Inscribing a Circle Tangent to two generic Lines

[bruceam]

I recently used Visio to do a basic envelope layout for a printed circuit board.  Visio is a very good program for this because it is possible to type in exact values into the "Size & Position" window to produce a very precise drawing, and then export it to one of the many vector formats supported by Visio.  In this case, it was necessary to inscribe a circle of a specified radius at the intersection of a straight line and another curve (of a larger radius).  Neither of these two lines were vertical or horizontal in the area of the inscription.  I searched around for any tip, trick, or article on how to do this, but eventually had to zoom in as closely as I could and visually place the circle tangent to the two curves.  I suspect that there is a better way to do this, I just couldn't figure out what that way was. 

Does anyone have any suggestions?\

bruceam

[JohnGoldsmith]

Hi,

Are you looking for this kind of thing:

http://www.visguy.com/2009/07/02/draw-tangent-lines-in-visio/

Best regards

John

[Paul Herber]

There's also a nice example of this in the shapes at
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2497
In the Circles and Ellipses stencil have a look at the shape 'Intersecting circles'.

[bruceam]

JohnGoldsmith
Thank you for your prompt response.  The problem that I am running into is that the two external/unrelated lines are by necessity already placed on the page.  I must then move/place the circle of a specified radius to a point where it is tangent with both of those "Pre-existing" lines concurrently.  The tangent lines article that you found for me is very good, but it assumes the circles are present first, and that the tangent lines will be drawn onto them.

I do think that there may be something possible in some of the more "cryptic" selections/settings mentioned in that article.  I just haven't had to time to go through and research everything.

Thanks again!

bruceam

[bruceam]

Mr Herber,
Thanks for the information.  I looked at the figures in the stencil you suggested.  There was nothing a blatently good fit to this particular problem.  However, at least one of them might be able to work, but I will have to figure out how to make the figures do what I need them to do. 

Thank you for your assistance.

bruceam

[JuneTheSecond]

If I am not making miss-understanding, I have posted shapes to find the cross point of line and line or circle at
http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=3474.0

[JohnGoldsmith]

@bruceam I think, in that case, you're just describing getting your snap settings sorted correctly.  In the image below I was able to drag and snap the circle to the two lines.  I found that turning off 'Snap to alignment box' helped as did checking the 'Curved extension' shape extension option (under View / Visual Aids in the ribbon or Alt + F9).

Does that help?

Best regards

John

PS I love the Geometry Tools example Junichi!

[Visio Guy]

More resources:

- Stencil that ships with Visio: Shapes > Visio Extras > Drawing Tool Shapes
- Draw Tangent Lines in Visio!

[bruceam]

Thanks John,
I think this will give me what I am looking for. 

@bruceam I think, in that case, you're just describing getting your snap settings sorted correctly.  In the image below I was able to drag and snap the circle to the two lines.  I found that turning off 'Snap to alignment box' helped as did checking the 'Curved extension' shape extension option (under View / Visual Aids in the ribbon or Alt + F9).

Does that help?

Best regards

John

PS I love the Geometry Tools example Junichi!

[Railway Ken]

John,

I have the same issue, been searching all over the place, and actually registered as a new user to this forum so that I could see your complete post (Hello everyone).

Very happy to see your reply, but not able to replicate it. (Neither an arc nor a circle nor any other curve I've tried will snap to an existing line for me.) I've played with the snap settings extensively. Obviously I'm missing something. Any thoughts what I am missing?

Thanks!

Ken

[wapperdude]

Hi RK --

Did you explore the link that Visio Guy provided.  It's quite thorough and walks you thru the process.  However, I think it only covers adding a tangent line to a circle, not visa versa.

John, I too cannot get the circle to snap tagentially to the lines.  V2007

Wapperdude.

[Railway Ken]

Thanks, but it only covers adding a tangent to an existing circle or two (which I have used extensively).

What if the line(s) are already present and it is undesirable to move/redefine the lines?

Unable to find any snap to tangent function, I've resorted to using constructions (i.e., angle bi-sector from two arcs, snap a perpendicular from one of the lines to the angle bi-sector, create arc with center point on bi-sector/perpendicular vertex and start point at the line/perpendicular vertex, swing arc around, trim, discard leftovers).

Regards.

[JohnGoldsmith]

Well I've now deleted my original document and now can't reproduce the behaviour myself, so perhaps I've misguided you.  I'll continue to try this out and post back here how I get on.

Best regards

John

[JuneTheSecond]

I've added 2 shapes to my geometry tools.
One is to get intersection point and bisector lines of given 2 lines.
Another one is a circle to draw by center point and tangent line.
These 2 shapes enables to draw inscribed circle between given 2 straight lines.
I hope this helps you, even if a little.

[Railway Ken]

JuneTheSecond: In between my last post and this one had a newborn arrive at my house... so haven't had a chance to look at your tools yet, but they do sound like they will be useful to the task next time this situation comes up. Thanks.