Multiple Transform - Circular (curve)

The Circular tab on the Multiple Transform dialog creates multiple Rotations of curves.

The orientation of the transform is determined by the principal working plane , , or , set in the Information toolbar.

The Circular tab contains the following:

• Angle — Enter the angle between elements in the transform. You can also use the slider, or specify the Number of elements to determine the angle.
• Angle lock — Use to determine whether the rotation angle is calculated automatically or not.
  • Calculated — When displayed, shows values calculated by PowerMill. This assumes that you want a full circular pattern (Angle = 360/Number).
  • Edited — When displayed, shows value entered by you (or another user). Click to change this value to the automatically calculated value. The Angle and Number values operate independently. This enables you to create a partial circle rather than a full circular pattern.

  and work as a toggle.

Radius — Enter a value to define the radius of the pattern. You can also use the slider to determine the radius.

• Radius lock — Select to determine whether the rotation radius is defined automatically or not.
  • Calculated — When displayed, shows values calculated by PowerMill. The radius is the distance from the centre of the rotation (defined by ) to the centre of the set of curves.
  • Edited — When displayed, shows value entered by you (or another user). Click to change this value to the automatically calculated value.
• Clockwise — Click to rotate the transform clockwise by half of the Angle. Clicking this updates the Offset angle.

  Original transform:

  

  Click to change it to:

  

  and to update the Offset angle to -45.

• Anticlockwise — Click to rotate the transform counter-clockwise by half of the Angle. Clicking this updates the Offset angle.
• Workplane origin — When selected, the active workplane is the origin. If no workplane is active then the global coordinate system is the origin.
• Bounding box origin — When selected, the origin is the centre of the bounding box containing all the entities.
• Move origin — When selected, you can move the origin graphically by dragging or by entering coordinates using , , or and in the Status bar.
• Number — Enter a value to specify the number of entities in the circular pattern. If the angle lock is , editing this box updates the angle. If the angle lock is , Angle and Number work independently.

  It is best to see how these settings interact by example. If you have:

  • An Angle of 60
  • selected.

    PowerMill calculates the Number automatically (it is 6).

    

  If you have:

  • A Number of 5
  • selected.

    PowerMill calculates the Angle automatically (it is 72).

    

    If you have:

    An Angle of 60

    selected

    A Number of 5.

    PowerMill calculates a partial circular pattern.

    

• Offset angle — This determines the start angle of the transform.#

  Offset angle of0:

  

  Offset Angle of20:

  

• Rotation — This determines whether you rotate or move the curves around the transform.

  Rotate and copy:

  

  Rotate and move:

  

• Centre element — This creates an additional copy of curves at the centre of the circle.

  Centre element selected:

  

  Centre element deselected:

  

For more information, see Circular transform example. This shows how to create multiple rotations on a toolpath using a circular pattern, but the principle is the same for curves.