Learn/Drafting/Solid Modeling Tools
Sweep
At a glance
- Move a sketch profile along a polyline path
- Profile stays perpendicular to the path throughout
- Great for custom extrusions, weldments, and frame profiles
- Join, cut, or new body modes
Sweep (W) drives a sketch profile along a path to build tubes, frames, handles, and custom
extrusions. Pick a closed sketch face for the cross-section, then click a polyline on a second
sketch for the path — typically drawn on a plane perpendicular to the profile. The profile is
automatically rotated square to the path's starting direction and stays perpendicular for the
whole run.
How the path works
The path is a single polyline, and its line and arc segments are followed exactly — arcs become true curved sections of the B-Rep solid, not faceted approximations. The profile is placed with its sketch origin riding the start of the path, so the path threads through the profile wherever (0,0) sits in that sketch: draw the section centered on the origin to sweep along its centerline. Holes in the profile are swept too and come out as real internal passages.
Cut, Join, or New Body
Same as the other profile tools: when the swept preview intersects an existing body, the Operation dropdown offers Cut, Join, or New Body, with the last choice remembered. A swept Cut carves curved channels and grooves that no straight extrusion can reach.
Tips
- + Add Face sweeps several profiles along the same path in one feature and fuses the results.
- For helical paths — springs, coils, worm forms — use Helix. For standard pipe and tube sections without drawing a profile at all, see Pipe & Tube.