Dimensioning curve tangent edge to a second curve tangent edge

[SamLeary]

Hi,

I'm a high school teacher.  My students are producing organic shaped models.  We need to print working drawings of their designs.  Fusion has a few limitations in the drawing environment including not being able to dimension the top of one curve to the bottom of a second curve (to determine overall size of component).  Fusion only identifies the radius of these curves.  Am i doing something wrong?  Is there a key to press to select the tangent edge I want?

Rgds,

Sam

[cmiller66]

Hi Sam,

You are not doing anything wrong, we do have some limitations when dimensioning organic shapes in drawings.

If the default settings for the Dimension tool are not adequate, there are some osnap overrides available from the right-click menu, but depending on the geometry you still may not get exactly the point you need.  One workaround is to create some sketch geometry in the design (say the bounding box of the solid) then turn on the sketch in the drawing and dimension to that (that will be associated to the model).

If you could, I'd be interested in seeing your design/drawing.  If you can export and send to christopher.miller@autodesk.com, I can take a look.

Thanks,
Chris

[SamLeary]

Hi Chris,

See the attached pics of my students work. we haven't tried your fix yet
because my student had a mnessage saying he needs to reinstall fusion to be
able to use his drawing file again!, but that's ok 🙂

Thanks for you reply,

Kind regards,

Sam

[TrippyLighting]

There aren't any pictures attached. Also it is recommended to embed the pictures using the big button above the post editing filed that looks like a camera.

If it has to be attached that cannot be done from an email.

[SamLeary]

Hope you can see these examples of a students design.  Dimensioning the overall size of the components is difficult (impossible) because the dimensioning tool snaps to the centre of the curves rather than a tangent edge.  Cheers

[etfrench]

Which are the tangent curves?  Are they splines or arcs? What are you trying to dimension between?

Attaching the file (File|Export|Archive files *.f3d) would help.

[SamLeary]

Sorry the snip of the drawing isn't a good example, but dimensioning from the straight edge to the curvy edge is problematic.  You can see on the coloured model view there is some clear acrylic inserts that are organic in shape with no straight edges.  If the student is to dimension the overall size of the sheet material needed to cut out this shape, the student isn't able to select the outermost points of the curved edges.

[etfrench]

Attempting to measure from (or to) a tangent point would be nearly impossible on the shop floor.  However, determining the size of the bounding box of a set of arcs can easily be done using the center points of arcs, the radii, and the distances to the edges. 

Why are you using a drawing to determine the stock size when it's easy to do in the Model workspace?

[SamLeary]

The students are assessed on paper drawings that can be used in the workshop.  The organic curves are cut using the CAM function (which is excellent), so only the bounding box size is needed to determine the sheet material needed for the job.  Point taken on dimensioning the curves from a fixed point, but I was hoping to avoid needing those curve dimensions on the drawing pages.

Thanks  for your advice.

Sam

[etfrench]

You can use sketches in drawings now.  Here are a couple of different ways to dimension an organic shape:

p.s. I'd give a failing grade on the above

[SamLeary]

This looks perfect. 

Thanks.

Rgds, Sam