cannot use plane from one body as reference in another?

[greenbox]

I'm trying to use a datum plane 1 from Body1 as offset reference for a new datum plane 2 in Body2.
freeCAD does allow me to select the datum plane 1 as a parameter while creating plane 2, then asks me to choose between a dependent or independent copy, but regardless of what I choose, as soon as I click 'OK', freeCAD crashes.
Is using datum features from another body not allowed? Or am I missing a setting/preference somewhere?

Thanks for your help!

- greenbox


OS: Linux Mint 19.1
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.2.
Build type: Release
Python version: 3.6.8
Qt version: 5.9.5
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.3.0
Locale: English/UnitedKingdom (en_GB)

[chrisb]

You cannot - well, in some cases you can, but you must not - use things from inside a body in another body. So no, it's not possible. Usually you use a ShapeBinder if you want to refernce such things, however, a DatumPlane has no shape and thus this doesn't work either.

My proposal would be: There must be something, probably a sketch, attached to the DatumPlane you want to reference. Use that sketch with a ShapeBinder and create - if necessary - another DatumPlane based on that ShapeBinder.

[openBrain]

Actually you can create a ShapeBinder from the 1st DatumPlane into the 2nd Body. This works.
The problem is then to select the ShapeBinder as being the reference for the new DatumPlane... As ShapeBinder has no shape, it has no visual representation in the 3D view. But this is "easily" solved by entering manually the ShapeBinder name as 1st reference for attachment.

[chrisb]

You are right, it is possible to create a ShapeBinder from a DatumPlane. If you want to attach a sketch to it, you can select the ShapeBinder in the tree and create the sketch.

[greenbox]

chrisb and openBrain, thank you both for the ShapeBinder idea -brilliant!