This thing is a sketched curved and doesn't look like it contains natural curves and lines. Your last point and your first point have different tangent lines. They have to be the same if this is a spline or bezier line.

Did you trace this from a photo or scan?

I think you need to switch your method of drafting. I don't see any lines or curves. For a simple design, you don't need a polyline or one curve. Not sure how you got to a curve if you had arcs and lines to begin with. Maybe if you can still undo than go back to the original lines and curves.

I would suggest to do arcs and lines to solve your issue. Stay away from splines unless you are an expert drafter.

Rockyroad and Martin,
Thank you both for taking the time to look at this.

In what I attached, the lines arc and circles may have been already 'joined' or 'connected', but I assure you I didn't use any beziers, or poly's, or splines. Just switched to whatever view and basically inserted whatever shapes I needed, and then cut away what I didn't need.

Rockyroad - I may need to switch my method of drafting, but to what method would you suggest? Many of my drawings/models are based off, or designed with other 3D objects that accompany and are already present in the current drawing/model. In the attached drawing, it is merely a small part of another drawing/model of a bicycle fork, but cut and pasted into its own file.

Martin, I am not as proficient and knowledgeable as you here, and did not fully understand your reply;
I tried to project curve to plane, but was unsuccessful.

I often feel that even though this is an inexpensive CAD program, it requires some prerequisite CAD experience, as the user guide is very short (IMO) in it's description of how to use its tools.

Would either of you be willing to school me in the 'planar' aspect of this, and explain step-by-step your methods in doing this simple job? Especially the Project Curve to Plane, and an Offset Curve? This is alien to me.

I have access to Solidworks, and AutoCad, and there are many online tutorials for those programs, but I do like the layout and overall simpleness of ViaCad, and it is the first CAD program I open when I need to model something.
But these problems I keep having are making it difficult and frustrating to figure out how to overcome them...

Thanks again so much-

Like has already been said, your drawing is composed of one long spline that probably came about by joining all the original lines and arcs together and unfortunately, that can introduce small(ish) differences where sharp corners etc end up being blended together. I also suspect that the original curves were not all on the same plane which compounds the problem, effectively turning a 2d curve into a 3d curve.

So the way to draw parts such as this, for me, is to use the Top workplane whilst laying it all out, to ensure everything remains flat. Use the snap features in ViaCAD to be certain that intersections are all clean and/or employ the Trim tool to make clean cuts at intersections.

If you do these things then you shouldn't have too many problems when it comes to carrying out other operations such as extruding and using the Push/Pull tool.

Note that you don't usually need to use the Join tool on curves that are to be used for subsequent extrusions etc.


Martin.

All,
Thanks for the input.
I think I will try to import the file into a new file, then turn it into a transparency, then trace over the top of it while using the workplace snap.

Does that sound like a good idea?
Or maybe put ViaCad into 2D, then extrude?

Also, what is the difference between join and connect?

Thanks again-

Okay,

I took my original drawing, changed it's color, used it as a template, and drew the same damn curves over the top, all the while having the workplane snap on.

Then I tried to group it and extrude it, with no luck.
Then I tried to 'join' all the curves and extrude, no luck.
Then I tried to 'connect' all the curves and extrude, no luck.
I just now posted a new thread in what I thought was 2D drafting, (but now I can't find it) asking about the difference between join and connect.

Even though I had the workplane snap on, I still get an error message that says curves are not planar.

What am I missing here?

The part on the left is the new one.