Relative Co-ordinates

[NormandC]

If you want to make a pipe path, you can try using Draft WB Dwire or Draft WB Bspline and enter the X,Y,Z coordinates for each point along the Dwire or Bspline path.

Problematic if your path contains arcs. Assuming this is for bent tubing, you must have a radius on corners. I doubt the Draft BSpline would be suited here, if we're talking bent tubing (rotary draw or roll bending).

[Cat Oregon]

Sorry I think I was just in a bad mood yesterday and FreeCAD got in the line of fire. I am actually impressed because whenever I don't think something is possible it usually is with a little research which isn't always true for AutoCAD. If you prefer this over AutoCAD, then I'll take your word on it Normdc.

[NormandC]

Hello,

If you want to make a pipe path, you can try using Draft WB Dwire or Draft WB Bspline and enter the X,Y,Z coordinates for each point along the Dwire or Bspline path.

Problematic if your path contains arcs. Assuming this is for bent tubing, you must have a radius on corners. I doubt the Draft BSpline would be suited here, if we're talking bent tubing (rotary draw or roll bending).

bejant, I just tried the DWire tool to create a 3D path as you suggested, because I remembered something: Draft objects all have a corner fillet property (except circle and ellipse of course).

What I was not sure about was if fillets worked on a DWire that does not lie on a single plane. Well, they do.

This means that a 3D path can be created by entering relative coordinates, without having to work with multiple sketches on different planes. There's also less "overhead" in dealing with a Draft object rather than with sketches. The Draft workbench most closely resembles an AutoCAD way of creating 2D geometry. In fact I only used the Draft and Part workbenches.

One DWire limitation is that it does not supports arcs. But for the most common case of rotary draw tube bending, this may prove quite useful.

The DWire is fully editable after it's been created, either by picking points and dragging or by entering relative or absolute coordinates.

FC_bent_tubing_DWire_path_02.png (13.02 KiB) Viewed 2548 times

Part Sweep applied with Draft Circle as profile and DWire as path. Sweep hollowed out with the Part Thickness tool.

FC_bent_tubing_DWire_path_01.png (29.76 KiB) Viewed 2548 times

[NormandC]

I published a video of my process to model the tubing above: http://youtu.be/TKQL5YlOhzI

[bejant]

bejant, I just tried the DWire tool to create a 3D path as you suggested, because I remembered something: Draft objects all have a corner fillet property

Before I posted that I thought I should make sure by using the DWire and BSpline tools. I didn't know if the Sweep would go the entire length of DWire or if the Sweep would stop at the first filleted corner.

For Cat Oregon: Individual segments of the DWire can be selected in the 3D window instead of the entire DWire, but those segments must be connected to one another or you'll get an error message.

There's also less "overhead" in dealing with a Draft object rather than with sketches.

If I'm tracing an image for something somewhat free-form, or when I don't need the exactness of Constraint, it's a lot faster to use the Dwire tool.

Part Sweep applied with Draft Circle as profile and DWire as path. Sweep hollowed out with the Part Thickness tool.

I really need to try and remember to use that Thickness Tool more often; I keep forgetting it.

[rockn]

One DWire limitation is that it does not supports arcs. But for the most common case of rotary draw tube bending, this may prove quite useful.

In fact, you can fuse DWire with Arc, Spline, etc...
Then use this fuse for the path of the sweep. In this way you still conserve the parametric of the path.

A less parametric way is to use Draft upgrade.