No Dimensions

[Anonymous]

hi,

I've tried finding an answer to this but I've not really found any useable information on how to do it.

When I create a new sketch in Inventor 2014 and draw a line, I get a little box to enter the length of the line I wish to draw, which is fine. However, as soon as I press enter to commit the dimension of the line, I get the annoying green arrow writing the dimension on my sketch. I don't need that, since I entered the value, I know what the value is, I don't need it to be graphically displayed and clutter my sketch with superfluous information. Is it possible to disable this feature. I mean, sure, I can delete the dimension as soon as it displayed but that slows me down. As an alternative solution I could accept a way to hide all dimensions on a sketch by default, without having to select them individually. (I have noticed that when I don't enter a particular dimension upon drawing the line, then no dimension information is being displayed but in doing so, I would later have to use the dimension tool to make sure that my general design has the desired dimensions and that's still double the work-load.)

And anothing thing, whenever I draw a line, the program assumes that I want to draw another line that is connected to the endpoint of the first and in order to prevent that from happening I have to press esc on my keyboard. The program assumes that whenever I want to draw a line, I actually want to draw a polygon. But to me a line is merely a line, part of a polygon or not. Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

Thank you for your help.

[CCarreiras]

Hi!

Inventor is a professional design tool to produce industrial parts with rigorous dimensions and shape.
You can do this by applying dimentions and geometric relations (constrains).

1 - To have a good sketch, you must use the dimentions and the constrains until your sketch become fully constrained.(you can check if a sketch is fully constrained in the lower right when you are creating/editing the sketch, telling you the info about how many constrains/dimentions you have to do to create a fully secure constrained sketch)

Even if you place the real value when drawing a line, when you delete the dimentions, if you drag the line (and sometimes we do that without notice), the sketch will change, because the geometry is not "locked", so is very dangerous to work like that and dificult achieve good sketches, therefore, we need to apply all the dimentions/constrains neded to block the sketch. Inventor is not like Autocad, you can change geometry only by dragging accidentally the unconstrained geometry.

Note: In my opinion, is a waste of time to input dimentions at the same time we are drawing, i prefer doing quick sketches, and then applying the dimentions (and constrains) until the sketch become fully constrained. Then you can hide the dimentions if it bothers you.

Nevertheless, if ou don't want to use the dimensions, (which is wrong), go to tools panel, select Application tools and and in the sketch tab unable: Create dimensions from imput values.

2- To stop the drawing line to be active, just double click at the end, and the line stops in that moment. Just hit space key to continue drawing the most recent previous tool (in this case, the line).

[Anonymous]

Hello Carlos,

many thanks for your post.

2. THANK YOU, you made me happy, now I can end my lines whenever I want without having to hover a finger over the esc button on my keyboard, that's a huge relief.

1. In Sketch Tab of the Application Options dialog window opened from the Tools tab I only have: Constraint placement priority, Overconstrained dimensions, Spline fit method (on the left) Display and Heads-Up Display (on the right), checkboxes for Snap to grid, Edit dimension when created, autoproject edges during curve creation, autoproject edges for sketch creation and edit, look at sketch plane on sketch creation, autoproject part origin on sketch create, point alignment (at the bottom) and 3D Sketch, Auto-bend with 3d line creation at the very bottom. I found no option "Create dimensions from input values". Maybe because I am using Inventor 2014.

And yes, I suppose constraints ar useful for producing industrial parts and the likes. However, I am supposed to produce technical designs for furniture manufacture. There are only so many lines you can have in a piece of furniture 🙂 (Before you ask, my school requires me to use Inventor, using it would never have occured to me 😉 )

Thank you for your help, at least one thing was solved and for the time being I will have to keep deleting dimensions upon creating them *sigh*

Thank you 🙂

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

"And yes, I suppose constraints ar useful for producing industrial parts and the likes. However, I am supposed to produce technical designs for furniture manufacture."   Constraints has nothing to do with producing industrial parts...  Constraints in any Inventor sketch of any design or product is very crucial.

