Dimensioning to Centers of Circles & Arcs (& not max/min)

Mar 16, 2005 8 Replies

Pre SW 2005, dimensions defaulted to the center of an arc or circle. Now it seems to choose somewhat randomly whether you intend to dimension to the center or min/max of an arc.



In the past, it defaulted to the center. To change to min/max, you had to right-click the dimension, and specify min or max. This was perfect.


99.999% of the time, I want to dimension to the center of a circle. For arcs, min/max do come in handy. But I draw circles more often than arcs.

QUESTION: Is there a way to make dimensions default to the center of an arc or circle, just like it used to work pre-SW 2005?



It drives me crazy when they change something from working just fine to giving you more options than you want, causing more work to do the same old stuff. (It's like my new cell phone - 5 times more difficult to use than my old one due to tons of new features that I never, ever use).



HELP!!! Now I have to go back and verify all of my holes, etc. are dimensioned to the center. This causes me to have to re-enter dimensions about 30% of the time. It's driving me insane.



I got caught on this when we started using sw05 too. I sent some drawings out to the shop witout proofreading them and had the night inspector hrmpfing.

Pick the center of the arc when you want that, otherwise pick the arc close to the center, or pick it close to the min-max location. Then proof read your drawings.

have a good > Pre SW 2005, dimensions defaulted to the center of an arc or circle.

Alright Davis,

It looks like I'll have to modify my technique and start grabbing those centerpoints. Arrgggghhh - it drives me crazy when solidworks features make me have to change the way I use the program.

Yeah this is a major PITA. What I do is try to pick on the `45' of the circle and not at top or bottom-if that makes sense. Think 1:30, 4:30, 7:30 or 10:30-not noon, 3, 6 or 9. Your subscription $$$ at work............

jk

Fixed in sp2. You now hold the shift button down to activate the quadrant snapping behavior. Default is center.

good to hear. That makes sense. Thanks for the info.

jk

"jk" wrote in news:113h95fiun8mub6 @corp.supernews.com:

I also hear it doesn't work on ordinates yet. Bummer.

Well, then I take it all back. Ordinates is where it is bothering me the most. BooHoo.

Dimensioning to the center of circles. I learned this in my 8th grade Drafting class. Question: does SolidWorks test their software, like making a drawing with a circle and dimensioning it, prior to release? It's March 16, 2005 and I still can't use 2005 for production modeling and drawings! Best Regards, Devon T. Sowell

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