More Red Ink

[danwilley]

Today I opened a drawing file that I last touched about 9 months ago. All I wanted to do was create a PDF of the two-sheet drawing and print it. When I opened the drawing, the second sheet's dimensions were all red/broken. The dimensions are correct, they are just red. When I completed this part and related drawings 9 months ago, there was no red ink and everything was okay. The only thing that has changed is that I installed the latest Alibre version when it was released. These drawings were created in the previous version. Does anyone have an idea of how to fix the red ink without re-creating all of the dimension markings? See attached screenshot of the drawing sheet that is broken. Nothing complex at all.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[HaroldL]

Did you try reprojecting the views to see if that cleaned up the drawing? Sometimes that may work, if not then you need to redimension the drawing. Kind of a pain but until there is a permanent fix that's the job.

 

[NateLiquidGravity]

As a temporary workaround - if you know everything is correct - I think you can change the layer colors to black just to get the PDF made.

 

[DavidJ]

Or select by layer the dissociated dimensions and send back to the dimension layer.

 

[danwilley]

Ok, here we go again. I found this thread (my thread) from April of 2022 and have more of this disassociated dimension issue on drawings that I have not touched since 2021. They were fine when I created them in 2021. I am guessing the models and drawings were created with Alibre V25. I now have V27 and a new desk top system as of a month ago. See the attached drawing PDF for the dissociated dimension mess. This is just one example, I have dozens of broken drawings. Is it something that I am doing (or not doing)? Is this an Alibre bug?

Looking back at the comments above...
- Nate. That is a viable temporary work around in a pinch. Thanks
- David... If I send dissociated dimension back to the dimension layer, the dimension is still dissociated... correct? So if a change is made to the part that touches a disassociated dimension, that dimension will not be updated on the drawing. Is that correct?

Alibre, why is this continuing to happen to drawings?

Thanks for any comments you may have.

Dan

 

[NateLiquidGravity]

You can retarget dimensions now. This ability was added in V26 near the end of 2022.
https://help.alibre.com/articles/alibre-help-v26/retargeting-dimensions

 

[danwilley]

Hi Nate,

Yes I am aware of the retarget function added in V26 last year. I have used it several times to fix dimensions that have disassociated because I added a chamfer or made a change. I get that. But, this is something completely different. The entire drawing has failed. And not only the one drawing I attached above but many drawings have failed on that project. All,I do is open the drawing file to be rewarded with a big dimension mess. No changes. There is an ugly bug going on here I believe. No one should have to go over their completed drawings to re-associate dimensions a year or two later. If this is because of a work flow problem that I am doing, then please tell me what I am doing wrong. I will send this to support to see what they have to say. This is becoming an Alibre deal breaker for me.

 

[NateLiquidGravity]

Perhaps the suggestions on this topic will help:
https://www.alibre.com/forum/index.php?threads/red-dims-on-drawing.14532/
Specifically:

Try this: Delete the dimension -- and then undelete it (<Ctrl+Z>. This is often sufficient to reattach the dimension. Sometime you have to delete the entire view -- and then undelete it. Both approaches work to one degree or another.

 

[danwilley]

Ok, I tried doing the delete/undelete on individual dimensions and on the entire view with no avail. I did notice that Lew posted that suggestion twelve years ago and he or someone said Alibre was working on it at that time. Apparently Alibre gave up. Too bad.

To illustrate the size of this mess for me, the project I am looking at has 132 drawings, each with many sheets. I started re-retargeting the red dimensions manually one at a time on the drawing sheet I posted above and finished. I only got through (fixed) about ten drawings tonight. 122 drawings to go. This is extremely frustrating.

Two data points that stood out while fixing the ten drawings (so far):
1) The failed dimensions were only on sectional views.
2) When right-clicking on a red-lined chamfer dimension, there is no “retarget” option in the drop down list. So these will have to be deleted then added from scratch. The fillets retargeted ok.

I do not look forward to scrubbing the hundreds of drawings. Who knows what the cause is. After fixing it this time, will this red-line dimension problem appear again in the same project a year or two from now? This bug is ugly. It needs to be properly investigated and fixed.

 

[HaroldL]

After fixing it this time, will this red-line dimension problem appear again in the same project a year or two from now? This bug is ugly. It needs to be properly investigated and fixed.

Are you sending the errant files to Alibre Support so they can do some testing on them and maybe forward to Development? Don't count on just posting here in the forum for a solution.

 

[DavidJ]

Have you done any testing to find out if the dimensions are actually dissociated? I.E. whether or not the drawing does update if the model changes. I'm not suggesting that what you are seeing is acceptable - just that it could be real dissociation or could be a warning of possible dissociation, but the dimensions actually remain linked to the model.

Does a forced reprojection of views in the drawing result in any changes?

 

[Stu3d]

Is it worth asking support to try opening the files in the same version they were originally created in?

 

[NateTheOkay]

I've been having this issue for years as well.

99% of my drawings are section views of round parts with threads accurately modeled. I suspect the threads might be part of the problem. I get 2 types of errors. The first is like yours. The second is that dimensions don't dissociate, but they dimension to the same size of the part and turn to 0. Either of these can happen when reprojecting with no changes to the part.

I can't get either error to happen consistently enough to send a file to support though. I've gotten in the habit of taking a screenshot before reprojecting.

 

[danwilley]

David - I just tried changing two dimensions on the cylinder head part. The part changed on the drawing but the dimension did not. So I suppose that means the dimensions are truly disassociated. See the attached screen shot. I changed the OD (top of drawing) from 3.25" to 3.5", and the ID (middle of drawing) from 1.62" to 1", and re projected. As you can see the part changed but the dimensions stayed the same.

Harold - I have not yet opened a trouble ticket. I have copied the project to a sand box (as it was before I started fixing the dimensions) so it can be easily packaged for submission.