Decimal Places in the dialog Boxes...

[beyoungjr]

Hi,

I searched the forums before posting and I know that "decimal places" has been exhaustively beaten but I can't find an answer...

How can I see more than 3 decimal places in dialog boxes?  I have found the settings for annotation units precision so that's not it.  I also found the setting for sketch precision but that's not it either.

When I go to the Style editor for various attribute gaps or other style settings I would like to see the 4th decimal place in .0625 but it always rounds to .063.

Just something I want to figure out.

Thanks,

Blaine

[beyoungjr]

and for msklein...

This is a design environment and not manufacturing.  I run the instrument shop at my employers location and I know the limitation of machinery.

That's not the discussion.

[mcgyvr]

Its not going to change..

Its how it is..

You just need to learn to accept it and move on..

There are ABSOLUTELY times when high precision/lots of digits are required..

In the style library is simply NOT one of them..

So they chose to hard code the limit there..

Not sure why you are making such a big deal of it..

This has nothing to do with being able to scale files correctly or anything like that..

In those cases Inventor can absolutely go more than 3 decimal places..

On an 11x17 inch plot (or whatever E++ sizes ) can you tell the difference in a center mark if the Gap is .125 or .1245232454686844657991454346546?

Heck no you can't.. So whats the point of actually entering more than 3 decimal places? There isn't.. 

[Curtis_Waguespack]

---

@beyoungjr wrote:

and for msklein...

This is a design environment and not manufacturing.  I run the instrument shop at my employers location and I know the limitation of machinery.

That's not the discussion.

---

Hi blyoung,

msklein was replying to JDMather's comment on 5 decimal places concerning his students.

Concerning the drawing styles settings such as centermarks, I've explained it this way in the past when AutoCAD users have asked me about this:

Inventor is not going to hold past 3 decimal places for these particular drawing style settings, so it automatically rounds to the precision that it will hold. There simply is no value for us in entering 0.0625 vs 0.063 in these cases, but it doesn't disallow it either.

So if the need to see exactly what we have entered is a requirement, then we would just enter 0.063

In the modeling environment, where Inventor holds a much greater precision, there are several options to be able to display inputs and their precisions.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com
 

[beyoungjr]

Hello JDMather,

Thanks for replying on this forum topic earlier.  I appreciate that you looked at the issue and didn't discourage the discussion.

After a few days the Autodesk team contacted me and we went back and forth on it several times.  They recognized the issue as I presented it and they acknowledged that it is not an option at this time for Inventor Drawings (dwg or idw).

They did however encourage me to post the issue as an idea, and on one phone conversation the technician thought that "get over it" replies on this discussion were unwarranted.  He felt that this idea might actually get traction.

If you or any others are so inclined please vote for my idea titled "Allow Units Override settings in the Drawing Module" on the Inventor Ideas forum.

I didn't know the idea forum existed but I'll start watching that for interesting topics.

Cheers,

Blaine

[mcgyvr]

@beyoungjr

Please include a link to your ideastation post here..

They can quickly get buried/lost but posting a link here might allow others to find this post and find/kudo that idea easier..

I fully understand the need for precision in actual modeling dimensions and more importantly formulas but there is really NO difference nor no real need to go to that much precision in the style library.

I have a circuit board design program where all dimensions are limited to 3 decimal places too (if you enter more it rounds just like Inventor does in the style library).. And while it felt a little "limited" to me I quickly realized that there is simply no need to get more precision as the tooling/equipment used in a normal PCB production process can never do more than 3 decimal places anyways.. So I now accept .063 where .0625 would be what I "wanted" to see there. 

And the "get over it" was a comment based on my experience with Autodesk so far... I know (with great certainty) that they aren't going to change it anytime soon if at all.. Of course someone from Autodesk isn't going to tell you that.. But as an actual user I certainly will.. I don't want to give false hopes to anyone.. 

Good luck with the quest.. 

[Anonymous]

Blaine,

It's easy : stop the inches stuff

If your units can be expressed as 1/32 or even 1/64 then you should not be surprised to end up with 6 decimal places to get a correct number.

The start of the robust metric system dates to the 18th century, I read on Wiki that the US has officially sanctioned it for use in 1866. Look at the map, get a life !

PS

It's because of you that I always get 6,25mm being proposed as standard height for letters. Quarter inch...

[beyoungjr]

Great idea to post the link to the IdeaStation.

Supporters of Units Overrides for Inventor Drawings can vote HERE!

I understand how difficult it is to get implementation.  I persisted for 6+ years to get AutoCAD Centermarks with associations in the PaperSpace sheets.  I wished and posted and called many times.  I guess someone else was working it pretty hard too because it finally came in the 2017 release.  It still has a bit of tweaking needed but I was super happy to see it's arrival.

