Draft Circle/ro

Description

The Circle tool creates a circle in the current work plane by entering two points, the center and the radius, or by picking tangents, or any combination of those. It takes the linewidth and color previously set on the Tasks tab. This tool works the same way as the Draft Arc tool, except that it stops after entering the radius.

How to use

1. Press the Draft Circle button, or press C then I keys
2. Click a first point on the 3D view, or type a coordinate
3. Click a second point on the 3D view, or enter a radius value.

Options

• The primary use of the circle tool is by picking two points, the centre and a point on the circumference, defining the radius.
• By pressing ALT, you can select a tangent instead of picking a point. You can therefore construct several types of circles by selecting one, two or three tangents.
• To enter coordinates manually, simply enter the numbers, then press ENTER between each X, Y and Z component.
• Press T or click the checkbox to check/uncheck the Continue button. If continue mode is on, the Circle tool will restart after you give the second point, allowing you to draw another circle without pressing the Circle button again.
• Press CTRL while drawing to force snapping your point to the nearest snap location, independently of the distance.
• Press SHIFT while drawing to constrain your second point horizontally or vertically in relation to the first one.
• Press I or the Filled button to have the circle filled with a face.
• Press ESC or the Cancel button to abort the current Line command.
• The circle can be turned into an arc after creation, by setting its first angle and last angle properties to different values.
• Circles, when in "Flat Lines" display mode, can display a hatch pattern, by setting their "Pattern" property below.

Properties

• DATARadius: The radius of the circle
• DATAMake Face: Fills the circle with a face
• VIEWPattern: Specifies a hatch pattern to fill the wire with
• VIEWPattern Size: Specifies the size of the hatch pattern

See also Draft Pattern page.

Scripting

The Circle tool can by used in macros and from the python console by using the following function:

makeCircle (radius, [placement], [facemode], [startangle], [endangle]) 

• Creates a circle object with given radius.
• If a placement is given, it is used.
• If facemode is False, the circle is shown as a wireframe, otherwise as a face.
• If startangle AND endangle are given (in degrees), they are used and the object appears as an arc.
• Returns the newly created object.

Example:

import Draft
myCircle = Draft.makeCircle(2)