Lock a Sketch Relative to itself but not to the coordinate system

[Anonymous]

I'm moving a complex sketch (drawn text, logos, etc) from an old part to a new part.

Step 1.

Create new sketch in new part.

Step 2. 

- Open old part

- Open sketch in question

- Highlight what I want

- Copy

Step 3. 

- Return to new part

- paste

OK, all that is fine. I have the old sketch in the new part. I'm mostly happy. 

But i want to easily be able to move all of those sketch elements with simple actions. The best way I can think of to do that is to hit the MOVE button, highlight the whole thing, grab a base point then move it around as I see fit. This works, but it's not as smooth as I'd like it to be. 

What I want is to GROUP the elements of this sketch so that they don't change relative to each other. Then use dimensioning tools on one point in this sketch-group to move the bits around. That way all of my lines are nice and blue, plus I can precisely move the group with just a few clicks/keystrokes. 

Is this a thing? Any thoughts? 

Thanks in advance,

John

[johnsonshiue]

Hi John,

I cannot say I fully understand the request. But, do you think UCS would help? You can drop a UCS in the graphic window without creating any drawing views. Reorder the UCS to before the sketch. The redefine the sketch to any of the origin planes within the UCS. Now, you can move the UCS however you like and the sketch will follow.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

What is this "UCS" you speak of?

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! UCS stands for User Coordinate System. You can find the command near work geometry commands. Or, you can go to Autodesk Knowledge Network to see how it works.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search?search=UCS&p=INVENTORPRODUCTS&sort=score

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Great. Thanks. I'll play with that. 

Appreciate the input!

John

[Anonymous]

John,
Investigate using 'sketch blocks' to do this.
Get your block correct & then copy it over to any file you want.

The Create Block button is on the Sketch Ribbon>Create>Create Block  (you may need to drop down the Create group on the ribbon)

BeeDub

[rhasell]

^^^

What BeeDub said.

Sketch blocks.

Create the Sketch block from the existing geometry, and then copy and paste the block whenever required.

[kelly.young]

Hello @Anonymous there are a few differences between AutoCAD and Inventor that I will explain a bit here.

Inventor uses Constraints that lock the position of a line to a location.

In the bottom right corner of a sketch it will tell you how many constraints are needed to make the sketch Fully Constrained ie No Degrees of Freedom.

In a typical sketch you want it to be Fully Constrained so that dimensions aren't guess work.

For an artistic logo, design, or abstract shape this might not always be possible but just be aware.

Select all lines, Sketch > Create > Create Block

You can then create the Extrude feature.

If you want to reuse this feature you can create an iFeature shown in this screencast:

You can also set a Point in the sketch and then include it in the iFeature for more precise placement.

Hope this helps!

EDIT:

@Anonymous & @rhasell totally forgot where that was hidden with the little drop down arrow! Here I am doing things the hard way like usual.

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