Entities
Entities are items such as lines, circles or arcs drawn by the user or automatically generated by groups.
This list only includes entities that can be drawn by the user.
Entities can either be in a workplane, i.e. in 2D space or in 3D space. Entities in a workplane can only be created if the current group has an active workplane.
All entities can either be construction or normal entities. Construction entities are ignored when finding closed paths for creating the solid model. Construction entities are only visible if they’re in the currently active group or “Previous construction entities” has been enabled in the view menu.
2D Line
A line in a workplane defined by its start and end point. It thus adds 4 degrees of freedom.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Draw contour, Draw line in workplane
2D Arc
An arc in a workplane defined by its start, end and center points. For each arc, there’s an implicit constraint that constrains the center point to have the same distance from both ends. It adds 5 degrees of freedom.
An arc with coincident start and end point is a full circle.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Draw contour, Draw arc in workplane
2D Circle
A circle in a workplane defined by its center point and radius. It adds three degrees of freedom.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Draw circle in workplane
2D Bezier curve
A cubic bezier curve in a workplane defined by its start point, end point and two control points. It thus adds 8 degrees of freedom.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Draw contour, Draw bezier curve in workplane
Since version 1.2
3D Line
A line in 3D space defined by its start and end point. It thus adds 6 degrees of freedom.
- In Workplane:
no
- Tool:
Draw line in 3D
Workplane
A workplane defines a local 2D coordinate system using an origin point and a rotation in 3D space. It adds 6 degrees of freedom: 3 translational and 3 rotational.
Use the “Constrain workplane normal”, “Constrain same orientation” or “Lock rotation” tools to constrain the rotational degrees of freedom.
A workplane’s size and name can be changed in the “Selection” tab after selecting it.
- In Workplane:
no
- Tool:
Draw workplane
STEP model
Geometry imported from a STEP file. See STEP import for more details.
- In Workplane:
no
- Tool:
Import STEP
2D Point
A point in a workplane defined by its location. It thus adds 2 degrees of freedom.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Draw point in workplane
Document
A document entity represents an instance of another loaded document. It adds 6 degrees of freedom: 3 translational and 3 rotational. To constrain the translational degrees of freedom, constrain its origin point.
Similar to STEP entities, document entities reference the file by absolute or relative path.
- In Workplane:
no
- Tool:
Link document
Since version 1.2
Cluster
A cluster entity groups multiple in-workplane entities (lines, bezier, arcs, circles) into a single entity that can be scaled and rotated. See Cluster entities for more details. Rotation, scale and aspect ratio can be locked in the selection tab.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Create cluster
Since version 1.2
Text
A cluster-like entity containing rendered OpenType text that can be scaled and rotated. It has multiple anchors on either side:
- Bottom:
bottommost point in the rendered text, depends on text
- Descend:
descender of the selected font, doesn’t depend on text
- Ascend:
ascender of the selected font, doesn’t depend on text
- Top:
topmost point in the rendered text, depends on text
- Base:
point at y=0
Texts can be converted to clusters for modification using the “Convert to cluster” tool.
See the Selection tab for changing the font and locking scale and rotation. OpenType features can be set in the font selection dialog.
The rendered lines and curves are stored in the document. This means that the text is preserved even if the chosen font isn’t available. Changing the text though requires the chosen font to be available as fonts are not embedded in the document.
- In Workplane:
yes
- Tool:
Draw text
Since version 1.2