Creating reference dimensions

[JetForMe]

I can make dimensions that constrain my sketches, but I also want to make dimensions that just tell me some measurement. I think these are called "reference dimensions." I can't tell if that's the same as "driven" dimension (it seems like it should be, but the use of "driven" in this context would not be my first choice).

In any case, I see there's a "toggle drive" option in the contextual menu, but I can't see that it has any visible effect on the dimension, and if I try that with a dimension that over-constrains my sketch, F360 still complains that it's over-constrained.

I can't seem to find any good information on how to do this, just lots of discussion about people  having over-constrained their sketch, and some posts about how a release in June of 2015 included the ability to have a driven dimension.

I'm on the latest version as of this writing, and I can't figure out how to add dimensions that don't constrain my sketch. Any ideas? Thanks!

PS—I feel sure that some tutorial I went through several months ago covered this, but I can't find that, either.

[HughesTooling · Accepted solution]

Try it on a simple line, add a dimension and a size. You can't drag the endpoints to change it's size with the dimension added, now toggle driven and the dimension changes to a reference\driven dimension with brackets around it and you can drag the endpoints and the dimension updates. Unfortunately you can't access the driven dimension in parameters so it not a lot of use at the moment.

Mark

Edit if you have an over constrained sketch and toggle a dimension to driven and it's still over constrained then that dimension's probably not the problem. One other thing to watch out for is the constraint colouring preview you can enable in preferences seems to give over constrained errors when there isn't one so you might want to turn it off and see it it's still a problem.

[JetForMe]

Oh, that answers part of my question: parentheses around the dimension value indicate a driven dimension, and that's a reference dimension.

It seems F360 has a bug in that it continues to display an error message in the corner. But the alert that pops up now makes sense to me: "Click okay to create a driven dimension." Might be more clear if it said "Click okay to create a driven (non-constraining) dimension," but that's okay. Clicking ok is a quick way to get what I want.

There's another bug: after the first driven dimension is created, right-clicking on it does not pop up the little menu with the option to toggle its driven state. You have to click away and re-select a few times to get that to work.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately you can't access the driven dimension in parameters so it not a lot of use at the moment.

Any updates on this?

I have a design that partly references/depends to other (imported) design, thus dimension for a face is "a reference", it is not set in parameters.

I need to create a pattern on that face where I would have to do math on the face dimensions (reference value), but I cannot find a way to do that other than just manually reading the reference values and then setting it in pattern geometry dictating formula.

Thanks!

[jprcastel]

Any progress on this?

Being able to use a reference dimension in an equation?

[shahriarsifat1802164]

Hi,
By making a construction line and make some required dimensions would help.
Thank you. 

[arwalker324]

As this was first mentioned over 6 years ago, I guess this isn't on the priority list.

Without the ability to create reference dimensions, I have to write some crazy formulae based on other sketch dimensions to effectively allow me to create a reference dimension in the current sketch. It would be so much quicker and simpler if I could use a "driven" dimension as the basis for a formula.

Thanks