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Charles1-Visitor
1-Visitor
July 22, 2013
Solved

mid-surface

  • July 22, 2013
  • 4 replies
  • 3931 views

Can anyone tell me how to get mid-surface of an cylinder?

Best answer by TomD.inPDX

Since a rectangle can't be the "midpoint" by definition, you must mean placing a rectangle with equal offsets from all 4 edges.

Relations is the best way to achieve this. You can set the value for the extrude distance and the minor and major diameters of the source cylinder. Or a combination of the two. With a cylinder extruded equally in both directions, you already have a midpoint along the length as well.

There is simply too many ways to do this to come to consensus on the -best- way. If you revolve the initial surface, you can place 4 points in the original sketch to drive the next sketch. Pick your poison

4 replies

Dale_Rosema
23-Emerald III
Dale_Rosema23-Emerald III
23-Emerald III
July 22, 2013

Not sure of the origin of you question. If you are extruding a cylinder, you can extrude symmetrical about a plane and therefor the plane would always be mid-surface of the cylinder.

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Charles1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
July 22, 2013

I mean the mid surface of these four surfaces.

aa.PNG

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TomD.inPDX17-Peridot
17-Peridot
July 23, 2013

If you add a datum point to your sketch, you would have a mid-point... literally, if you do what Dale suggested.

But the easy way would be to create a sketch with two circles and a datum point. make a subsequent sketch and size the circle to the point from the previous sketch. You can constrain the datum point in the 1st sketch to that it changes anytime you change the cylinder parameter. You can create relations to manage the height. Next, extrude the 1st sketch as surfaces with capped ends (option) and create the second surface with the second sketch. Now, no matter what you do, you will get a surface between the other surfaces.

Okay, that might be too simplistic (datum points in sketches will become axes or points that are always accessible. This is the easy way to pass a location on from one sketch to the other, from within a feature or as a separate feature.

centered_cylinder.PNG

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Charles1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
July 23, 2013

Actually by mid-surface I meant the mid point of all four sides of the object. It would be a rectangle as shown but at the mid point or middle of the four sides.

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TomD.inPDX17-PeridotAnswer
17-Peridot
July 23, 2013

Since a rectangle can't be the "midpoint" by definition, you must mean placing a rectangle with equal offsets from all 4 edges.

Relations is the best way to achieve this. You can set the value for the extrude distance and the minor and major diameters of the source cylinder. Or a combination of the two. With a cylinder extruded equally in both directions, you already have a midpoint along the length as well.

There is simply too many ways to do this to come to consensus on the -best- way. If you revolve the initial surface, you can place 4 points in the original sketch to drive the next sketch. Pick your poison

C
Charles1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
July 23, 2013

Thanks to all for your help

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