creating a plane on a round surface

I am trying to create a plane on a round surface. is this even possible? i want to be able to extrude holes through a ball towards the center.

turn on visibility of the sketch you used to create the sphere

click workplane and select the line you used for Revolve and the endpoint of the line at the arc

when i do that all i get is a horizontal plane wherever i select the point on the arc.

when i do that all i get is a horizontal plane wherever i select the point on the arc.

You might need to drop a work point on top of the sketch point first. I have a hard time getting a tangent plane using a sketch point. I think it's possible to do, but for some reason I can't ever actually select the sketch point. If you put the work point down, then hit the work plane button, you can select everything much more easily.

Attach the file here.

I never have any trouble selecting sketch point and arc or line to get perpendicular plane.

sprayball.ipt

I must be doing something wrong Thanks JD Mather

Attach the file here.

I never have any trouble selecting sketch point and arc or line to get perpendicular plane.

JD - I don't have any problem doing it that way either, but I don't think that's what he's trying to do. I think he's selecting PLANE --> TANGENT TO SURFACE THROUGH POINT. That's the part where I have trouble selecting a sketch point, myself.

Interesting file ... I can see the preview of it, but can't open it in Inventor Pro 2011.

JD - I don't have any problem doing it that way either, but I don't think that's what he's trying to do. I think he's selecting PLANE --> TANGENT TO SURFACE THROUGH POINT. That's the part where I have trouble selecting a sketch point, myself.

That is what is happening when i do what JD Mather suggested. I want the sphere to be the work plane.

Wait wait waitwaitwait.

You want the surface of the sphere itself to BE the work plane, or you want the work plane to be tangent to the surface? The sphere itself cannot BE the plane, since it is not planar. (Forgive me if I misunderstood your last statement.)

If what you want is for the work plane to be tangent to the surface of the sphere, put a work point down on the sketch point that's at the surface. Then you can put the work plane down.

Interesting file ... I can see the preview of it, but can't open it in Inventor Pro 2011.

That is because it is an Inventor 2012 file.

I must be doing something wrong Thanks JD Mather

Your Sketch1 is not constrained to the origin - read this

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/skillsusa%20university.pdf

WorkPlane1 and WorkAxis1 are not needed (they already exist in the Origins folder - simply constrain sketch1 to the origin as covered first day of class).

Sketch2 doesn't have any dimensions?

Is this the Workplane you need?

That is because it is an Inventor 2012 file.

Grumble.

I can't wait until our IT Dept decides that 2012 is bug-free enough to let us have it.

Alright i want the work plane to BE the sphere, so thank you JD Mather and Bishop and i hope i did not take up to much of your time.

Alright i want the work plane to BE the sphere, so thank you JD Mather and Bishop and i hope i did not take up to much of your time.

Uhmmm, how can a sphere be a plane? (Geometry 101)

You are doing too much work - see attached.

Perhaps what you really want is to project to a sphere?

Sprayball Rev1.ipt

Perhaps you are right. Thank you also for the essay you wrote i will learn a lot from that.

I have a similar question regarding this topic. I am working on a project where I am building a 6 foot diameter steel globe and I need to project a 2d drawing of the continents onto the globe. I need the projection to be accurate with the 3 dimensional curve of the globe though and I am not sure how to achieve this. Any help would be awesome.