Sketcher basics: draw a part and nest it

On the Home screen click New Sketch. You're asked for a sketch plane; pick XY in the design tree for a flat part. Nothing is chosen for you, and picking a plane beforehand doesn't skip this step. The view turns to look straight at that plane. Inside an existing part, Create 2D Sketch asks for a plane or a flat face; curved faces are refused. New Part on the Home screen is a different command that starts a flat-plate shape.

Use Rectangle for the outside and Circle for the opening. Other drawing tools are Line, Arc, Ellipse, Slot, Circular Slot, Polygon and Spline; Fillet, Chamfer, Trim, Extend, Move and Scale modify what you drew. A nesting profile needs a closed outer boundary, with closed loops for cut holes. Draw reference lines as construction geometry so they aren't mistaken for the cut outline. Open paths can become marks after import, never holes.

Show Grid, Major Grid, Minor Grid and Snap to Grid are under Grid. Minor Grid is the step you snap to; Major Grid is how many minor steps sit between the heavier lines. Snapping to the grid needs both Show Grid and Snap to Grid on. Snapping to endpoints and curves is separate and works without the grid.

Dimension offers Smart (the default), Point-Point, Point-Line, Line-Line, Length, Rad/Diam and Angle. Dimensions drive the geometry, so an edit that conflicts with the others is refused rather than quietly moving something else. Click a placed dimension once to select it and drag to move the label only; click it again without moving to edit its value. Deleting a dimension removes that constraint, not the line or circle it measured. Undo and Redo cover sketch edits.

Finish Sketch checks the sketch and, if it passes, publishes it to the part. If it fails, you stay in the sketch with the previous version intact; read the message and fix what it names. Finishing isn't saving: save the part as a .gcmprt file when you mean to nest it. Separately, Save Sketch or Add Sketch to Library keeps a reusable .gcmsketch copy, and Open Sketch or Open Library Sketch brings one back as an independent editable copy. Use View, then Show Closed Profiles, Show Constraints or Show Dimensions to check your work; a shaded closed region is a good sign, not a guarantee that every later check passes. To change a finished sketch later, use Edit Sketch on it in the design tree.

In the nesting job click Import and choose the saved .gcmprt. If the part holds more than one usable profile sketch, Choose a Sketch to Nest asks which one; marking and text sketches aren't offered. The outline goes through the normal import checks and roles. The importer reads the saved sketch geometry and its source units, so scale carries over; the nest supplies the material, thickness, consumable, leads and processing settings. There's no live link back, so if you change the sketch later, import it again and look at the result. If the sketch you chose has since been deleted from the part, the import tells you rather than picking another one.