Bisect-2 Planes/Faces

[macduff]

I'm working in an assembly and would like to bisect a plane between 2 parallel faces. Can you do this? I know I can measure the distance between the 2 faces and divide by 2, but believe the software should do this within the plane function. In fact, it should bisect between 2 angular faces as well.

Macduff
Colin Fitzpatrick
Mechanical Design Engineer
Solidworks 2006 SP 4.1
Dell 380 XP Pro SP 2
nVida Quadro FX 3450/4000

 

[J-C]

Sounds like an enhancment request.....and a worthy one at that.

If you wanting it for mating parts....the "Width" mate works wonders.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2006 SP5.0 on WinXP SP2
SolidWorks 2007 SP2.0 on WinXP SP2

 

[macduff]

Gildashard,
Yeah, I found that out (Width) yesterday. It's very cool functionality for mating.

I needed a plane to mirror a set of fasteners. I usually don't do this, but the part was an import from an IGES file which is a dumb solid. We have only basic SW and no Featureworks to use feature recognition.


Macduff
Colin Fitzpatrick
Mechanical Design Engineer
Solidworks 2006 SP 4.1
Dell 380 XP Pro SP 2
nVida Quadro FX 3450/4000

 

[TheTick]

I usually do this sort of thing with a sketch. Make a sketch with a line constrained symmetric to the planes and create your bisect plane through that line.

In general, I prefer geometric approach to bisection over formulas.

 

[macduff]

TheTick,
Sounds like a great work around, but seems like a lot of work to do something so simple. Thanks for your input, sir.

Macduff
Colin Fitzpatrick
Mechanical Design Engineer
Solidworks 2006 SP 4.1
Dell 380 XP Pro SP 2
nVida Quadro FX 3450/4000

 

[rfus]

I'm gonna go back and quote you Tick from a post on good Solidworks Practices in 05:

If you need to add sketches to define or control a datum plane, do it.

If you need to define two surfaces to get their intersection, do it (and then use "delete bodies" to clean up).

If you need to draw two sketches to combine in a third, do it.

I always liked the way you said that. Its not a work around. Its the way it is. If parts in assems are subject to change, more often than not mating with planes defined from sketches is the way to go. Nothing every blows up, especially in context stuff. The centerline is God, use it.

RFUS