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Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

(OP)
I've got a parabolic equation (x²=-40y) that I need to apply to a spline.  Does anyone have any idea on how to do this without having to just specify multiple points ie (0,25; 1, 26) etc?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Tony Murschel, CSWA
Dual Xeon 5160 10GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 4500
SWX 2008 SP3.0 x64

RE: Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

My first inclination is to use several ordinate dimensions driven by a design table to locate your spline points.  You will be able to use excel functionality to evaluate your equation within the design table.

There may be a better way, but that was my first thought.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Certified SolidWorks Professional

RE: Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

Why not just draw a parabola?  Then just dimension the end point in the X and Y directions, and link the Y to the X using an equation("D2@Sketch1"="D1@Sketch1"*"D1@Sketch1"/40)

RE: Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

What gopack13 said.  Use a parabola entity.

Experiment:
Draw a parabola.  Next draw a spline over the parabola (works best if you start a 2nd sketch).  No matter how extensively you define and constrain the spline, it will never perfectly match the parabola.

RE: Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

(OP)
thanks for all of the tips everyone.  I tried what gopack13 said and it worked out well.

Tony Murschel, CSWA
Dual Xeon 5160 10GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro FX 4500
SWX 2008 SP3.0 x64

RE: Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

I (and others who work with products which have tolerances of a micron or less) have been pushing Solidworks to do sketches and surfaces from equations.  So far, no luck.  To get around this, I've been defining sketches or surfaces in other programs and then importing them into Solidworks.

RE: Equation applied to a parabola/spline?

Insert/Curve/Curve Througn XYZ Points.  Create your table for x,y,z points in excel with the correct curve.  Export out of Excel into the format that SW reads.

We have several hyperbolic shapes that we create. Our diaforms are wired from the x,y,z points that are generated in excel and inserted into the SW file with Curve Through XYZ Points.

Yes, it would be awesome if you could generate the equation based curves natively in SW, like you can do in ProE.

Cheers,

Anna Wood
SW2008 SP3.0, Windows Vista SP1
IBM ThinkPad T61p, T7800, FX570M, 4 gigs of RAM
http://designsmarter.typepad.com/solidmuse
http://www.phxswug.com

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