"I will have to keep deleting dimensions upon creating them"  I don't understand why you are deleting or not creating dimensions for you sketches in Inventor.  Or why you need to hide the individual sketched dimensions.   Are you trying to create one sketch for your entire model?  If so keep it simple and break your sketches into smaller chunks.   Show us an example of what you're trying to do by attaching one of your parts here so we can review it for proper usage of Inventor

I've read your original posting and the reply to @CCarreiras and I have to wonder if you are not using Inventor properly.  Granted it sounds like you are learning Inventor in school but in my opinion you are not using it properly (and perhaps picking up bad habits).

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello Carlos,

 ....However, I am supposed to produce technical designs for furniture manufacture. There are only so many lines you can have in a piece of furniture....

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Multiple simple sketches.

Inventor is a great tool for the application you describe.

You have a longggggggg way to go before you will understand why - so follow your teachers instructions.

Do you have a first assignment yet?

When you finish your first part - I recommend that you attach it here.

You might go through these.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-general-discussion/skillsusa-document-now-on-screencast/m-p/5856691#M564801

In Inventor you will design your furniture (digital prototyping) and then create 2D technical drawings from the virtual 3D model.

Oops, never mind - I just read you other post, I know how this story ends.

Carry on!

[Anonymous]

Hi Mark,

thank you for your post.

Constraints might be important to Inventor, I have no in-depth knowledge of Inventor to dispute that statement. However, in Sketchup - that's what I've been using so far - there is no point to constraints whatsoever. There, is I wish to build a wall, I draw a rectangle, extrude it and then make it a component. As soon as you have done so, nothing you do to it from outside the component can alter its geometry. If you need to cut a hole in the wall to fit a door, you simply edit the component. Components you can move and copy, if you use more than one copy in your model, what you do to one copy, you do to all copies of it. If you don't want changes on one to cascade to all others, you make it unique. If you scale a component from the outside, then the changed scale applies only to that specific component. If you edit the component and change the scale, then all other components of the same type change scale. And so on. Thus constraining a line of the wall is pretty pointless, if I can simply draw the wall and make it a component. This being said, if I draw a 2d sketch of a rectangle, I have four lines I need to constrain. If I extrude it to make a block, I have another 8 lines to constrain so to me it's quite simple, one push of a button to group a block vs. 12 times 2 clicks to constrain 12 separate lines. (I have added a rendering of my last Sketchup project, a couple of days ago. It's supposed to be a funny-looking ring (jewlery) composed of a silver frame protecting a glass torus. The basic shape of the design took me about 20 minutes to make. Rounding the corners (with a plugin for sketchup) needed 2 hours and 40 minutes, as the poor plugin had to create about 17.000 new surfaces - sketchup has no concept of arc so everything that is rounded is actually a weld of many little lines, each needing three others to make a tiny little face and so on. The glass torus was a 30s job.

I didn't say I am not entering dimensions on Inventor sketches. I do. What I find pointless is that I pick a point, pull out the line, enter the dimension, double-click - THANK YOU Carlos 🙂 - to end the line, and I get the dimension I just entered automatically added by Inventor as a green marking next to my line. That clutters my design and makes me see lines where no lines have business being. Thus I am looking for a way to disable this highly annoying feature. If I forgot a dimension, I can always have a look at the sketch nestled within the extrusion (if I've extruded the sketch) and measure it.

Nope, I'm not trying to create one sketch of my entire design, that would be a little bit daft, I think. Each extrusion has it's own little sketch underneath it and so on. I have posted three ipts, so you can have a gander. The two glasses are something I've done in one hour before bed. The table wanna-be-thing is something I've been messing with before lunch today and I haven't sussed out how to use sweep properly so that I can turn that uggly square leg into a nicely curved one. (What stumps me is where to start the sketch. What I did last was to make the sketch on the corner of the table support and extrude it, but it's uggly. I know how to rotate the geometry to make it look nice, but I don't know how to do it in that particular spot as I don't have a face that aligns with the centre of the corner to constitute the axis for my turning whichever profile tickles my fancy. I'll have a further look at it later this evening.

