Cylinder Creation Mode

Modeling: ShapesCylinderCircular Cylinder

In this mode, you may interactively define a cylinder by double-clicking its base centerpoint, its radii and its height in the currently active coordinate system. The axis of the cylinder will always be oriented perpendicular to the currently active working plane. To define a cylinder with a different axis, you must first change the working plane’s orientation by using local coordinate systems.

You may change the view at any time by using the standard view changing options.

Creation steps

• When you first enter the mode, you will be asked to double-click to mark the base center point of the cylinder. The cursor’s location will be projected onto the currently active working plane to define the center (always remember to release the mouse button after double clicking, before dragging to the next point).

• After the first point has been set, you may specify the outer radius by again double-clicking at a location on the working plane. During this operation, a rubber-band circle will be displayed indicating the current size and location of the cylinder’s ground plane.

• In the third step, you may specify the height of the cylinder by double-clicking a distance perpendicular to the working plane. During this operation, a rubber-band cylinder will be displayed indicating the size and location of the currently defined cylinder.

• The next step allows you to define an inner radius of the cylinder when necessary. You may create a solid cylinder by just defining the inner radius as large as the outer radius (the inner radius will automatically be limited to the size of the outer radius).

• Finally, a Cylinder dialog box appears where you may check your settings and assign a name, a component and a material for the new cylinder.

Display of locations

Throughout this mod,e the current mouse location will be displayed in the lower right corner of the main plot window.

Snap mode

All positions will be adjusted to the snap grid when active.

Cancel interactive mode

You may cancel this interactive mode at any time by pressing the ESC key. Pressing ESC again in the following dialog box will terminate the cylinder creation.

Undo last double-click

You may go back to the last step by pressing the BACKSPACE key. Pressing this key in the interactive mode will undo the last double-click.

Numerical specification of coordinates (TAB key and SHIFT+TAB key)

To precisely specify the shape coordinates, you may press the TAB key whenever a point must be double-clicked. A small coordinate dialog box will open in which you may specify the shape coordinates numerically.

The dialog entries take over the coordinates at the cursor position on the working plane. However if the SHIFT+TAB key is pressed, the coordinates are always set to zero.

Pick tools to specify coordinates

You may snap the location to a previously defined shape’s corner, cylinder radius, etc., by activating a point pick tool, at the moment when the next point must be specified. The double-click will be processed by the pick functionality to specify the location of a point. The picked point will then be taken as the selected location.

See also

Working Plane Properties, Standard view changing options, Snap grid, Cylinder, Main plot window, Coordinate dialog box, Point pick tool, Material Parameters.