Create sketches

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Before we get started, let's make sure all our snap options are turned on and the unit system is set to millimeters. To create a sketch that is perfectly centered inside our design world, we can go to the toolbar, select Sketch, and then you see those three construction planes. This is the Y and X construction plane. This is the C and Y, and this is the C

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and X construction plane. This is also top, right and front. And this is the same like the front, top and right view inside the 3D View Cube. Also pay attention to how the grid automatically updates based on what construction plane my mouse is hovering over. I will select the X and Y construction plane, click onto it. You see how

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the view rotates into an orthographic perpendicular view. I see the origin and with the rectangle from center, I can click and by using the grid, nicely draw a 20 by 20 millimeter rectangle. I exit the sketch, go into a nice 3D view and there you see, we drew a rectangle on the ground. To draw...

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a vertical sketch in front view. I can also then go directly first into front view. Then I go to the toolbar, select Sketch, Rectangle from Center. Again, here we see the origin, the X, Y, and Z zero point. And in addition, you also see those two magenta points. This is where the first sketch is intersecting with this new sketch.

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Again, from the origin, we click and drag out another nice 20 by 20 millimeter rectangle. Exit sketch, going to 3D view. And there you see how we created those two sketches, which are perfectly centered in our design environment.

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To create a sketch that is more in three-dimensional space, somewhere positioned or rotated, we have various options. One is to use the Transform command. For that, I will hide Sketch 2. I will select Sketch 1, exit the sketch. Then you see the sketch, everything is selected. Plus now we see the 3D widget command

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for move, rotate or scale. With this, we can manipulate the sketch, move it into a different position. What I would like to do is turn on the copy function and I zoom out a little bit, and then I use the move command and drag a new copy above this first rectangle. The copy command is still active.

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And when I now invoke the rotate function, you see it creates a new rectangle. If I turn this one off, then this new rectangular sketch, I can move to somewhere else as desired. What is really interesting here also to point out is if you select any sketch and exit it, pay attention to the orientation of the 3D widget

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it automatically aligns with the orientation of that sketch.

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I will turn off those two sketches, turn this one back on, go into a nice center position view. Another way to create a sketch somewhere in 3D view is by attaching it to a construction plane. To do that, you can go to the Add menu, then select Construction Plane.

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They are various types. We will use the offset version. And with this version, we have the ability to offset a new construction plane from any flat input. So any sketch or existing construction planes. In this case, I will select the Z and X construction plane, click Next, and drag this one out by 10 millimeters. Click Done. Select

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the construction plane and to attach a new sketch onto it, we click Sketch in the toolbar. Again, the view rotates into a perpendicular orthographic view to that sketch. And I will draw a circle at the bottom to 10 millimeters diameter. Exit the sketch, go into a nice 3D view. And when I rotate around, now there you can see,

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how that circle is somewhere in 3D space.

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The last option to show you how we can create a sketch in 3D space is by attaching it onto a flat face of a body. I have hidden all the other objects. I will select this sketch profile.

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And then you see, I have here an arrow and with that, I can invoke the Extrude command and I extrude out a cube by 10 millimeters, click and select an edge that then invokes the Chamfer command, click and drag it to the center, 8 millimeters. And on any of those flat surfaces, we can attach a sketch. I will select this rotated surface.

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Click Sketch. And then here again, you see the view rotates into an orthographic perpendicular view. Because this is a body that is intersecting with the sketch, we now have a face center, an edge midpoint and edge endpoint.

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Here, I will again use the Circle command and draw a circle at the face center, 9 millimeters, exit, and go into a nice 3D view. And you see that this sketch is then created in 3D space, but it is attached to that face of that geometry.

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To select objects or elements of an object, Shapr3D gives you various ways to do that. For example, we can go to the Items menu. This is where all our objects are listed. And when I move my mouse over those individual objects, you see how they are highlighted inside the 3D view. And then when I click them, they are then selected inside

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3D view.

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In 3D view, I can very easily also select individual elements of a body. So for example, this face of this body or this edge of that body or the edge of the sketch.

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When I have two elements overlapping the same space, for example, down here, I have the body edge and I have the sketch edge. When I click with my mouse, I will then get the small pop-up menu. And this tells me the first is the edge of body 01 from the extrusion. And this is the edge of sketch 01.

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Also here again, pay attention to how everything is highlighted color wise. So you know, with orange, this is the edge of the sketch I will select and the rest of the sketch I would select from is highlighted in a thicker blue outline.

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to select something that is inside an object or hidden by other objects. For example, the ground plane. So sketch one, I can move my mouse to where I would be able to select it. Right click, and then select the Select Through This Point command. And then here you see, this gives me a selection of the face

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bottom face, the body, and here is the Sketch01 profile I could select. If I do this on this area, right click, select through this point. There you see now, this gives me a bigger option because under my mouse, multiple objects were positioned. So the profile of Sketch06, everything from body one,

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the profile of sketch 2 and the profile of sketch 1.

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to edit a sketch and continue drawing into it. In 3D view, we can simply select any element of a sketch and by that jump right into the drawing mode. Pay attention to how the grid based on the sketch you select also updates. This means because the sketch is two-dimensional and I'm looking at this from a 3D viewpoint, I can continue drawing

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two-dimensionally right into this sketch.

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If however, you would like to take a look at a sketch from a standard perpendicular view, you can select a sketch, then press the space bar button. This will move into this orthographic perpendicular view. And then from there, you can add more to the sketch.

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When you attach a sketch onto a construction plane or a planar face of a body, you have to be aware of that when those objects are manipulated, that this will impact also the position of the sketches. Let's take a look at the History panel. This is where you see Shapr3D's history-based parametric modeling. This is a chronological...

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display of every step we took. So I created sketch one, then I made two copies. Then I created sketch two, from which I offset a construction plane onto which I attached sketch five. From sketch one, I extruded a cube. I selected one edge and chamfered it. And onto that resulting rotated surface, I attached sketch six.

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These are all sketch features. They have options, which you can see and then edit. This is the offset feature. And if I go ahead and change the offset distance from 10 to 14 millimeters and hit Enter, you see in 3D view that construction plane was moved and the sketch moved with it. If I now click on this feature and then in 3D view, you see the UI

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to adjust the distance interactively. I can go ahead and write the value by hand, press Enter, or I simply drag the arrow forward and backwards and live, the sketch moves with it. And the same is also true with the extrusion. If I click on the extrusion, change the value, you see how everything here nicely updates.

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And when I go to the Chamfer and adjust the value, also there, the sketch moves with it.

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If I now select the body and move this body to somewhere else, you see that the sketch remains at its position. And this makes sense because if we take a look at our history, the movement command is at the bottom. So I made the cube, chamfered the edge, attached the sketch, and then I moved the body.

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If I want the sketch to also move with the body, then the sketch has to be after the movement and rotate command. And we can do this by click and drag and position it under it. And then when you select this move and rotate feature and update it, you see how the sketch always follows the movement of the body.