A few things that would make a big difference in usability

[flyboydave]

A few things that would make a big difference in usability

1. The drawing dimension tool should default to edges, not hole centermarks. Honestly, why on earth would someone want to dimension the right angle between the vertical line of one centermark and the horizontal line of another? Any time I want to dimension between two holes, it takes lots of extra zooming in, zooming out, panning, zooming in, panning.

It needs to either ignore centermarks all together, or, it could still pick up the centermarks, but always default to the center of it, not the ends of the line segments that make up the center mark. If it did that, it would be doubly-nice if it would leave a small gap between the end of the extension line and the end of center mark, even if the dimension were dragged to the opposite side of the circle.

2. When sketching in part or assembly mode, sketch lines and dimensions need much more priority than they have now. If you have any parts with the same color as the dimension color setting, when the other parts in the assembly turn transluscent, you can't see the dimensions in the sketch at all. Same goes for the sketch lines themselves. Everything in a sketch should be much more emphasized - thicker, and much brighter - including the sketch figures, the sketch constraints, and of course the dimension lines.

3. As in the last part of #1, extension lines should always have a break between the end of them, and the line they are dimensioning to. As it is now, if you drag a dimension to the opposite side, it will not copy the extension line gap to the other side. It makes the drawings look sloppy, and make it hard to understand exactly what the dimension is defining.

4. When dimensioning in 2D mode, once the necessary edges have been selected, other dimension lines should be ignored. I frequently select two lines, and need to place the dimension text right where another dimension is, with the intent of moving THAT dimension further away from the part. But you can't. Instead, you have to place the current dimension somewhere you don't really want it, and then drag both of them to their final positions. It doubles the amount of dragging alignment you have to do.

5. It would be really nice if the changes in line weights and scale set in the layers would show in the drawings on the screen and not only when they print out.

 

[MilesH]

Re: A few things that would make a big difference in usabili

2. When sketching in part or assembly mode, sketch lines and dimensions need much more priority than they have now. If you have any parts with the same color as the dimension color setting, when the other parts in the assembly turn transluscent, you can't see the dimensions in the sketch at all. Same goes for the sketch lines themselves. Everything in a sketch should be much more emphasized - thicker, and much brighter.

Absolutely!! When creating Parts in situ it's often almost impossible to see the sketch lines...

5. It would be really nice if the changes in line weights and scale set in the layers would show in the drawings on the screen and not only when they print out.

I think we've been there, briefly :wink:

 

[indesign]

1) The dimension tool will always snap to circle if you select the circle. If the centermark gets in the way simply turn off the centermarks while doing dimensioning.

2)Agree

3)Understand and tend to agree.

4)Don't see the problem or don't understand what you are intending. :?

5)We were there once and it was a horror show on the screen with thick lines making a jumbled mess. Every post here was a plee to change it back. Maybe an user option would be the way to go. Even Autocad does not do this for the same reason.

 

[caduser1]

5> The line weight doesn't work on the screen but line scale should be
doable. Currently, when you zoom in or out, the dashed lines don't scale
properly (e.g. hidden line: zoom in - lots of dashes, zoom out - a few dashes).
I know AutoCAD doesn't do this :wink:

 

[flyboydave]

Re:

5> The line weight doesn't work on the screen but line scale should be
doable. Currently, when you zoom in or out, the dashed lines don't scale
properly (e.g. hidden line: zoom in - lots of dashes, zoom out - a few dashes).
I know AutoCAD doesn't do this :wink:

I knew the line scale changes, but it causes other problems. For example - if you change the bend line type or scale, it also changes the dimension line calling out that bend line to the same linetype. The line scale changing around is not as important to me, but the line weight would sure help. You don't really know what the final drawing will look like (i.e. will the guys making the parts understand the drawing) until after you print it. So we always end up printing everything at least twice - once to see how everything looks, and a second time to fudge everything so the drawing is readable.

 

[flyboydave]

Re:

1) The dimension tool will always snap to circle if you select the circle. If the centermark gets in the way simply turn off the centermarks while doing dimensioning.

Um, yeah, either that or they could just make it work right. Dimensioning the angles between the segments that make a center mark is just silly.

4)Don't see the problem or don't understand what you are intending. :?

Think about a drawing view, all dimensions with a baseline at the top edge, spaced out on the right side of the view. You have dimensions of vertical locations of several features, the closet one in is dimensioning something 1" from the top edge, then the second one out is dimensioning something 2" from the top, and they're already evenly spaced from the right edge of the part view. Now you need to add a new dimension for something that is 1.5" from the top. What you want to do is click to place the 1.5" dimension right where the 2" dimension is located, and you'll then move the 2" dimension out a little farther to keep them evenly spaced. But you can't becuse you can't place one dimension on top of another, your click is ignored. So you have to place the 1.5" dimension somwhere else besides where you really want it, then move the 2" dimension farther out, then move the 1.5" one back where you want it. Yeah, fully automatic dimension spacing would be better, but until then at least let me put the dimension where I want it to go without forcing me to move it twice.

5)We were there once and it was a horror show on the screen with thick lines making a jumbled mess. Every post here was a plee to change it back. Maybe an user option would be the way to go. Even Autocad does not do this for the same reason.

I'm not concerned with what autocad does or doesn't do. I'm comparing it to the other solid modelers I use on a day to day basis (ok, more like month to month) - Pro/E, Solid Edge, and Solid Works. (and occasionally Inventor if I really have to). Of course I don't want them to get things back to a jumbled mess, I want it to work like it should - the screen should look exactly like the printout.

 

[moyesboy]

flyboydave aka davesakins in the yahoo alibre forum I think?

 

[indesign]

I would suggest you place an enhancement request. First give a good explanation of the way (you feel) the feature should work correctly. Maybe some screen shots of how it looks would help the developement team understand better.

I normally would not have the issue with dimension placement because I would normally move the offending dimension before I did the one to go in the same location. This is a habit from years of 2D work (old school had no options) not because your suggestion isn't a good one.

 

[flyboydave]

Re:

flyboydave aka davesakins in the yahoo alibre forum I think?

Yup, you are correct.