Normal direction, X-Axis line, and Reference edge for Rotation can be defined by selecting a face*, a 2D line, a 3D edge, two points, or three points. The direction reference for the Plane feature and other the DesignModeler application features accepts the following "directional" input:
Plane (its normal is used)
3D (Model) Face (its normal is used)
2D (Sketch) Line
3D (Model) edge
Two points (any of the above "point" input is accepted)
Three points (the normal of plane spanning the three points is used)
* Direction reference from face will be the central axis of the surface if the underlying surface is cylindrical, conical, toroidal, swept or spun and will the normal to the face at its mid u-v point if the underlying surface is of any other kind. The direction reference selected from a face can be switched between surface-axis and face-normal through context menu items “Switch to Axis” and “Switch to Face-normal” if a face is capable of providing both type of direction.
For features created in Ansys release 14.0 and earlier using face as direction reference, the default direction from face provided will be the face-normal irrespective of the underlying surface type.
Direction Reference topics include: