Sketch Dimensions: controlling the angle at which the dimension occurs

[rnl9t]

Is there a way to create sketch dimensions that are not parallel to the grid?  Some of my designs involve locating features along lines that are at angles to the grid, and I would like to control their location along the line directly rather than fussing with right triangles and creating rounding errors.

Attached is a screenshot to illustrate what I mean.  Sketch dimension is controling the height of the triangle, but I really care about the length of the side, not the height.

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

I think what you want is a parallel dimension.  You have to click twice to get this.  First click in this area:

This specifies the dimension as a parallel or aligned dimension.  Alternatively, you can also right click while in the dimension, after you select the line, and choose "Aligned":

Then, place the dimension.   Here is a screencast showing the workflow:

Jeff Strater (Fusion development)

[rnl9t]

Thank you, that did it.  Is there an easy way to change an already-established dimension or should I just delete it and start over?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

You can change the alignment when placing the dimension by right clicking. 

Unfortunately at this time you can't change the alignment for already existing dimension. Hopefully this will get added soon!

Hope that helps! 

Niels

[Anonymous]

Ha @jeff_strater, posted my reply and yours was already there! Didn't know about clicking in the area under the line thorugh, thats neat. Is there anything similar for changing a diameter to a radius? and does this work the same in the drawing space?

N

[jeff_strater]

@Anonymous:  Sorry I swooped in before your response!  To answer your question, no, there is not a way to specify radius vs diameter with a click like with linear dimension.  Just the right click context menu to switch between the two.

Regarding drawings, I had to ask one of the drawing team...  Drawings today has a separate Aligned dimension, and a Linear dimension, so you decide up front which type you want.

However, It turns out that the team is working on an enhancement to dimension to get similar behavior.  The version I saw works similarly to sketch, but with a slightly different workflow - it only depends on the area the cursor is in, and doesn't use the "extra" click to specify aligned.  It looks pretty nice.

Jeff