How to Move a Sketch Line

[ecnels]

Hi Folks: I want to do a couple of (hopefully simple) sketching moves in Fusion360 Model. Op #1) Move one side of a rectangle to a body face, while keeping the rectangle on it's existing plane (2d move only). I'm expecting to be able to click on a rectangle line, select move, then select the body face and have the line move to there, but that doesn't work. Op #2) Move one side of a rectangle a specific distance to/from another point of interest, i.e. something like select the line to move, select move, create a "ruler" at a specific point of interest, then assign a specific distance the line should move from the ruler point-of-interest zero point (again this is 2d). How to do it? Thanks!

[HughesTooling]

I think you need to go through the basic training like this on constrains and dimensions.

Mark

[Anonymous]

So there is no way to do a simple click and drag?

Because this is being asked by own of the tutorials

http://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?learn=sketch

Modifying sketches 1 on the last slide, I'm going crazy trying to the same as the tutorial, are the tutorials for a different version?

[andrewismoody]

I beat my head against the wall for a couple hours on this and none of the questions/replies on this or similar topics really got down to the nitty-gritty on how to do this.  I finally discovered that the automatically added 'dimensions' on a sketch prevent click-and-drag moving of sketch lines.  You can delete the dimensions, which will free the line up, but I noticed that click-and-drag for moving sketch lines doesn't seem to honor the 'snap to grid' settings, they're very loosely placed and not terribly accurate.  Instead of deleting the dimension and using click-and-drag, I found it much more useful to double-click the dimension and type it into the edit box.  This may cause other parts of the sketch to move around undesirably, but those additional parts can be modified the same way.  Once you get the idea of it, it's really not too bad, but there is no indication anywhere that tells you why you can't move a line and that is unbelievably frustrating.

For example, if I wanted to move this center line from the 40mm mark over to the 35mm mark, I would double-click the 40mm dimension, enter 35mm, hit enter, then double-click the other 35mm dimension, enter 40mm, and the line would be shifted as desired.

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@andrewismoody wrote:

…'snap to grid' settings…  This may cause other parts of the sketch to move around undesirably, …unbelievably frustrating.

Forget snap to grid.

I recommend that you go through a few tutorials - once you understand proper sketching techniques it is trivially simple and entirely logically predictable.

I can recommend one tutorial in particular if you are interested.

[andrewismoody]

Thanks for the reply.  The purpose of my post was to inform other folks like me who are desperately looking for a simple answer to a very simple question.  This thread was the top hit on Google for 'move sketch line Fusion 360', which is why I chose to respond to it.  I see a lot of folks on these forums who suggest watching tutorials instead of just telling people the answer to the question they have.  Does AutoDesk encourage this type of response (pointing to tutorials)?  I am now able to accomplish the task that I set out to accomplish using the technique that I outlined above and I wanted to share my experience with the community.  That's all.

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@andrewismoody wrote:

 Once you get the idea of it, it's really not too bad, but there is no indication anywhere that tells you why you can't move a line and that is unbelievably frustrating.

Can you create a Screencast recording of your technique? I suspect that there might be an easier way, but I'm not sure I understand your written description.

[andrewismoody]

I tried to reproduce this on a new drawing, but to be honest, I don't know where the dimensions came from originally.  I don't remember placing them intentionally, but I've tried some of the same operations I did before and the dimensions don't seem to appear automatically like I had supposed.  Just assuming for now that I did place the dimensions, for whatever reason, not knowing the full consequence of this action.

That part isn't really important, though.  The problem is that there's no obvious reason why you can't move the sketch line after a dimension has been added to it.  I took a screencast to demonstrate moving the sketch line before adding the dimension and then the behavior after adding the dimension.

Want to reiterate here, also, that I'm not asking for help - if you read my post, I'm simply informing other community members of my experiences and how I overcame my challenge in the hope that it will help someone else.

EDIT:  not sure why the screencast didn't show up on the post, adding a link here:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/64ee2030-7473-4d14-8599-b86c09ded9bf

[andrewismoody]

I finally figured out where the automatic dimensions came from.  When you type the dimensions of a sketch object rather than clicking the location, it generates dimensions automatically and 'locks' the shape because of this.  Regardless, the findings and procedure above and in the screencast will allow you to modify the shape after you've created it.