copy brown dimension

[MikeHalloran]

2009.4.1

I'm trying to copy an ordinate dimension.
I.e., the dim line points to an edge of a hole in a panel.
I want to copy it so the new dim line points to a parallel edge of another hole in the same panel.
I hold down the CTRL key, and drag the tip point of the dim line to the end of the new edge.
SW shows me a phantom outline of a new dim and dim line as I drag the point.
Then, as soon as I release either key, the phantom outline disappears, and is replaced by... nothing.

I'm too old to hold down a third key while doing this...

One possible problem, now that I've been thinking about it a while. All of the (many) dimensions on this drawing are browned out. I guess that means 'orphaned'? That seems to be an artifact of pushing the panel down into a subassembly, after the drawing was first dimensioned. There doesn't seem to be a fast way to recover from that.

( So, I tried using autodimension to add a new ordinate dimension, picking just one edge of a rectangular hole. Hoo boy; it dimensioned it to the wrong side of the drawing, and added dimensions to three tiny chamfers on a nameplate that's not supposed to be related to the hole.
But that's a complain for another day... )




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[ctopher]

Have you tried dragging the dim point without holding down the CTRL key?

Chris
SolidWorks 09, CATIA V5
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[MikeHalloran]

Okay, trying that. ...
... The dimension attached itself to the other object.
Not quite what I wanted.

Then I found
(select existing ordinate dim)
RMB | Add to Ordinate
... which is what I wanted, I think.

... and maybe a little more. It's sticky, i.e., the cursor stays looking like an ordinate, and clicking more entities adds more ordinate dimensions.


Thanks.







Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Updraft]

Mike,

If I understand correctly you are trying to show dims for two items that happen to have the same ordinate dim value. If this is true then you should just dimension them both. They will have the same value and you can move the second dim to the place you want for its visual display. You might have to break the alignment or jog/unjog the dim to get it to show the way you want.

- - -Updraft

 

[MikeHalloran]

Uh, no.
I was trying to add a new ordinate dimension, by ctrl-dragging the dimension from a different feature. The way I read the help file, it should have worked, but didn't. SW behaved like it was going along with the idea, then changed its mind.

( I suspect it may have to do with re-linking linked lists somewhere deep in the code, where there was either a conscious design decision to only support a certain amount of screwing around with the feature tree, or more likely, some programmer decided that what I asked for would never happen, and just skipped the code to do it. )


The RMB | Add Ordinate Dim works better, especially in this case where my friend who made the drawing in the first place managed to put two coordinate origins in the same view, attached to the same object.

Ctrl-drag doesn't work for that at all; it strongly prefers one of the coordinate origins, and will not dimension to the second one.


Yeah, it sounds crazy, but in this specific case, it makes sense. The object is a locomotive-sized box with doors and windows, which has a transverse seam in it. The entire model was generated from a single solid, but it will probably be fabricated in two halves, so it makes sense to dimension each half with its own origin for measurement purposes. ... so that a fabricator is not trying to check a feature location against the other end of an assembly that doesn't exist yet.


I'm also annoyed that there isn't a 'bulk' way to regenerate| check| re-establish the veracity of, a bunch of dimensions that have turned brown. Working one at a time, I can RMB|Add an ordinate dimension to each feature with a brown dimension, giving me a brown dimension and a black dimension for each feature, otherwise exactly the same. But then I have to delete the brown dimension, assuming I'd like to end up with all black dimensions so that people will trust the drawing.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[SteveMartin]

Sometimes you can get your ordinates back by correcting the baseline (0) dimension. Drag the connection point of the zero extension line back onto its associated reference, accept the pop-up saying it will redefine the origin for that set of ordinates, and if that was the only end SW lost track of, the others will return to fully defined.

Not a magic bullet by any means, but can be occasionally helpful.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Thanks; I'll try that in the morning.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA