Drafting questions - Wildfire

Q1: How do you dimension the centre for a large radius, ie its centre is off
the sheet?

[at the moment I bodge it by drawing lines and using notes to 'create' a
dimension - not very clever]

If you create a false centre point within the sheet area and dimension from
there it will apply the actual dimension - which leads to:

Q2: Is there a fix which allows you to replace the dimenion text? as I can
see you can only add to it - it has to have the driving dimension symbol in
the properties box.

Q3: On a similiar theme, I want create two dimensions each side of a centre
line to show equality - that is replace the dimension text with an '='
sign - any ideas? - or is this not standadrd practice?

Cheers, Sean

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sean Kerslake
Dept. of Design & Technology
Loughborough University
LE11 3TU

01509 228317

 

Sean, two points regarding center dimensioning of arcs which run off the
paper or out of the view. The first is that there is a configuration option
in your detail file called CLIP_DIAMETER_DIMENSION which should break the
dimension line and add a double arrow to the end which doesn't reach the
center point. This option should be set to 'yes'. A similar option applies
to linear dimensions called CLIP_DIMENSIONS.

It might be better, however, to reconfigure your dimensioning scheme to
eliminate references to the center point. You can do this in sketcher by
dimensioning from a datum to a tangent of the arc. Then, you will have a
diametral (or radial) and linear dimension. It may also be necessary to
dimension the end points of the arcs to fully constrain it. Also, when you
are showing dimensions, don't pick this radii with center points off the
screen to show their centers. They will show (off the sheet) and possibly
cause strange printing problems.

If I understand you other question about dimension text correctly, you are
referring to the symbol that stands for a certain dimsion, like d0, d1. On
the properties page for dimension text, you'll see, in the top part, an area
for adding notes and symbols to turn the dimension effectively into a
parametric note. Below, though, is a symbol name in the box marked name
which you can also modify. Edit this text to say something more descriptive
of the feature. This name will be shown when you do 'Info>Switch dims'.

David Janes