About Working on a Support and a 3D Support

You can compare the work on support with 3D work on support.

• A Work on Support enables you to automatically reference a surface or plane as the supporting element whenever you need one, when creating lines for instance.

  It also allows you to create reference points on the fly in the support, whenever you need a reference point to create other geometric elements.

• A 3D Work on Support enables to create reference points on the fly on each support, whenever you need a reference point to create other geometric elements.

  It also allows you to create sub-elements of the grid on the fly, such as points or edges. These features do not appear either in the tree or in the 3D geometry but are aggregated under the feature using them.

  The 3D Work on Support is generally set on the three main planes of the 3D shape representation that aggregates three selectable works on support.

• For both Work on Support and 3D Work on Support, the visualization of the grid is independent from the plane support, i.e. the grid is always displayed above any other geometries and surfaces.

You can create points on the fly without selecting a reference support or plane.

Regardless of the type of working support created (surface or plane), once you choose to work on the support, you can directly click onto the support to create points. This capability is available with commands such as point, line, spline, polyline, and most commands where you need to select points as inputs. The created points using a support are aggregated under the parent command that created them and put in no show in the tree.

By default, the last created working support is displayed in red in the tree and is the current one. For a 3D Work on Support, its activity (current/not current) depends on the activity of the axis system (local/absolute).

• If a 3D Work on Support is created on the current axis system, it becomes the current working support. If the axis system used to create the 3D Work on Support is not the current one, the working support is not current either. If you define an axis system as current and provided that this axis system supports a 3D Work on Support, the latter becomes current.

• You can use the Set As Current/Set As Not Current from the context menu on the working support features or click Working Supports Activity in the Grid flyout to define the default current support that will be automatically selected when entering a command that requires a working support.

You can retrieve the features created from a selection of works on support.

Use the Get Features on Support from the context menu on the working support feature to retrieve the features created from a single or a selection of works on support. As a result, the retrieved features are selected in the current editor and highlighted in the tree, therefore allowing you to use them more easily.

You can select the sub-elements of the work on support or 3D work on support.

The Work on Support selection state is available from the User Selection Filter in the App Options panel. When activated, it enables the selection of sub-elements of the work on support or 3D work on support.

For further information about these commands, see 3DEXPERIENCE Platform Advanced Services: Native Apps Common Services: Selecting: Selecting Using a Filter.

You can use the current working support parameters to define a grid in the Sketcher apps.

When you enter the Sketcher app, you work with the standard Sketcher grid. However, the parameters of the current working support grid (3D grid) in the Generative Shape Design app can be used to define another grid in the Sketcher apps. For this, following conditions must be fulfilled:

• The 3D grid should be parallel to the current sketch plane.
• The grid of the current work on support should be a Cartesian grid.

Then, when you enter the Sketcher app, the 3D Grid Parameters command is available in Sketch tools. It is not activated by default.

Important: If the current working support is not parallel to the sketching plane or if there is no current working support, this command is unavailable.

Once you activate the 3D Grid Parameters command:

• The current 3D grid is displayed instead of the Sketcher grid.
• All the visualization properties associated with the 3D grid are maintained. For example, if the 3D grid is furtive, this furtivity is also available in the Sketcher app. In this case, you may have to adjust the visualization parameters in order to view it.
• Existing Sketcher grid parameters are ignored.
• The grid parameters in Me > Preferences > > Mechanical > Sketcher, Grid area remain unchanged.
• The current 3D grid parameters (primary spacing and graduations values) are used for snapping, if Snap to point is previously activated.
• Origin of the sketch remains unchanged if the position of the projection of the center of the 3D grid is not merged with the origin point of the sketch.