Text is reversed - redux

[rickL3JJC]

This is a follow-up post to @nkloski's question from January of 2015.

Text direction is still unpredictable, and often wrong. For simple models, created with Y-axis up, text will mostly appear reading correctly on the outside of a model. On surfaces where the orientation isn't obvious, not so much. 

I've been trying to find a work-around, but so far I've struck out. Here's what doesn't work:

• Flipping axis direction in preferences (Some of us need to work with Z-axis up, as it causes too many downstream problems not to.)
• Dragging text bounding box (Mostly, this just gives me upside-down *and* backwards text.)
• Exploding the text (Nope, I use text as a variable label for fully parameterized parts. It has to change for each of dozens of parts.)

I would love to hear other suggestions from the community; at the very least, I'd like to learn how to predict the text direction for a given sketch plane, even if I can't influence it.

This isn't a feature request - it's a plea to fix what seems to be an incomplete implementation or a design bug. (Hey, let me flip the normal direction on the sketch plane, à la other Autodesk products, and I'll stop whining. 🙂

We're about to launch a Kickstarter project, and I'm sorely tempted to engrave this on all our parts, and feature them in the project images: 

Thanks!

Rick Levine

XOAB

[nkloski]

Yep, a couple of people have commented on encountering that even recently. I posted a bug about it (I think) but no movement on it because (if I remember correctly, since it was a while ago), Autodesk did not think that a bug was there.

[HughesTooling]

One workaround would be to draw a cube and use a face to create a construction plane, if the text is reversed using that face make another construction plane on the opposite face. Really what's needed is a way to reverse the normal direction of a plane.

Draft can already has that option.

Mark

[rickL3JJC]

Hi Nick!

Yep, your post from January 2015 is what triggered my rant. (That and being backed into accepting backwards labels on parts because I just can't fix them. 🙂

I'm just trying to push on it a little more.

Rick

[rickL3JJC]

I'm in love. Thanks Mark! 

Not exactly an obvious solution, but it does the trick. I'll add this to Nick's original post from 2015.

(It also makes me think that there's a straightforward fix for this - someone's code is just a little too smart for it's own good. Surfacing the direction parameter, as in Draft, might not be that hard.)

Rick

[HughesTooling]

Here's another work around, go to the patch workspace and make a single flat surface and create a sketch on it with your text. Roll the timeline back to just before the sketch and use Reveres Normal then roll to the end of the timeline and the text will be reversed. You could use Offset face set to zero to extract a face from your model then use Reverse Normal on the extracted face.

Mark

Edit there's an Idea on the Ideastation for this, please vote it up.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/ideastation-request-a-feature-or/ability-to-set-construction-plane-nor...

[rickL3JJC]

Thanks, Mark. I've added a vote to @Anonymous's suggestion. (@Anonymous, to get more votes, it might be worth editing it to reflect that it's a fix for the text issue.)

Rick

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the vote; I will edit the post to add the text flip to it. Seems like standard CAD practice to have a dialog when creating text to flip it around so you don't have to worry about the sketch plane normal. 

[rickL3JJC]

Thanks, Mark!

RIck