I'm trying to model a thing that has geometry a little bit more advanced than I can figure out how to model, and the wiki documentation about the different functions of the pad and sweep sketch tools unfortunately seem to make assumptions that the reader will just know what it's talking about, so I'm as lost as last year's easter eggs trying to figure this out.
The screenshots tell the whole story, but to decipher my terrible handwriting:
- The bottom sketch is the bottom face of the object I am trying to create
- The top sketch is the top face
- I want to sweep the bottom face along the datum line to the top face, following a function that results in rounded faces where edges between the two faces are not vertically aligned
- While I can technically round two of the edges over easy peasy, the circular arc edge is not one that the round tool will work on, because it is a complex curved surface bounded by two circular arcs of differing radii and centers.
If I attempt to sweep the sketch along the datum line, I get absolutely nothing and I get either "Links go out of the allowed scope" or other warnings if I attempt to define the top face in either the Section orientation or Section transformation options in the sweep along a path tool. If I attempt to use the "loft through other profile sections" tool I get similar "Links go out of the allowed scope" warnings. I'm honestly at something of a loss here.
EDIT
Welp, I get to be slapped with the noobie stick. I figured it out. I had to break the geometry up into smaller pieces and use boolean operations, but I managed to model the part! The sweep along a path tool worked perfectly, too, with the sketch orientation set to Fixed along the sweep path. Now I just gotta make its chiral twin. TIDE