Copy

Copy window

Copy is a general function that allows you to select a group of entities and copy them with a movement operation performed, either translation, rotation, mirror, scale or offset.

Select the type of entities to copy. In geometry mode choose between point, line, surface and volume; in mesh mode choose between nodes and elements. All the lower entities belonging to the selected one will automatically be computed. Next, the type of movement needs to be chosen and its parameters defined. The options are:

The 'end scale' factor determines how the figure is scaled along the path curve (the scale value starts at 1.0 and varies in a linear way until the 'end scale' value). This scale value must be greater than zero.The extrusion (and the copy) always starts on the start point of the path line. If you select 'twist mode' as on, then the relative position of the figure to copy with respect to the start of the path line is conserved along the line.

In a non-planar curve, there is not only curvature, but also torsion. This may cause some unexpected behaviour, because the figure also has a rotation along the tangent direction of the path:

Next the 'XY plane' option is used, which makes certain that the initial vector will remain in this plane during extrusion. (In this example, the axis is Z).

The option 'ByDer2' uses the second derivate of the path line as a normal to the plane in which that initial vector has to remain. A rotation along the path line can be forced using the 'Angle' parameter (degrees):

Finally, if the path line is a polyline, then the extrusion will be divided into several parts:

Tool to align parts

Other available options are:

Maintain layers: If this option is not set the new entities created will be placed in the layer to use; otherwise, the new entities are copied to the same layers as their originals.

Note: Entities belonging to a frozen layer (see Layers ), are not checked when sharing old entities.