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Best way to draw line tangent to 2 circles? (#4872)
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Joined: 7/13/2013(UTC) Posts: 5
What is the most efficient way to get a line tangent to two circles, assuming the circles are both in the same plane, but not the same size or aligned with an axis/angle? Thanks!
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It probably isn't the best way, but it works. Draw a line from the quadrant of circle A to the tangent point of circle B, then draw a line from the endpoint of the line on circle B to the tangent point of circle A, and delete the first line. If there is an easier way please let me know.
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You just 'drag' the line off the circle/arc/spline at roughly a tangent and ViaCAD senses what you want to do and shows an appropriate tooltip - the same applies for a perpendicular too! Then move the cursor to the right area of the next circle and a Tangent tooltip will display, at which point release the mouse button. Martin.
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Video for creating a line tangent to two circles and circle tangent to two lines.
http://www.csi-concepts.com/Dem...os/tangentTwoCircles.mp4 Tim
Tim Olson IMSI Design/Encore
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Thanks Tim and Martin! I didn't understand the "Drag" part in the tool tip, but your emphasis of that detail helped me realize what it meant. That's the first time I've ever held down the left button while pulling a line out, so I hadn't really even thought of that as a possibility. It was particularly helpful to see how it works in the video, which made "Drag" all the more obvious. Last time I did this in "another product", I was typing in TAN on command line, but this (as most things in Viacad) is much faster and I was sure that I was missing something. Great feature.
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Originally Posted by: Tim Olson Great video.
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Tim, every day we can learn a new thing!
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Thanks Tim, for the helpful video demo. Larry
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Best way to draw line tangent to 2 circles? (#4872)
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