I can get the blue circle tangent to the 2 small circles, but how do I get the red circle at a tangent to them without resorting to construction?
Thanks.

Martin.

Hi zumer.
I used the Tangent Point Circle tool to locate the blue one and was hoping to use it again for the red one, but can't get it to work in these situations.

Unfortunately, the mirror trick doesn't work to create the red circle as it places the circle wrongly, but thanks for the suggestion.

Is there any chance of an update to these tools for situations like this please, Tim?


Martin

I would create a fillet of the dimension you want the circle to be while holding the option key. Then put your circle on the center, then delete the fillet.

Mark

.. and I want a pepperone pizza and lemon cheese dessert whilst not getting up off my sofa !

Currently, the tools we have don't allow for this without a little thoughtful construction

Perhaps Tim could look at adding it to the tangent circle tool in time !?

Click three point circle icon and hold down the Ctrl key and click on each white circle where you want the circle to pass. See attached. The red circles are the end results.
Chuck

I haven't tried this, but it seems to me that if it doesn't exist, then there would need to be a tool that:

- asks for axis/alignment points
- asks whether the geometry will be planar or not
- asks for desired or approximate tangency points
- allows the user to attach a point of one circle or arc to a reference point
- allows the user to "swivel" or "swing" either geometry about a reference point in one or more plane

Sorta the digital version of aligning a new circle to pegs affixed to an original circle.

In another way of thinking, imagine if the app had a "virtual accelerometer", and the designer set up two pegs and "tilted" the drawing and let the adjustable circle "fall" and come to rest. If the resting position is the desired one, the designer could click on "accept".

Thanks for the replies. I was hoping Tim and Co. could come up with something as nice as that shown in the attached video (if it works -It takes a while to load!).
Although not shown in my video, I think the tangent Snap can lock onto either the inside or outside of either of the smaller circles in any reasonable combination, so it's very powerful.

http://screencast.com/t/MGJiYjIy

Martin.

Hi Chuck.
The program is called MoI (Moment of Inspiration), and is the just released version 2. It's written by Michael Gibson who is the chap that originated Rhino, so he's got some experience behind him. Interestingly, he also uses (and recommends on occasion) ViaCAD for some of the functions not yet included with MoI.

I'm not sure if you saw the whole screen area in the video, as it comes up with scroll-bars on my system, but you need to be looking over to the upper right corner of the screen to see the more or less random sizes I'm entering for the circles and also a view of the toolset.

Browsing their forum, the overwhelming opinion of the users is that they love the simple interface, love the power and flexibility that is packed into each function and don't mind waiting for things like dimensioning as long as the current toolset works well.

Nothing would please me more than if each tool in ViaCAD could be gone through and tweaked for usability.


Martin.

Don't worry Tim, I'll get chance to try it. :)
It's looking great!

Martin.