[V22] - 3D Sketching woes

[simonb65]

Has anyone had issues with 3D sketching (in the part workspace). In particular with ...

a) Trying to figure out which axis is the actual movement plane by the coloured guide lines that project from the cursor location. Be nicer if the plane of movement was highlighted instead of the confusing cursor guide indicator.
b) When adding dimensions, the whole model corrupts.
c) No navigation cube visible for easily rotating the model to view perpendicular to the the 3 base planes!
d) Constraint symbols just fly off into the ether and don't stay by the items constrained ...



e) Hitting 'Undo' just corrupts any dimensions (specifically their direction vectors get reversed) and any unconstrained sketch lines just fly off to some random location (even though the preceding operations that were undone had no edit history on those sketch lines!

If I can down load a screen recorder, I'll post what it does in my hands!

It appears to me as if the axis/plane the dimensions and constraint symbols are draw/act on are not the ones they relate to!

Can someone who does 3D sketching frequently confirm there are issues or can a novice try it out. I don't use it often, but when I do it just drives me mental, as nothing about selection, moving, constraining seems logical or indeed doing what I expect it to be doing. I usually use MOI for this, but thought I'd try it out on v22 and HOOPs to see if anything was improved .. but alas not! 3D sketching seems totally messed up to me.

 

[HaroldL]

I know the training video on 3D sketching makes it look real easy but IMO 3D sketching is a PITA. I avoid it as much as possible. Even Tabbing between planes gives results that are totally wrong. When I do need a 3D sketch, like for a path, I will create a feature that I can then Project to Sketch the edges of and then Suppress the feature. (That's how I created my avatar.)

Placing dimensions is the worst. What I do is try to get the sketch Normal to the screen then place the dimension. But even doing that the dimensions are at odd angles to the sketch lines.

You're right about the sketch cursor. Trying to figure out where you are in relation to the sketch figures is difficult. There is the Elevation thing too that has me confused. It is not as intuitive as it could be. My only other 3D sketching experience is with SolidWorks and I could more easily create actual parts with that.

 

[DavidJ]

3D sketch is the one place where I will turn on the grid, as it helps to keep track of which plane is controlling movement.

I also often limit myself to 'joining the dots' in 3D sketch, between well defined existing geometry, then perhaps adding fillets.

It probably does get easier with practice, but the practice is not easy. I too tend to avoid 3D sketch - in almost all cases there are other ways to approach the problem.

 

[HaroldL]

Has anyone had issues with 3D sketching (in the part workspace).

Was the image in your post a part you are working on or just an example? It looks like the sketch figures are on one plane so could that be done with a 2D sketch or is there more to it?

 

[simonb65]

Was the image in your post a part you are working on or just an example? It looks like the sketch figures are on one plane so could that be done with a 2D sketch or is there more to it?

It is my part and though the pipework is on 2 planes, I did end up doing it in 2 x 2d sketches and 2 seperate lofts (as if the pipe was in real life sections). Hate the 3D sketch tool in Alibre. It's so unintuative. Just the simple change of locking views to the standard top, bottom, front, left, right, etc and when you are looking at a face, the sketch movement was locked in/out of the view would be so good. Just like it does in MOI. Now, that's a dream application for 3d sketching. Alibre needs to take some guidance from the fact a $300 application has features that puts Alibre to shame in so many ways!

 

[HaroldL]

As I said I usually create a feature that has the necessary shape along the edge that I can project to a 3D sketch. It may seem like more hassle but it is less than attempting to create the native 3d sketch.

Here's a simple example created by referring to your image.

Create feature and Project to Sketch:


Create Sweep:


Suppress Feature(s):

 

[bigseb]

As I said I usually create a feature that has the necessary shape along the edge that I can project to a 3D sketch. It may seem like more hassle but it is less than attempting to create the native 3d sketch.

Here's a simple example created by referring to your image.

Create feature and Project to Sketch:
View attachment 32891

Create Sweep:
View attachment 32890

Suppress Feature(s):
View attachment 32889

I do this too. Way easier than sketching in 3D.