topic Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not? in Inventor Forum

Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 20:39:05 GMT

Maybe I'm confused about what these things are but can someone please help me with my sketching options?

We create a lot of VERY complex sketches for our equipment that control all of the FG structures, piping, raised pattern floor plates, railing, etc. Since my upgrade to 2015 I've noticed something happening in my sketches that I want to turn off. In this picture you can see what I am talking about. The end of the new line I am drawing is being created with a Coincident constraint not only to the next segment of the line but also to another line/point that was previously created and aligned with the endpoint of my new segment.

I would like to turn this option off and have it never happen again. In a very complex sketch there are always six different lines that a new point can align with and I would prefer to control it myself using predictable constraints that I place (I know this takes a little longer but in most cases for me it's worth it).

I thought it was controlled here in the application options:

But, even with this option de-selected it is still happening in every sketch I create. I've looked in the document settings and can't find anything there but that doesn't mean it isn't being controlled somewhere else that I haven't thought of. I've also made sure that I am not "scrubbing" over any geometry by accident and it still creates the coincident constraint.

Can someone help me get rid of this, it's killing me? I've resorted to purposely distorting my geometry as I draw it so it won't align with anything else but that's only possible for a little while until my sketch gets more dense.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

nmunro — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:14:41 GMT

This should restore the behavior you are looking for:

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

Neil_Cross — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 15:16:42 GMT

It's killing me to know if that was an intentional genius reference, "this should restore the behaviour you are looking for..."

Because... star wars... his picture... storm trooper...?

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

nmunro — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 17:24:29 GMT

No jedi intended.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 18:15:03 GMT

That worked...

Both the settings and the jedi mind trick.

My weak mind new I was confusing the settings but it couldn't find the right one to click.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 20:36:47 GMT

Nevermind, that isn't working for me anymore (the jedi mind trick or the setting). I just noticed that with that setting I now don't have coincident constraints automatically placed between any new line I am drawing and any existing geometry in the sketch.

What I want is this: A coincident constraint placed automatically when I specifically start or end new geometry ON existing geometry but I don't want a coicident constraint placed between new geometry and some projection/alignment of existing geometry nowhere near where I am working.

I thought this was what Autodesk was calling "Point Alignment" and I have that turned off. I didn't have this issue when I was on 2013 a couple months ago. How do I get that behavoiur back???

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 23:09:55 GMT

Aaarrgggghhh!

Can anyone out there help me with this? I really need this to stop adding these constraints to projected lines and crap. I thought Neil Munro had me set straight (thus I marked his answer as the solution) but it turns out that it was just his Jedi mind trick on my weak brain and it did not, in fact, turn off this projection crap.

I know that creating complex sketches goes against what we all learned in training (sorry @Anonymous_Waguespack) but when you do a lot of skeletal modeling like I do, sometimes there is no other choice. Having these lines coincidentally constrained to whatever line IV thinks is a good idea, is not working for me.

I appeal to the Jedi masters:

"Help me @Neil_Cross... you're my only hope". There might be others actually but I watch your YouTube channel almost every day (admittedly most of the time it's while I'm dumping out).

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

Neil_Cross — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 23:17:37 GMT

Can you attach an example part with an example sketch in and do a Screencast or something to show the actual problem you're having? I've tried creating a funky mad busy sketch and I'm not seeing what I thought you were having trouble with!

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

-niels- — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 07:39:43 GMT

This isn't a "turn it of everywhere" option, but it might help.

The problem is that it's inferring the coincident constraint from all geometry in your sketch, which you can change from a setting in the constrain dropdown called "Constraint inference scope".

I selected the projected origin point and that made the coincident constraints to the vertical lines stop from being generated.

It's not a permanent solution, you'd have to set the inference scope in every sketch you make...

As a sidenote, i have all options for constrain inference checked in that dialog box that Neil Munro showed.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 23:18:32 GMT

neils hit it on the head here I think. I'm looking for a way to not have these new points in my sketch "snap" to existing lines in the sketch with a coincident constraint. It's very annoying and is causing unpredictable results and over-constrained scenarios in my sketches when I don't "catch" them.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 23:22:16 GMT

Sorry, I'm having trouble getting my screencasts to show up here...

