Splitting a line with Driven Dimension length into segments

[Anonymous]

Hey guys,

I'm having a line which length is determined by other constraints / dimensions. I'd like to split the line into two parts so that I have a 2:1 ratio.

I thought it might be possible to use the driven dimension length between the start and end point as in "d40/3" but d40 (which is shown when hovering over the dimension) is not recognized as parameter and stays red.

Is it possible to do that somehow?

[HughesTooling]

Can you attach some screen grabs or export the file and attach. You are not trying to reference the d40 dimension to it's self eg. d40:100 and in the d40 dimension you're entering d40/3, because that will not work.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Of course. And no - I didn't try to use the dimension of a line to calculate a different length of the same line. 🙂

The original sketch is a little more complex, but this is enough to see what I mean:

The triangle is defined by three parameters. Vertical length, horizontal length and the angle.

This makes the top line a "Driven Dimension" named d58. I'm trying to use a construction line on that top line to position the center of the circle at d58/3:

d58 is also not listed on the "parameters" page.

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

I understand now. Driven dimensions are only for reference at the moment their parameters are not available to use in other parameters or dimension.

Mark

[Anonymous]

How would I make a feature request out of this? 🙂

I'm a beginner with CAD, but it felt really natural to work that way, especially since the Driven Dimension also seems to have a placeholder name internally.

[HughesTooling]

It has come up before and I think there might be a request on the Ideastation. Your only option at the moment would be to use trig and calculate the length in a user parameter. Here's a link to help on what functions are available in parameters.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

Here's a link to a request on Ideastation.

Mark

[Anonymous]

I had the trigonometric idea while playing with the "simplified example" above. Thanks for pointing me to the functions list.

Still in my more complex design d40 would be a lot easier than

( sqrt(( ( ( sensor_height * 2 - spacing * 2 - shield_wall ) * tan(90 deg - shield_angle) / 1 mm ) ^ 2 ) + ( ( sensor_height * 2 - spacing * 2 - shield_wall ) / 1 mm ) ^ 2) ) * 1 mm

But at least I can add a line to test the calculation first... 😉