Drawings:Ordinate dimensioning from midpoint of edge or different X & Y origins?

[rklopp]

I have a rectangular plate part with holes whose centers I want to dimension using ordinate dimensioning. I want the X ordinate origin to be the mid-point of the bottom edge of the plate, and the Y ordinate origin to be the bottom edge. The reason for the choice of X origin is that the left and right edges of the plate are rough oversize, and I want to put the hole pattern in the middle of the field so that I can trim off both edges roughly equally later.

I found that I could partially accomplish what I needed by making a centerline between the left and right edges and pick that as my X orrdinate origin. However, I was stuck with the Y ordinate origin as the bottom extended portion of the centerline, which happened to be 0.24" below the bottom edge of the part. Ugh. Why can't I pick up different X and Y ordinate dimensioning origins, or pick up the point where the centerline crosses the bottom edge?

[cmiller66]

Hi Richard,

Thank you for posting.  You're right, ordinate dimensions currently use the view origin point as 0,0 for both X and Y.  We have had this request before, and I will forward to the team. I agree there is a case for being able to select different edges as the X and Y datums for ordinate dims. 

We are currently working on providing snap overrides, so in this case you could acquire that intersection, but that is still in development, Sorry for the inconvenience this is causing. 

Thanks,
Chris

[ron]

Is there any progress on making ordinate dimensions work from two different starting points. 1 point for x dimensions and 1 point for y dimensions.