CAD / Drafting

SigmaNEST has an integrated 2D CAD drawing package with high accuracy and a modern engineering interface:

  • Supports polylines, lines, arcs, circles, fillets, chamfers, notches, bevels (with automatic lead-in, lead-out and corner loops), layers, text, notes and dimensions.
  • Duplicate, move, scale, mirror, rotate and array copy.
  • Trim, break, extend, auto-segment large arcs and snap to arc and circle quadrants.

Examples

The following items illustrate a few CAD features:

 

Tangent

SigmaNEST has a rich variety of functions for drawing lines that are tangent to entities. This example illustrates drawing lines that are tangent to two entities.

SigmaNEST Tangent to Tangent CAD function

The tangent to tangent function operates on selected circles and arcs. For any two selected arcs or circles, there are four possible tangent lines, as illustrated by the green lines in the above diagram. Where the two entities are selected is important to the outcome of the function:

  1. Select a point on a circle or arc near where the tangent line must be drawn.
  2. Select a point on another circle or arc that is either on the same side of an imaginary line drawn between the center points of the two entities or on the opposite side.

If the two points are on the same side of the imaginary line a new line like line 1 or 2 in the above diagram is drawn. If the selected points are on opposite sides of the imaginary line, then a new line like line 3 or 4 is drawn.

Continuous Arc

SigmaNEST offers a variety of methods for drawing arcs. This example illustrates a continuous arc.

SigmaNEST continuous arc CAD function

The continuous arc function creates a continuous are from the start point of a selected entity through a series of points.

  1. Select a line, arc or circle entity that starts the arc. The arc is drawn from this entity's start point.
  2. Specify a series of points through which the arc is drawn.

Arc Spline

The arc spline function creates a curved line or an arc that passes through all the specified points:

SigmaNEST arc spline CAD function
  1. Specify the number of arc segments that are created between each point. A higher number produces a more accurate curve approximation.
  2. Specify a series of points through which the arc is drawn.

Corner Loops

The corner loop function creates a "looping" junction between two intersecting line entities. A variety of corner loop shapes can be selected.

Corner loops are often used to improve the quality of the cut on sharp corners when using laser of plasma cutters.

SigmaNEST corner loops CAD function
  1. Select the first line.
  2. Select a second, intersecting line.
  3. From the corner loop dialog, choose the corner loop shape and the radius or offset distance.

Notch

The notch function creates a bubble or round notch junction between two intersecting lines.

SigmaNEST notch CAD function
  1. Specify the radius of the notch on the prompt line.
  2. Select the first line.
  3. Select the second, intersecting line.