Inventor SNAP to center for lines?

[Anonymous]

Is there a way to find and snap to the center of a sketch line in Inventor?  I see snaps for 2D shapes, but not lines.  

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish here..   But if you hover over the middle of your centerline you should see the "glyph" indicating the "center" or middle of that line.   Maybe you need to learn about sketch constraints.

I noticed you had another posting about comparing functions in AutoCAD  to Inventor..  So if you're trying to accomplish stuff in Inventor like you do in AutoCAD...  Well get AutoCAD out of your head/mind.. 

[Matt.WestSU7H9]

Most other CAD drawing programs have snap controls. Why doesn't Inventor? While their at it, add Ortho and Polar On/Off as well. Plus settings for all of them.

Regarding this comment "Well get AutoCAD out of your head/mind.." ... No, AutoDesk needs to get with what works in the industry.

[SBix26]

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@Matt.WestSU7H9 wrote:

Most other CAD drawing programs have snap controls. Why doesn't Inventor?

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Inventor is not a "CAD drawing program", it's a 3D modeling application.  Sketching in a 3D parametric modeler is not much like drawing in a CAD drawing application-- sketches have constraints and dimensions to control and alter the geometry; drawing programs have snaps and other features to get the drawing elements to go where you want them, and that's where they stay. 

In a CAD drawing program the drawing is the start and end of the process; in 3D the sketch is the beginning of the process of creating a 3D feature, so its purpose and how it is controlled are necessarily different.

That said, there is no doubt that Inventor has room for improvement.  Can you show an example of something that would be improved by having robust snaps in Inventor?  Perhaps there are different/better ways of doing what you want snaps for.  How much training/experience have you had with Inventor or other 3D modelers?

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Sam B

Inventor Pro 2024.1.1 | Windows 10 Home 22H2

[k.hendrickx]

Well while it's definitely very true that 3D CAD modelling is very different from 2D AutoCAD drawing, being able to control to what your sketch lines snap would be a very handy feature.

Also in the 3D environment when using Gridsnap or Constraints for example it would be alot easier if you had to option to disable unwanted snappoints.

[JDMather]

@k.hendrickx   @Matt.WestSU7H9 

Can you Attach example (just one) illustrating how proposed functionality would be beneficial?

[Ray_Feiler]

Tip, while in a sketch hold down the Ctrl key to temporarily suppress the inferred constraints.

[k.hendrickx]

When placing parts with for example gridsnap, when selecting the first geometry it might be handy that you can for example only select vertices or edges.

Also when snapping to the point where you want to move it to, if this is a small edge, Inventor can get nitpicky and jump between endpoints and midpoints if you move your mouse even the slightest bit while clicking.

Basically pretty much the same reasons why it's available in pretty much any CAD program, whether it's AutoCAD or 3DsMAX, ...  they all have similar ways of enabling or disabling certain geometric features and snaps.

It's nothing more than a nuisance, but in my honest opinion it would be more worthwhile than getting once again another way to send a model to Fusion360...

[ampster40]

"Regarding this comment "Well get AutoCAD out of your head/mind.." ... No, AutoDesk needs to get with what works in the industry."

First time I've seen that sta....

edit, not going there.

Enjoy!

[JDMather]

@k.hendrickx 

I requested file(s).

We will address one. Issue at a time.