Thanks for posting!

Blaine

[beyoungjr]

alex.haerens I hear you and I agree!  But alas I must work with what is given at times.

I emphasize to my students that they need to embrace metric study and we spend almost equal time on metric projects for technical CAD class.  I will admit though, I spend no time at all on metric for architectural classes.

You should see how the CAD101 students look at me every semester when I start showing them 1st angle projection 

Thanks for dropping in and vote for the idea if you are so inclined.

Cheers,

Blaine

[Anonymous]

Don't know if it's relevant to you but setting LUPREC fixed that problem for me in the Palette

SLS

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi @Anonymous,

Just for clarification, LUPREC is an AutoCAD system variable, this discussion and discussion board, however concerns Autodesk Inventor.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Thx I got to it by Googling Autocad and never noticed...
SLS

[msklein]

alex.haerens     

I'd love for us the US to finely switch to metric, but the problem is upper management. In have actually had upper management make the comment if anyone brings up the use of metric again they will be fired immediately and walked out the door.

I still blame President Carter's lack of any guts to move us along to metric system back in the 70's after he started us that direction. Why are we still fighting the rest of the world? Automotive industry started moving all new designs to metric in the seventies, medical science has been metric for how long? Around half of my components are metric, just adds all sorts of problems in solid models, because of constraints don't like it when people use inches on mating mounting holes at three places.  

[beyoungjr]

Feel free to check me on this but my studies revealed that President Nixon actually issued the first decree to put us on a path to ISO.  I think each President through Clinton reaffirmed that intent but no such luck.

Don't be fooled that the US is alone in this.  There are still several other hold-outs around the world and they are not just obscure little places.  I had some students from Burma (now Myanmar) that told me that they still use the Imperial system of measure back home.  Lots of industry there and in South Korea where both systems are almost equally used.

Careful what you wish for;)

[msklein]

Actually not Nixon at all, looks like Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, but Carter started to push with the Highway sign conversion around 1977-1978. But Moonbeam decided to run against him for presidential primary which shut down the conversion, moonbeam was against. Only US and Liberia have not been converted over.  Myanmar converted in 2013. I double checked it. Korea like some other countries haven't finished their conversion, I believe when US finely commits they will finish moving over faster. 

[beyoungjr]

You are citing the Metric Conversion Act but there is much more to the history of the metric system of units in the US.  I quickly cited Nixon's role (in 1971 before Moonbeam's term), however minimal, just to substantiate a point that it has been called for OFFICIALLY many times.  Reagan disbanded the board in 1984 to save money but efforts were still progressing in the DoC.

You are clearly very interested so here are more links for you to look at...

http://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/30/archives/proposal-for-a-metric-system-in-us-fails-to-stir-capitol-...

https://www.quora.com/When-did-American-leaders-first-reject-the-metric-system-and-why

http://www.us-metric.org/a-chronology-of-the-metric-system/

I used to work at a machine shop at NIST Gaithersburg, where I became acutely interested, but not so much so as to beat up the imperial system.  I tell most everyone that I think SI is better but I encourage the complete familiarity of both because if we ever fully change there will still be plenty of legacy work to be done in keeping old tech going.

[Anonymous]

I'll give you all a totally different reason to have the control that beyoungjr is asking for... and it's a good reason.

I have a drawing (idw) which is an overall plan view of a large facility we modeled (400 FT X 655 FT), and this first drawing in the set is the birds eye view, which will be broken down into 4 partial plan views at a larger scale. But this first drawing view is set at a scale of 1/130 (or 0.007692) just to fit it on the sheet, which is 42" X 76".

I also have a Sketch Symbol I created in this drawing, which is just some additional linework brought in from an autocad drawing of the same facility, and this linework represents things such as roads, other geographic features, placeholders for future equipment (all things that are not actually modeled in 3D, so they won't show up on a drawing - but are important information nonetheless. So by importing this "secondary" information by way of making a sketch symbol with it, I can blend the two sets of information onto the idw. All I have to do is then set the scale of the Sketch Symbol to the decimal equivalent of 1/130 drawing view scale (which again, would be 0.007692). When I edit the sketch symbol, enter the scale .007692, it rounds it to .008. You may say, ok so what't the big deal? Well the big deal is now the geometry from my model does not match up exactly with the geometry i imported into the sketch symbol to use as an overlay! Now if I decide to apply an ordinate dimension, I better be careful which line I pick. Of course I understand that when the dimension is rounded, it amounts to no consequence, but technically speaking, my sketch symbol cannot be scaled to match exactly the scale of my idw view, and that's annoying as hell, because most of us are trained properly to be precise - as a designer of 30 years, it's just in our nature - and not having control over this is just annoying.