. I want the rectangular bar to intersect with and blend with each curved cylindrical surface at either end. I created a rectangular sketch on a plane in between the two cylinders and attempted various features like extrude boss or loft etc., but I can't figure out how to get the rectangular part to extrude to a curved surface. Perhaps this is more of a tube notching type of problem, so I apologize if I'm not asking the right question. Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
PJ

 

[Lew_Merrick]

PH,

I assume that you are creating a New Part within the context of the Assembly.

Thus, you need to create Reference Planes in the New Part upon which you can Project to Sketch (PTS) the interface geometry. It would then be a matter of constructing the intermediate geometry as required to Loft the New Part.

Does this make sense to you?

 

[Jasper]

It does but it appears that lofting can only be done to geometry that lies in a single plane for each instance of said geometry. For example, it appears you cannot loft a circle to a sphere, thus creating a bowl shape. You can only loft a circle to another circle (or square, or face, or other planar shape), creating a sort of funnel shape. If I understand correctly.

I guess what I'm trying to achieve is like a tube notch with a fillet, blending the interface between the two tubes. Does that make sense?

 

[bigseb]

Could you upload your assembly as a package. Would help if others could look at it.

 

[TylerDurden]

Something like this?


It seems, it is possible to extrude to curved geometry that is also in the part workspace, but not to curved geometry of other parts in the assembly space.

In this assembly, the two cylindrical shapes were re-created in the part workspace to provide geometry for the extrude-to operation and the fillet operation. The cylinder shapes were then cut to leave the green rectangular portion with the fillets.

 

[Jasper]

Thank you! That solves it for me. Now I see how to do it. and yes that is almost exactly the shape I was trying to get to.