Construction Planes

You may have noticed that more or less all geometry starts with a sketch, and that each of those sketches start with a 2-dimensional plane. We have mostly used the world planes to this point and built sketches around the origin. But as you may recall from the Craftsman Table exercise, you can create and use construction planes to help define design intent.

The Craftsman Table used an offset plane to define the overall height of the table. Planes can certainly be offset from the world planes by a given distance, as seen below.

Offset Plane to Distance

Offset Plane to Object

View Fusion Model (opens new window)

Midplane

You can create a plane that sits between two planes. This is useful if you have to find the center of a form that must be built away from the world axes, or one that is an irregular shape. Note that the two inputs can be any planar element, including existing surfaces or other construction planes.

Midplanes can also be created between planes or surfaces that are not parallel, leading to midplanes that take not only distance but angle into account.

View Fusion Model (opens new window)

Angled Plane

A plane can be created at an angle to existing geometry, including sketches, edges, or the world origin.

Tangent Plane

It is possible to create a plane that touches a cylindrical or conical surface. This can be a useful way to add detail to revolved features. Note that the reference plane controls the overall direction but the final angle can also be adjusted using the angle parameter.

View Fusion File (opens new window)

Assignment

None for this page. Go on to the next section →