SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Chapter 7: Selecting Features

FIGURE 7.12

A loft with and without guide curves

Middle profile

Loft profiles

Centerline lofts .............................................................................................. Contents

The Centerline panel of the Loft PropertyManager is used to set up a centerline loft. You can use

the centerline of a loft in roughly the same way that you use a sweep path. In fact, the Centerline

loft resembles a sweep feature where you can specify the shape of some of the intermediate pro-

files. Centerline lofts can also create intermediate profiles. You may prefer to use a centerline loft

instead of either a sweep or a regular loft because the profile may change in ways that the Sweep

feature cannot handle, and the loft may need some guidance regarding the order of the profiles, or

how to smooth the shape between the profiles.

I cover sweep features in this chapter. If you are creating a centerline loft, you may want to exam-

ine the sweep functionality as well.

You can use centerlines simultaneously with guide curves. While guide curves must touch the pro-

file, there is no such requirement for a centerline; in fact, the centerline works best if it does not

touch any of the profiles.

The slider in the Centerline Parameters panel enables you to specify how many intermediate sec-

tions to create between sketched profiles.

SelectionManager ..........................................................................................

The SelectionManager simplifies the selection of entities from complex sketches that are not neces-

sarily the clean, closed loop sketches that SolidWorks works with most effectively.