Creating Spherical Surfaces

This task shows how to create surfaces in the shape of a sphere.
The spherical surface is based on a center point, an axis-system defining the meridian & parallel curves orientation, and angular limits.

Open the Sphere1.CATPart document.

  1. Click the Sphere icon from the Extrude-Revolution toolbar.

The Sphere Surface Definition dialog box is displayed.

  1. Select the center point of the sphere.

  2. Select an axis-system.

This axis-system determines the orientation of the meridian and parallel curves, and therefore of the sphere.

By default, if no axis-system has been previously created in the document, the axis-system is the document xyz axis-system. Otherwise the default axis-system is the current one.

  1. Click Apply to preview the surface.

  1. Modify the Sphere radius and  the Angular Limits as required. 
    Here we choose -90° and 90° for the parallel curves, and 240° and 0° for the meridian curves, and left the radius at 20 mm.

Parallel angular limits are comprised within the -90° and 90° range.
Meridian angular limits are comprised within the -360° and 360° range.
  1. Click OK to create the surface.

The spherical surface (identified as Sphere.xxx) is added to the specification tree.
You can also choose to create a whole sphere. In this case, simply click the icon from the dialog box to generate a complete sphere, based on the center point and the radius. The parallel and meridian angular values are then grayed.

 

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