Ordinate dimensions in drawing will not reference center line.

[mikeireland]

I stopped trying to use ordinate dimensions in drawing in previous releases of Fusion 360 as I could not reference to centerlines.   In light of recent releases focused on improvements in drawings, I have tried again.  I still get a disassociation error when I try to dimension from a point or edge to a centerline or from the centerline to an edge or point.  Normal dimensions seem to work ok.  I think this is a bug.

[jhackney1972]

I tried to replicate your issue but cannot.  Ordinate dimensions work just find for me on automatic centerlines and sketched centerlines.  Take a look at my Screencast and note anything I am doing differently.  It is hard to share a 2D drawing but you can do it from the your web database by sharing both the drawing and the model used in it.  Maybe you can create a Screencast of your own to show the issue.

[mikeireland]

John-

First I want to thank you for your response and the time you spent putting together a screencast. I have not mastered screencast yet, but I think it is time to start working on that.  

I ran through the screencast several times and in comparing with my own actions, I realized the error is occurring because I was trying to select, not the center line,  but the intersection point of a center line and object line.  I am able to place a the dimension at that location but the it gives me a disassociation error.

What I am trying to do is set the origin for the ordinate dimensions at the center of an edge of the part.  Using the part in your screencast as an example, I am trying to set it at the center of the left edge and dimension to the part features from there.  While this may be unusual I believe it allowed by the ANSI standard, but I cannot figure out how to do it in Fusion.  In fact it may not be allowed with the ordinate dimensioning tool.  I had created a center line for the part between two outside parallel edges and tried to use the intersection of the center line and an edge to set the origin.  That is when I seeing my problems.

I can use the other dimensioning tools to get desired results but wanted to try the ordinate dimension feature.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[jhackney1972 · Accepted solution]

Both of my possible options for you begin in the model.  I created two free sketches, in the model, to demonstrate but you can elect to do only the one you like.  Which ever sketch method you chose can be made visible in the drawing and used to place the ordinate dimension in the middle of the component drawing.  In my Screencast, I use both methods to prove it works for you.  I will probably guess you will want to use the Point sketch method.  By the way, you can use other sketch features in your drawings for special dimensions.  Take a look at one of my blog articles on the subject.  I am using the same techniques that I used in your situation.

[mikeireland · Accepted solution]

John-

Again, thanks for your time.  Both of the scenarios you described with adding a sketch to the drawing solve my issue.  I also took a look at your blog on this subject as you suggested.  I will add the use of additional sketch plans to create reference points in the drawing to my bag of tricks.  I am going to mark this post as solved!

Thanks again! 

Mike Ireland