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• Rotate. The Rotate function of the Modify Sketch tool enables you to position the Moveable Origin to act as the center of rotation, and to either type in a rotation angle or drag with the right-mouse button to rotate, as indicated by the cursor.

When you place the cursor over the knobs on the Moveable Origin, the cursor symbols change to indicate the functionality of the RMB. These cursors are shown in action in Figure 6.8. The cursors enable mirroring about X, Y, or both simultaneously.

FIGURE 6.8

The Modify Sketch tool cursors

Note

The one thing about Modify Sketch that many people find unsettling is that the red sketch origin moves and rotates along with the rest of the sketch. Once you make peace with the fact that you can't use the red sketch origin for much anyway, this becomes unimportant.

Copying and pasting sketch entities

Probably the simplest way to copy sketch entities in a sketch is to select the entities and use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V or one of the many other methods available for this purpose (such as the RMB button menu, the Edit menu, and Ctrl+dragging).

In addition to copying selected entities within an active sketch, you can also select a sketch from the FeatureManager and then copy and paste it to a selected plane or planar face (if you are not in a sketch to begin with). This creates a new sketch feature in the FeatureManager that is not related to the original, although it does maintain internal dimensions and relations. (External relations are not copied with the sketch.) This is particularly useful when setting up certain types of lofts that use several profiles that can be created from a single copied profile. Copying and pasting is a fast and effective method of putting sketches on planes.

Copying a sketch is similar to the derived sketch (addressed later in this chapter), except that with a copied sketch there is no link, and with the derived sketch the new and old sketches remain identical through changes to the original sketch.

Dragging entities

If a selected set of sketch entities has no external relations, then you can select it as a group and move it without distorting or resizing the sketch. For best results with this technique, avoid dragging endpoints — drag an actual line.

Creating a derived sketch

A derived sketch is a parametrically linked copy. The original parent and derived sketches do not need to have any geometrical relation to one another, but when the parent sketch is changed, the dependent derived copy is updated to stay in sync.

To create a derived sketch, you can select a plane or planar face, Ctrl+select the sketch of which you want to make the parametric copy, and then choose Insert⇒Derived Sketch.

When you create a derived sketch, you cannot change its shape or size; it works like a block of a fixed shape driven by the parent. However, you can change the position and orientation of the derived sketch. Figure 6.9 shows a derived sketch and its parent. Modify Sketch is a great tool to use for manipulating derived sketches that are not related to things outside the sketch, especially for mirroring or rotating.

FIGURE 6.9

A derived sketch and its parent

Using Sketch Pictures

Sketch pictures are images that are placed in a sketch on a sketch plane. You can size and rotate the images, give them a transparent background, trace over them, and suppress them. They display as a child of the sketch in the FeatureManager. Image types that you can use as sketch pictures are BMP, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PNG, PSD, and WMF.

To bring a picture into a sketch, the sketch must first be active. Click Sketch Picture on the Sketch toolbar (it is not there by default, and so you may need to drag it onto the Sketch toolbar from the Tools⇒Customize⇒Commands dialog box). You can also access this command by choosing Tools⇒Sketch Tools⇒Sketch Picture from the menu. You cannot use sketch pictures in assembly sketches, but you can use them in a part sketch in an assembly.

To change the size of a sketch picture,