Degrees of Freedom Analysis

In the course of parametric drawing process, it is important to control, which parameters of the sketch geometric objects are completely defined, and which parameters require additional constraints. The Item Underdefined Constraint Systems described the principles used to select the solution for geometric objects that do not have enough constraints to explicitly define their state. Degrees of freedom analysis functions show (visualize) underdefined geometric objects to the user.

One of them calculates the degrees of freedom for a point:

GCE_point_dof GCE_PointDOF(GCE_system gSys, geom_item pnt)

This method allows determining the current degrees of freedom for a point that can be a control point of any geometric object, for example, circle/ellipse center, spline control point, one of segment ends, etc.

Another one calculates the degree of freedom for a geometric coordinate:

GCE_point_dof GCE_CoordDOF(GCE_system gSys, geom_item g, coord_name cName)

This method allows determining the current degree of freedom of a geometric coordinate, such as the coordinate of a point or vector, the angle of a line’s normal, the angle of an ellipse, the radius of a circle, and so on.