I would like to turn this off and make sure it NEVER comes on again.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeremy_wasserstrass — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 00:59:31 GMT

I have to agree this behavior is a pain. My sketches will often start out looking funny as I try to draw everything in a manner that avoids allowing Inventor to place those coincident constraints. It never fails that the point it picks to use is somewhere on a piece of geometry that has nothing to do with what is being drawn. My best example is hook slots for lift off items, invariably something gets locked in and then I am left wondering why I can not change a dimension. The fact that the coincident constraints stack and only show up when the cursor is hovering is what makes this such a pain. I would prefer it if co-linear constraints were placed instead, those are at least easy to pick out when constraint visibility is turned on.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

Curtis_W — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 17:51:00 GMT

@jeanchile wrote:

I know that creating complex sketches goes against what we all learned in training (sorry @Anonymous_Waguespack) but when you do a lot of skeletal modeling like I do, sometimes there is no other choice.

Hi jeanchile,

I don't know if I have anything useful to add here...

... but with the subject matter and the Star Wars references, it seemed appropriate to post this link:

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/2013/08/use-3d-solid-edges-for-frame-generator.html

I've seen images of your frames in the past, and suspect that you likely already use some 3D edges, but it's the 2D sketches on the 3D faces that are where you're running into a lot of this inferred constraints issue.

So concerning inferred constraints, here is what I observe (and have tried to show in this screen cast):

If you sketch a rectangle, and then sketch another rectangle, without exiting the rectangle tool, then the constraint inference is going to apply constraints, assuming you have the On Curve Inference option selected.
If you sketch a rectangle, and then exit the rectangle tool, then get back in and sketch another rectangle, then the constraint inference is not going to apply the coincident constraint to the curve.
If you hold the CTRL key the constraint will not be inferred.

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

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 22:11:02 GMT

Thank you Curtis (and the others) for your clarification and input. While what I've learned is helpful to a degree, it is not providing the solution I had hoped for which was an Application Option that made this NEVER happen again. I still have to change these options with every single sketch I create.

Maybe it's just me but I cannot ever see a reason that I would want it to do this. I apply my geometric constraints the way I was trained and that is according to the logical option that conveys my design intent (if I want lines to be collinear, I will make them collinear not apply a coincident constraint between an intersection and some other line clear on the other side of the sketch).

I'll post back when I set up and Idea Station request that will garner 3 votes and never be implemented.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

SBix26 — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 13:21:31 GMT

I, too, prefer to constrain my sketches in more logical ways, and "a coincident constraint between an intersection and some other line clear on the other side of the sketch" is not one of them. I rarely use the collinear constraint, either. I much prefer to use a construction line connecting the two lines, as it is much more visually obvious.

If you create an Ideas Forum post, I will enthusiastically add my vote!

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2017 R3
Vault Basic 2017.0.1
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1
Inventor Certified Professional

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:54:41 GMT

@SBix26 wrote:

If you create an Ideas Forum post, I will enthusiastically add my vote!

Well... here is the Ideas Forum post I created (sorry, I just realized they changed the name from Idea Station).

Come on fellow supporters! Let's rack up those three votes so we can have this idea quickly forgotten and never implemented!

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

-niels- — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 19:50:02 GMT

i added the 4th vote, that's more than the target... who knows

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

SBix26 — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 19:52:09 GMT

Up to five in only two hours! At this rate, we'll have sixty by this time tomorrow!

Sam B

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

jeanchile — Wed, 14 Dec 2016 22:10:13 GMT

Haha! This is the first thing I've ever done that's gone viral.

Re: Is it possible to turnPoint Alignment off or not?

bsidesign — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 20:38:37 GMT

What I would like to know is why isn't this fixed yet? The most frustrating thing is in earlier releases sketching didn't behave in this manner and never did, not having the ability to stop it from applying the extra coinsident constraint is extremely frustrating.