Why are my dimensions flipping around???

[jeanchile]

Hello All,

I am growing frustrated with my dimensions moving around in my drawing files and I am trying to figure out why they do this. I change one little thing on my models, open the drawing, then spend 30 minutes going over every dimension in comparison to the old drawing trying to find all the ones that moved erratically and put them back where they were. Most of the dimensions that move don't have anything to do with the change I made to the model. Why are they moving?

Has anyone else experienced this?

For example, the dimension in this picture used to be on the other side of the other extension line, and it was never that close to the geometry:

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi jeanchile,

I don't know if it is related to selection order or not, but I'd be curious if the dimensions that flip on you are ones that are initially placed left to right, and then manually re-positioned right to left, and so on. My theory is that a model update is resetting the dimensions to their default "home" position.

If that is what's happening, it might help to pay attention to the selection order when placing dimensions, as described here:

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/2011/08/drawing-dimensions-left-or-right.html

This is all just theory, but it might be worth having a look.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[jeanchile]

Interesting. Not something I had thought of and I haven't a clue how to determine which ones were placed which way now. I'll have to keep a couple notes in the future and see if a pattern develops. I try to place them in the correct position needed but as the annotation develops, things get moved around a bit from time to time. It's just frustrating to have to re-check the dimension position of every one of them each time a change is made.

I thought the beauty of this software was to make incorporating changes safer and easier. I pretty sure my reseller never said" this software is great.. once you make a change, all you have to do is review all the dimensions on the drawings to make sure they are still good".