About Coordinate Systems

You can use the coordinate system tool in Sketcher to create three types of coordinate systems: construction, datum, and horizontal-vertical. When horizontal-vertical coordinate systems are available for creation, you cannot create construction and datum coordinate systems, and vice versa.

There are separate sketching tools for creating construction coordinate systems and datum coordinate systems. However, you can toggle between construction and datum status using the shortcut menu. When you create construction and datum coordinate systems, construction and datum centerlines are also created along the x- and y-axes.

Construction coordinate systems are sketching aids and do not convey any information outside Sketcher. Use a construction coordinate system to accomplish the following tasks:

• Dimension a spline—Modify the spline points by specifying the x-, y-, and z-axis coordinates with respect to the coordinate system.

A datum coordinate system conveys feature-level information outside of Sketcher; you can use it to add information to sketched curve features and sketch-based features in 2–D and 3–D Sketcher. Datum coordinate systems create entities in Part or Assembly mode as follows:

Type	Availability	Behavior Outside Sketcher
Datum	2–D Sketcher Sketched curves Sketched patterns Toroidal bends Wrap features	In a sketched curve—Creates a datum coordinate system In a sketched pattern—Places pattern members In a toroidal bend—Defines the neutral plane In a wrap feature—Defines the origin
Horizontal-vertical	3–D Sketcher for features that have not been converted to Wildfire UI and that require a coordinate system, such as Graph and Blend.	Conveys feature information, such as graph coordinates or the relative origin for each of the sections used for blends.

If you retrieve a section that contains a coordinate system type unavailable in the current sketch, it is converted automatically.