How to select midpoint of construction line

How to select midpoint of construction line

TimOdell
Participant Participant
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Message 1 of 20

How to select midpoint of construction line

TimOdell
Participant
Participant

After drawing a construction line I want to find the mid-point of it.  I have been unsuccessful in hovering over it in hopes of it finding and snapping to it.  Thanks for the help

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19 Replies
Replies (19)
Message 2 of 20

etfrench
Mentor
Mentor

Construction lines behave the same as regular lines.  Make sure the construction line is in the active sketch.

ETFrench

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Message 3 of 20

jeff_strater
Community Manager
Community Manager

Do you mean this type of construction line (sketch construction line):

Screen Shot 2017-11-06 at 3.33.44 PM.png

 

or a construction axis:

Screen Shot 2017-11-06 at 3.34.43 PM.png

 

@etfrench's answer is correct for sketch construction lines, but if you are referring to Construction axes, then the answer for those is no, there is no way to find the midpoint of a construction axis, because it doesn't really have one.  Internally, it is an unbounded line.  We truncate its display for convenience, but those endpoints are not precise or meaningful.

 

Jeff

 


Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
Message 4 of 20

laughingcreek
Mentor
Mentor

You won't see any indication of the center point if you don't have a tool active.  If you start any of the sketch tools (line,point,spline,circle, etc), Then when your hovering over the midpoint, a triangle will appear, indicating your about to create a coincident between the midpoint, and what ever tool your running.

Message 5 of 20

Anonymous
Not applicable

hey!

 

I'm actually encountering a similar issue as I try to walk myself through one of these "how-to" sketch examples. I can snap to the edges of the construction line just fine but having lots of difficulty finding the midpoint of the same lines...

 

Any info would be a huge help! 🙂

Message 6 of 20

TheCADWhisperer
Consultant
Consultant

Can you File > Export and then Attach the *.f3d file here that exhibits this behavior?

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Message 7 of 20

Anonymous
Not applicable

yeah sure!

 

I've completed the tutorial but you're free to peel it apart. Let me know if I need to do anything else...

 

 

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Message 8 of 20

etfrench
Mentor
Mentor

The latest UI shows a + at the midpoint of a line whether the line is in the active sketch or not.  Whether or not you could snap to the midpoint of a non active sketch line a year ago is debatable Smiley Happy

 

 

 

ETFrench

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Message 9 of 20

Anonymous
Not applicable

Extremely frustrating that you have to jump through hoops and post to a product's support forum to do something as simple as locating the mid-point of a line! I'm sorry, but there's just no excuse for this. I'm using the latest version of Autodesk (on Aug 6th, 2021), and so far I've gotten none of the suggestions I've found to work consistently. I've spent far too long on this already.

Message 10 of 20

g-andresen
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

What is the problem?

midpoint2.gif

günthe

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Message 11 of 20

davebYYPCU
Consultant
Consultant

If the hover close isn’t working, hold down the SHIFT key, and try again.

 

Might help....

Message 12 of 20

jeff_strater
Community Manager
Community Manager

In addition to all the great suggestions here, there is the actual Midpoint Constraint itself, which can establish this relationship after the geometry has been created:

 


Jeff Strater
Engineering Director
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Message 13 of 20

Anonymous
Not applicable

I did find the mid-point constraint and it works great. I've been using this and it's flawless. Thank you! 

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Message 14 of 20

matt_bolty
Participant
Participant

How do you select the midpoint of an existing line though? the midpoint function will make both midpoints coincident which is not what I need. I want to make the midpoint of a perpendicular line be coincident with a centre line ie it will slide up and down the centreline until I add dimensional constraints. 

Message 15 of 20

matt_bolty
Participant
Participant

How do you select the midpoint of an existing line though? the midpoint function will make both midpoints coincident which is not what I need. I want to make the midpoint of a perpendicular line be coincident with a centre line ie it will slide up and down the centreline until I add dimensional constraints. 

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Message 16 of 20

laughingcreek
Mentor
Mentor

post 4

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Message 17 of 20

g-andresen
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,

this is how it looks on display

 

 

günther

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Message 18 of 20

mclaycomb84
Community Visitor
Community Visitor

I know this is an old and outdated article, but I read through most of the replies and had the same issue today.   Solidworks lets you hover over a line and select the midpoint for constraints.   I could not find a way to do this so I used the point option under Sketch_Create=Point and when you get close to the center, the triangle pops up.

 

Adding this point let me then select the point and do a vertical/horizontal constraint as needed.

Hopefully this helps anyone new to the software.

 

mclaycomb84_0-1755350418191.png

mclaycomb84_1-1755350439591.png

mclaycomb84_3-1755350554626.png

 

 

Message 19 of 20

laughingcreek
Mentor
Mentor

@mclaycomb84 wrote:...  Solidworks lets you hover over a line and select the midpoint for constraints.   I could not find a way to do this so I used the point option under Sketch_Create=Point and when you get close to the center, the triangle pops up....

 

 


when setting constraints, hold the shift key down, (suggested in post 11).  you can skip theextra step of setting a point.

Message 20 of 20

g-andresen
Consultant
Consultant

Hi,


@mclaycomb84  schrieb:

 

Adding this point let me then select the point and do a vertical/horizontal constraint as needed.

 


That is not necessary.

As shown in the screencast from #17 with the coincidence, it also works with the horizontal/vertical constraint.

 

günther

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