What's new

Draw rectangle and move center to origin.

kiwiavi

Member
Seems such a simple task but for the love of me I can't do it.
My thoughts were, draw a rectangle, put some diagonal cross lines in it, snap to the center and move to the origin. Noooo.
I have a TurboCAD background so I'm probably not thinking 'Alibre'

How do I Alibretise this task?

Thanks Wallace
 

Latitude

Member
You could draw a rectangle by center starting from the origin
1671326084421.png

Or if you want to use a regular rectangle then once you've drawn your diagonal as a reference line, add a node in the middle of the line and use the coincident constraint to move that to origin
1671326245318.png
1671326304695.png

1671326319522.png
 

kiwiavi

Member
Thanks for the replies. Ok I can draw a rectangle about the center. All good, box ticked.

Ok back to the move. How do I add a node to the center of a construction line? It keeps adding a node to the nearest grid intersection.

I presume that if you do a move, all the items in the sketch move, you don't have to select what you want to move.

PS I get solid models from customers and have only used Alibre as a measuring tool. All drawings I create are in Turbocad. (20 year user) so I'm finally trying to create stuff in Alibre. It's just difficult to get started.
 

kiwiavi

Member
In most of my designs, I use snap to grid. A little bit of forethought makes much better models.
In TurboCAD, when you select draw a line, circle or anything else, a right click of the mouse bring up all the snap options. Very convenient.
 

kiwiavi

Member
I seem to be going backwards. I set the grid to 1 mm but it's not correct ? What am I doing wrong? I saved and reloaded the file but no change.
 

Attachments

  • Grid.jpg
    Grid.jpg
    99.9 KB · Views: 9

kiwiavi

Member
I found that the CTRL key brought up extra options and I managed to move the rectangle to the origin and the drawing went black.
I added a further detail and now my drawing is gone.

If I click Sketch1 I see the outline. Once I move to the active screen, its gone.
 

Attachments

  • Drawing.jpg
    Drawing.jpg
    81.2 KB · Views: 9
  • Gone.jpg
    Gone.jpg
    50.8 KB · Views: 8

HaroldL

Alibre Super User
And use dimensions and constraints instead of relying on a grid. Then when you need to make changes or adjustments to the sketch, and related feature, you edit the dimension.
 

kiwiavi

Member
What has come to mind is that Alibre and maybe all other 3D CAD programs seem to have their own langage and way of operating. I've been through many tutorials and learned some info but as soon as I take one step forward, I then take several back.

What bit of logic/understaniong am I missing here. I created a retangle sketch<1> , added a hole sketch<2> using the options and when I click edit Sketch <2> it dissapears from the drawing? The dogbone has moved up.

However if I click on the actual sketch on the drawing and right click edit, I get the hole dialog up.

I'm really confused on some of the operations.

I've been through the constraints video but I don't know how to set the hole at a certain distance from one of the edges. Maybe the hole is already constrained and I have to remove it first.?
 

Attachments

  • HoleGone.jpg
    HoleGone.jpg
    58.3 KB · Views: 11
  • Hole.jpg
    Hole.jpg
    60.3 KB · Views: 11

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
Yes - if you edit a sketch, the feature derived from it is not complete whilst you edit. You have stepped back in time to the creation of the sketch.

Further a sketch associated with the hole tool only includes a node to identify location of each instance of the hole. The information about hole type/size is contained in the Hole feature (not in the sketch).

To fix distance of hole from edge, add a dimension in the sketch from the hole node to the edge of the pre-existing feature edge.
 

H.C

Member
"To fix distance of hole from edge, add a dimension in the sketch from the hole node to the edge of the pre-existing feature edge."
This does not work if your hole node is constrained to the 0,0,0 point node. (it snap/constrain, no way to get rid of ?) (ok just put it elsewhere :) )

to come back on the midpoint: why a node snap to the midpoint line & the move tool not ??????
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
Move tool picks up EXISTING nodes as targets for start or end position (it doesn't create new ones)

Insert Node adds a new node - and one option for that is mid-point inferencing.
 

OTE_TheMissile

Alibre Super User
This does not work if your hole node is constrained to the 0,0,0 point node. (it snap/constrain, no way to get rid of ?)
Holding left Ctrl while clicking + dragging on a coincident-constrained node will break the constraint and allow you to move the node by hand freely
 

kiwiavi

Member
Hi chaps, thanks for you patience. I look at new software like learing Chinese. You can listen to the lectures, learn the words, but you still can't communicate. It just takes time. A bit every day and then you get somewhere. Like most things, easy, once you have done it before.

OK I have my 2 sketches in front of me however the dimension operation is greyed out. I assume that everything is locked and cant be changed.

I've added the fiile.
 
Last edited:

NH_ENG

New Member
Kiwiavi, the file you uploaded is a drawing file, not a part file. Dimensions on the drawing reflect the dimensions assigned when creating the part. I apologize if I am not understanding your issue

Paul
 
Top