I have an issue if someone has an idea.. I can’t manage to make it with thoses curves…
I’m trying to bring the arcs (cattenary curves) closer to the big one to curve boolean them and planarsrf/extrude then but not way to make it touch perfectly because of how impredictible the meeting point of thoses two arcs will be (I try to make the small ones touches the big one using scale1D..) Anyone would has an idea of how to fix it ? A command recommendation like “scale 1D until a part of you touches a part of this curves” … I’ve tried to play a bit with tolerances but without satisfying result …
I’d go back a stage and get the intersection while creating the catenary curves.
Use the Catenary Through Point option, set the start and end, then as you position the point on the arc curve use the mouse wheel to zoom in. Have the Near OSnap on. Position the point so you get the Near intersection with the arc then adjust the position along the arc by eye so the catenary touches but does not cross it and it looks central between the converging lines on each side.
Keep on zooming in and refining the position until you are close to being unable to distinguish the two lines within the confines of the screen before finally clicking to set the point.
Zooming and eyeballing is a time-honoured technique. This will be more than accurate enough for your curve boolean to work.
A variaton on Jeremy’s suggestion using the existing curves.
For each curve use Scale1D, which will keep the curve as a catenary.
Start Scale1D
Select a catenary curve as the object to be scaled.
Select a “base point” on your base line under the location where the curves will be tangent. The exact location is not critical as long as it is on the base line at the height of the bottom of the curves.
“Scale factor or first reference point” With either Ortho on or holding down the shift key, select a location directly above the base point at about the height of where the catenary will be tangent to the large curve. Exact location is not critical.
“Second reference point” Move the cursor up/down until the catenary is tangent to the large curve. Zoom in to help see the gap between the curves. Get it as close as you can.
Create a vertical line from the “tangent” location to the base line.
Repeat steps 1-5 using the intersection of the vertical line and the base line. You should be able to zoom in even closer to refine the match of the curves.
You should be able to obtain a match within 1.e-6 or so. That’s close to accuracy of the display. (The accuracy of the actual geometry will be 1.e-12 to 1.e-15 depending on the size of the geometry.)
