Draw a circle tangent within a cone

[monitoringpost]

Does someone have a method for drawing a circle within a cone so that it is tangent with each side of cone?

Craig

[PaulRowntree]

I can't picture what you are asking for ... could you give some more detail, or even a sketch ?

[highpockets]

Something like this?

[monitoringpost]

Something like this?

Exactly!

[martin54]

If you haven't already seen them then the vector creation & widget tutorials are well worth taking the time to study

http://support.vectric.com/tutorials/V9 ... 20snapping

[highpockets]

It's called Two-Tangent Theorem.

Basically it's two right triangles placed with the two hypotenuses back to back with the rise being the radius of the desired circle.

First I created a right triangle with the rise equal to the desired circle and angle "A" equal to half the desired cone angle.

Orientated it the way I wanted and made a mirror copy

All that's left is to add the circle.

As with everything in Vcarve there are multiple ways to do things. I'm sure someone will show you a much better way, but this was down and dirty.

Hope this helps.

[4DThinker]

The new snapping tool will do what you want. Draw the circle first. Start a line at the bottom of the cone. Now with the other end near where you think the tangent end should be hit "T" on your keyboard. The line should snap to its tangent point on the circle. Repeat for the other side of the cone.

4D

[monitoringpost]

First off, thanks to everyone who took a moment to reply.

As in my op, I'm attempting to draw a circle within a cone. The solutions provided are draw the circle first and than the lines. If this was my case it would be easy with the new snapping features and tangent shortcut although we had this last item as a gadget before. I see in programs like TurboCad (which I don't have) it's an option when one draws a circle. Just like in Aspire we can draw a circle based on its radius or diameter in TurboCad there's an option called Tan, Tan, Radius. Basically you select your two lines (sides of the cone) and specify the radius of the circle. I know Aspire doesn't specifically have this feature but was hoping someone's geometry skills were better than mine. I think HighPockets was the closest - I'll study his solution a bit more. Thanks!

[highpockets]

It's still using two right triangles.

Given a cone

Make sure geometry snap is on. Draw a line (hypotenuse), from the intersection of the cone lines to the point where the center of the circle should be left click then draw a line to the side of the cone making sure the 90° snap lines are displayed.

Now draw the unknown circle size.

[adze_cnc]

First off: since when is a 2D angle a 3D cone?

Draw a line (hypotenuse), from the intersection of the cone lines to the point where the center of the circle should be

That's presuming you know where you want the centre of the circle to be. This seems to be a variant of what the OP pointed out as "The solutions provided are [to] draw the circle first and [then] the lines."

In my drawing you pick where you want tangency to be (the horizontal blue line). Then erect perpendiculars from each side of the original angle until they intersect to find the circle's centre. Now draw a circle whose radius is the length of the perpendicular from circle centre to angle leg.