No, I don't think it was SmartSketch; I think it had a Compu-zoomy name. It _sounded_ like a great idea. One of my friends bought it, used it for a while, and came to not like it particularly.
I tried it a little, and the thing that was annoying about it was that the constraints were instantly active, and couldn't be ignored even temporarily.
That may not clearly describe what was so aggravating about it; perhaps an analogy will do. There was at roughly the same time a 'syntax- directed editor' for some computer language... which also sounded like a good idea. I.e., it wouildn't let you produce a line of code that wasn't conformant with the language's syntax.
The problem was that, once you entered a line of code, and before you pressed 'enter', you'd get a warning that it was wrong. Fine and dandy. So you would then attempt to edit the line in place in order to correct the syntax. Okay, _but_ the editor wouldn't let you produce a line with bad syntax, even while you were attempting to correct the syntax of the line you just entered.
Back to sketching... I can contrast that with the sketch feature in Solidworks, which allows you to sketch something pretty much freehand, with approximate dimensions... and then go ahead and build a 3D feature from the sketch without bothering to tie down the actual dimensions of the sketch, say by dimensioning it, or by saying 'fix' or 'accept' or whatever. I.e. the SW sketcher doesn't get in the way of the flow of ideas.. whereas with that ancient aggravating product, whose name I will recall when it no longer matters, you spent all your time dancing with the constraint engine instead of thinking about what you were actually trying to represent.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
![[cheers]](/data/assets/smilies/cheers.gif "[cheers] [cheers]")
