unable to trim part of a circle

[dwc]

Specifying a circle instead of a round shape allows trimming.

There we have the problem.
Don't use shapes.
I don't know what they are good for, but they don't react in ways that make them useful.
I don't understand why they are different than other sketch objects.
They might be convenient for some things, but I have given up on them as they only make problems.
Don

 

[Zetopan]

Tell me what you mean by round shape and I'll try that.

See the attached image. The default setting in my 2017 Alibre is a "Square Shape", but by clicking on the dropdown menu arrow you can see the larger set of shapes available. I only included a single circle/round shape to simplify the drawing. In reality the same circle/round shape is symmetrically located on all four square corners.

 

[JST]

Oldfox:

I might just use the circles if it is just 4 circles as cutting shapes.

If it is more complex shapes I tend to use a separate sketch, extrude one, and pattern the feature. That is easy to edit.

I hardly ever pattern sketches, because the pattern of sketches are all, except for the first one, just sets of undimensioned lines, with no definite relation to the first one. Totally uneditable in a practical way. Each element of the pattern has to be dimensioned individually. Not so with a feature.

I agree with DWC, I almost never use the shapes. Almost, because I HAVE used them maybe twice or so, and did not really like them, in general. I think they must be useful, but have not found that use yet.

 

[iwanttoslot]

I think the place where shapes could be useful are in sheet metal parts especially for fastener holes.
Even on construction parts that have fastening holes.

 

[simonb65]

This works fine for me! The only time I can't trim is is the sketch was projected from another geometry and 'maintain association with source' is enabled. In this case you would see the symbol by the line you are trying to trim.

 

[simonb65]

It's slightly off topic, but I can't extend partial circles to full circles, that have been projected from a sketch or just originally drawn as an arc, without placing a 'target' line somewhere in the arc! i.e. can't reconstruct cutouts, fillets, etc. Surly the 'extend target' for an open circle is itself if nothing else is in the path!

 

[bigseb]

It's slightly off topic, but I can't extend partial circles to full circles, that have been projected from a sketch or just originally drawn as an arc, without placing a 'target' line somewhere in the arc! i.e. can't reconstruct cutouts, fillets, etc. Surly the 'extend target' for an open circle is itself if nothing else is in the path!

Agreed, Would like to see this fixed. Goes hand in hand with line-arc intersection that aso doesn't work.

 

[oldfox]

>post # 27
Agreed and Agreed. Bottom line... "An arc will not extend to itself". Nuff said.

 

[oldfox]

To take it one step further. A circle can be drawn and the arc deleted in 5 clicks and 1 keystroke. So why write the
code to extend to itself?

 

[simonb65]

To take it one step further. A circle can be drawn and the arc deleted in 5 clicks and 1 keystroke. So why write the
code to extend to itself?

Its just because that's not consistent behaviour with the extend functionality of every other sketch item entity! ... oh yeah, and it's 4 clicks and 1 keystoke more than you need to!

 

[oldfox]

4 clicks and 1 keystoke more than you need to!

Only if you can.

 

[HaroldL]

It needs a different function - not to extend to itself but to change the angle of arc from ,say, 270 degrees to 360 degrees. AutoCAD has something like this as the Close option of the JOIN command.

 

[TylerDurden]

I prefer to make separate features: it reduces sketch complexity and shows in the history where the features can be identified and hidden/suppressed as desired.

Oldfox, Alibre has sketch tools for shapes, one being circular.

I find it more efficient to use the circle tool than the circular shape tool.

 

[bigseb]

Shapes aren't bad. They have some interesting placement options.

Take for example the single D-shape (good for keyed ejector pins). You can create the sketch very simply and turn it to the correct orientation and pattern it all in one easy step and its all parametric. Others I use are obround, rectangle and R corner and double D (tee hee).

Hidden gems, check em out if you haven't!

 

[dwc]

Shapes aren't bad. They have some interesting placement options.

As long as you an use them as they are and don't need to integrate them with other sketch figures.
Don

 

[oldfox]

I started learning Alibre so long ago that now I have a way of doing things that is comfortable, fast (for me), and
simple (and again, for me). As for the ribbon. I tried that but it took up to much screen real estate for my liking. I
never use it. For the longest time I used Alibre Design and even before that, Alibre Xpress. So I've learned how to use
those pared down versions pretty efficiently. I do all this for my own use. Not for an employer. And that puts me in a
different world than a lot of yu'ns. I'm now using AD 2017.1 Pro.
Like everything else, as long as something is used within it's capability, it generally is a good thing. I'll give *shapes*
a try and see what comes of it.

 

[HaroldL]

I recall that the first I heard of Alibre was in one of the "free" subscription trade magazines at work. The ad, along with a disk of, I think v1.xx or v2, had such a low price I thought it was a joke at first. Once I got it installed on my laptop though I could see its potential. The only downside I could see at the time was that there was no sheet metal. Thankfully that came along later. One thing that I really liked on the early versions was the tech support chat sessions. When you had a problem -- open a chat session and you were in contact with support.