structural member

[75ironhead]

can someone tell me how to stop  structural member from Auto constraining themselves together.

I am laying out a framing plan with beam members and wherever they touch baselines perpendicular to each other they become permanently stuck.

Autodesk Building Design Suite Premium 2014

Thanks

[David_W_Koch]

On the Properties palette, Design tab, you can set the Trim automatically property under the Basic > General category to "No" or you can leave it set to By style and edit the Structural Member Style and, on the Design Rules tab, uncheck the Trim Members Automatically toggle.

[75ironhead]

David It makes no difference. I have already cleared both the options and this did nothing.

Once the members touch at there base points they become automatically constrained to each other. Only using the Command: DELCONSTRAINT does what I want but it seems absurd to have to use this as a solution. We should have full control on what is or is not constrained to any AEC objects.

Is there a way to cycle constraints during the grip lenghten action as in the attached pic?

I was assuming it was a hidden system variably, if not this is a real Bummer

[MarySeufert]

From Help subject AEC Object Constraints:

All of the AutoCAD constraints are supported by the appropriate AEC objects, but the AUTOCONSTRAINT and Infer Constraints features are not.

With a grip selected or when you specify options during an editing command, tap the Shift key to alternate between relaxing constraints and maintaining constraints.

When you select one of the AEC objects that support constraints, the Parametric panel on the contextual ribbon tab displays the constraints available for the selected object.

HTH - I don't use constraints myself.

[75ironhead]

I spent another 2 hour searching the "auto cad" help files with no explanation on how to disable AEC constraints.

With a grip selected tap Shift key to alternate between relaxing constraints and maintaining constraints does nothing. However I can right click and select "lengthen unconstrained" from the shortcut menu.

what I was looking to do is to simply "disable constraints" and it sounds like this is not an option?

guess i'll just deal with it. or i'll ask a tech from my subscription center after all i sure as heck pay for answers.

Thanks anyway

[ntellery · Accepted solution]

Not sure why HELP would refer to the shift key as it's a tap on the control key that disables the connection.  I like that it snaps but I often want to disconnect too and a simple tap does it.  Interesting to note another behaviour, if you select more than 1 connected structural object before moving, it will move the distance given x the number of objects.  So if you have 3 objects connected and selected and move it 1 foot, they and the connection point will move 3 feet. 

[75ironhead]

tapping the Ctrl or Space bar is what I should have been doing NOT the Shift key thanks for pointing that out.

I will stop speed reading the help files.