Shaft Dimensioning

[kevinb]

One thing I work on is complex shafts.  As a result, I frequently talk to lathe machinists on where transition points are.  In addition, the bulk of my experience with shaft design is that the diameter is given instead of the radius.  As a result, I have to go through a bunch of tedious overrides on dimensions and digging through properties to set the parameter into a leader instead of a dimension.  I believe that something like the "ordinate dimension" command could be used to create a "dimension shaft" set of dimension settings.  Essentially, you would pick out where the center line is and any dimensions to this center line would default to diameters instead of linears (which require overrides).  A simple button similar to the function of the "centerline" or "construction" line buttons in 2D sketch mode would work great.

On top of that, an "EOP,Dia" dimension mode would really help me talk to lathe machinists.  My experience with them is that they tend to think in terms of diameters and end of parts each time something "important" happens (ie: the ends of a radius).  I think much of the information could be condensed into an X: ####, ⌀: #### coordinate system.  I feel this would save a lot of time and effort.

Current methods:  Left is point to point and manual override to center line (much cleaner than clicking the two opposing lines), Right is an Ordinate dimension set (whose dimensions cannot be overridden to diameters)

Condensed X,⌀ form.   (Ideally, no leader arrows and the option to set them at 45° or something would be nice).

This drawing is very simple, but the main thing I'm after is tagging transition points on taper corners that don't like being dimensioned.