Hi
I have been using the new version of Inventor for a fews weeks, and creating a new part model this afternoon I have noticed that the dimension d1 no longer exists. Has anyone else spotted this or had this problem?
To explain the problem in more detail. I open a new part file (either our company's template or the standard Inventor template), then in Sketch1 I draw a fews lines and pull some dimensions from these. The first dimension I create is called d0, the second dimension I create is called d2. The dimension d1 is totally skipped. I'm not deleting anything just simply starting in a brand new file.
Obviously I would understand it if the first dimension was called, for example, d7, then this would illustrate that the original template file had been saved over.
Thank,
Hi
Never noticed, if I may ask why is this a problem?
If you are using the dimensions in predefined formulas or caclulations, it is better practice to give the dimensions a meaningfull name.
Create a User parameter of "LENGTH" for example, to make the parameter available in other areas and part, tick the check box "Export Parameter"
Now instead of refencing "d0" or "d1" etc, you can refer to "LENGTH", "WIDTH" etc.
If I enter the dimensions as dynamic in the direct distance hitting tab for a rectangle it does d0 d1
if instead I click with the mouse the corners and then dimension I get the d0 d2 behavior you see.
If I create two lines and then dimension I get the d0 d1
Never paid 1 tenth of a second attention to d numbers before you bringing this to attention.
Hi rhasell
There are several reasons why I prefer using the d# designations rather than renaming the parameter. Firstly we tend to create many more new parts than using our own custom part library. I find the whole business of renaming dimensions time consuming with little benefit, specifically because the once or twice I have tried it, I have spent more time trying to think up imaginative and descriptive dimension names than actual designing. Another reason is the size of a dimension formula is smaller when using d0, d1, etc, this means all of the formula is more likely to be visible in the mini dimension window and in the iproperties box.
To answer your first question (sorry if this sounds abrupt), "why is this a problem?" We are all engineers and I believe the smallest detail is as important as the largest generalisation. This is an engineering program, how can dimension d1 be missing? And don't even mention the newly revised material and appearance feature!
Yes, I can reproduce your problem on my machine and we will do some investigations about this issue.
Thank you!
Hi, this issue has been tracked in our internal system and the issue number ID is 1467766.
@Anonymous wrote:Is there a way around it?
Why is it an "issue"?
Hi,
Totally agree with you on all counts. I too had stopped renaming dimensions long time ago and use 'd#' instead. To give the dimension some meaningful description I use "Comments" column in Parameters DB when it is necessary.
Best Regards,
Igor.
@909chubb wrote:Hi rhasell
There are several reasons why I prefer using the d# designations rather than renaming the parameter. Firstly we tend to create many more new parts than using our own custom part library. I find the whole business of renaming dimensions time consuming with little benefit, specifically because the once or twice I have tried it, I have spent more time trying to think up imaginative and descriptive dimension names than actual designing. Another reason is the size of a dimension formula is smaller when using d0, d1, etc, this means all of the formula is more likely to be visible in the mini dimension window and in the iproperties box.
To answer your first question (sorry if this sounds abrupt), "why is this a problem?" We are all engineers and I believe the smallest detail is as important as the largest generalisation. This is an engineering program, how can dimension d1 be missing? And don't even mention the newly revised material and appearance feature!
I agree, unless you have a specific template such as a Sheet-Metal template, certain 3rd party add-in (such as NC Profile burning) look to group items for nesting based on thickness and Material there is no reason to rename parameters.
It is not a huge "issue" but it is an "issue" because it is abnormal. Sure there are plenty of renaming work-arounds but it is at least worth looking into when a piece of software behaves in an unexpected way. If Excel started numbering the rows 0,2,3,4,5,6,7 that would lead me to wonder if something else was off.
On a practical level, I have a lesson where I am teaching students to think through parametric dimensions and everything is numbered step by step with screen shots to help them through it. It took about an hour to renumber the assignent and redo the screen shots to skip d1 and that was time that could have been spent on something better.
@Anonymous wrote:It took about an hour to renumber the assignent and redo the screen shots to skip d1 and that was time that could have been spent on something better.
I spend a few minutes showing my students how the "d number" depends on the order they create their dimensions compared to the order I created the dimensions and how many mistakes they (or I) made and deleted and replaced dimensions.
All the work is done in so many different ways (to get to same end results) that I would pull my hair out if I had to worry about a particular d assignment. If I'm worried about a variable name - I name it myself. Moving on.......
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