How do I draw an off axis circle

SketchUp
1

I started wtih this

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And wanted to add a little nub like this:

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image461×539 10.4 KB

I managed to do it in the end, but I REALLY struggled and figured there must be an easy way to do it.

I started off by drawing a line which radiated from the point on the model I was trying to intersect:

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And then I assuimed I would be able to draw a circle perpendicular to this line… But ever time I tried, it would end up off axis.

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and

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I know this is (or shouldbe) a reasonably trivial task, so there is clearly a tool or technique I am overlooking… How would I do this easily?

2

I’m no expert but I think if you used the axes tool as demonstrated in this you might get results!

3

Use the Pie tool.
Drag the tool along the edge to set the axis of rotation.

1 Like
4

Cheers. I am not following what you are doing there… I can see the Pie tool lying flat (Blue) but how do you rotate it around so that its inline with the line?

THis is a good tip and would help here for sure, but I am not sure if this is the solution… In this case it was a circle… But what if it was something else… How would I draw something else on this axis?

I think the solution might be to recentre the Axis (as suggested by Guido)… I generally don’t use this tool as I don’t like the idea of loosing the axis that my original model is made from

Is there a way to reset it back to ‘default’? Or is it a case of just finding a couple of edges in your model and using them to reset the axis back to the way it was when the model was drawn?

Edit: Ignore that… I should have watched the video… Right clicking on the axis lines gives an option for RESET… I didn’t know that and this will help me HUGELY!

6

Click in sequence on the Scenes tabs of this SU file for ideas.

Off axis circle.skp (209.6 KB)

7

Drag the tool along the line - that is, hold down the left mouse button while you move the mouse along the line. (Box does it very quickly in the animated GIF above.) It will snap quickly to be normal to the line, and show in black if it isn’t on any axis in the current context.