Hole Tool, From Sketch needs improvement.

[HughesTooling]

In the attached picture it's far easier to create a sketch on the highlighted face but the holes need to be from the other side.

What's needed is the ability to select a face then points from any sketches even on different planes. On lots of occasions I need holes from both sides of a body, this means creating 2 identical sketches one for each side. Or holes through multiple bodies at different sizes so I can end up with 5 or 6 identical sketches at different levels, I should only need one sketch and the ability to select a face first then the points from a single sketch.

Thanks Mark

[miked6HT2T]

Maybe I am misunderstanding.  I start the holes from the opposite side by clicking on distance and enabling the offset dimension.  The depth may need to be set negative.  You can get them close by dragging the arrows and then snapping to a surface of entering in the correct dimensions.   I frequently use a single sketch to create features on multiple surfaces using this technique.

If you are requesting to be able to constrain hole cut features and depths to a surface so you can easily do things like flip a countersink blind hole.    I like that idea.

[HughesTooling]

Here's a simple example, How can I use this sketch to make counterbored holes from the other side of the block. Even if I wanted the hole like this there's no way to set the depth of a countersink\counterbore accurately and keep it linked so model changes don't affect the depth. The hole tool as it stands is half finished, all you'd need is to be able to select a face as a reference then pick the holes and it would be a lot more useful.

[miked6HT2T]

I see what you mean.  It would be great if you could define the starting surface as well as the "To" surface.  It could even help if you had the offset capability that the Extrude tool has.  When adding threads, you can select reference holes which also is lacking here for inserting multiple hole incidences. With this hole tool, multiple holes only work with a sketch surface.

Here, I cheated a bit by creating reference holes with the sketch.  I then snapped the new holes on the opposite face to the reference hole centers.  Unfortunately, each hole needs to be created separately but the hole tool defaults to the last hole settings.  I snapped the depth "To" the appropriate surface.  Now when the part is modified in the history before the holes were created, they change properly.

[HughesTooling]

If you have more than a couple of holes then projecting the master sketch to the correct face\plane is probably the most efficient. Seems like another oversight that the multiple option will not let you select hole centres as well as points.

I think there are a few tools missing the "To" option, I think I'll make another request for that, the offset option in the extrude tool was added a couple of years ago and I don't think they thought about the other tools that need it.

Thanks Mark

[agordon]

I agree that the hole tool appears to be missing some valuable features.

The selection of an existing hole would be a valuable addition when an edit is to be applied to an extruded surface (i.e. not on the sketch plane).  Currently, if an existing hole is selected, the resulting CREATE>HOLE action produces a hole at 90deg to the axis of the existing hole.

[gmdimarzio88]

It would be nice to see the same "Start" feature in the Hole command. "From Object" or "Offset plane" like we see in the extrude command.