Sketch

Shortcut: S

Everything in BearCAD starts as a 2D sketch drawn on a flat surface. The Sketch tool picks that surface: click the ground plane, a construction plane, or any flat face of a solid body, and the camera turns to face it head-on. The Line, Rectangle, and Circle tools then draw onto it.

While a sketch is open, the viewport has a bright orange border so you always know you're in sketch mode. Press Esc (with nothing in progress) to leave the sketch.

Notes

• Sketching on a body's own face ties the sketch to that body: it moves with it, and the face's corners and edges can be dimensioned against directly.
• A sketch selects only its own geometry: while a sketch is open, outside bodies and other sketches stay out of reach — hovering and clicking touch just this sketch's shapes, its origin and axes, and the sketched-on face's own edges and corners.
• Project outside geometry in: in sketch mode a Projection tool appears in the toolbar — click an outside body edge (or a face/vertex to take the whole body) and it lands on the sketch plane as a dashed projected line that follows its source, ready to snap and constrain against. Or select edges before opening the sketch and press Y inside it.
• When faces overlap under the cursor, the one nearest the camera wins — you never pick a hidden face by accident.
• Click an existing sketch's face with the Sketch tool to reopen it for editing.

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