As to whether or not I am using Inventor properly, I probably am not, simply because so many things make very little sense to me. 🙂

Hello JD,

thank you for your post.

I am following my teacher in school and I have done all the parts in the manual we got to go with Inventor. I have attached the last of the designs I did as part of the manual instruction.

And thank you heaps for the link, I have bookmarked it and I will have a look at those posts as soon as I find a breather.

Fill me in, how does the story end, I think I missed that part 🙂 (and if by your statement you meant me being stubborn then... well you are right, of course, but there's naught to be done about it, I'm sorry to say 😞 )

Have a nice... I think it's day for you guys on the other side of the big puddle 🙂

Thank you for your time 🙂

[Anonymous]

And here are the part I made for school - based on school provided instructions - and the aforementioned sketchup rendering. I made a separate post for these, because I wasn't aware I could only post three attachments per post.

Thank you all again 🙂

[JDMather]

All in all - not too bad for a beginner.

On the Green Glass you are missing a dimension and a Vertical Constraint at the origin line.  As you get experience - Inventor will add this vertical constraint for you automatically.

There is an extra short line where one continuous long line would have been better.

In Blue Glass you are missing Tangents (again - Inventor will do these for you).

And missing dimensions - in particular I would dimension the base.

In Table you are missing 70mm dimensions that must have been there at some point.  Why erase them?

The key to Inventor dimensions is that they Drive the geometry rather than being Driven by the geometry.

As you edit parts (or do you do everything right the first time) if you decide to change a length you simply double click on the dimension make your edit and the model is updated.

You also have a missing dimension - that when added reveals a length that is not measurable and therefore not manufacturable.  (the people out on the shop floor are expecting easy, logical dimensions)

You also have a short line where one continuous long line would have been better.

You just missed clicking the Origin Center Point when creating Sketch1.

Use your origin as an absolute datum.

The first thing the person out on the shop floor does is set up datums or stops or whatever on the machine so that they can reproduce a cut or accurately adjust a cut.  The designer should to the same.

This will pay off significantly when you move on to creating assemblies.

Many other dimensions missing as well.

Later on - when you start creating 2D documentation for manufacture you can retrieve these dimensions into the 2D document.

Have you ever sent anything out to the shop floor without a needed dimensions?  Inventor lets you know when geometry is not fully defined.

Edit Sketch1 and drag that corner to the origin (projected dot) note the color of the sketch before and after dragging the corner to the origin.

In general, it is better to add fillets (Sketch2) as place features rather than in the sketch.  In this particular case it might be a toss-up, but I probably would have followed this rule and added them as a feature and then pattern the Extrusion and Fillet feature just as you have done.   Good job on that (it is better to pattern features rather than sketch entities - keep sketches simple).

And again, don't delete dimensions. What if the customer requested that you make that fillet 3mm rather than 2mm.  If you had left the dimension - all you would have to do is edit it.

And finally, if you don't dimension - you could accidentally drag the geometry to a size that does not match your intent or standard cutting tool sizes.  (if anyone else had to edit your file - they are going to cuss big time)

[Anonymous]

Hello Jd

and wow thank you for your reply and the feedback.

About the glasses, they were both an experiment to see how things rotate.

The dimensions are not missing. I purposedly deleted them because they annoy me. I suppose I will have to learn how to live with them. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I just wish there was a way for them to be there without me not seeing them unless I wanted to, that would solve my conundrum in this regard. 🙂

The way I made the glasses is likely rather strange. I want a glass, I think of a glass, then, in my mind, I create two diametral sections at a 90 degrees angle. The first one gives me a diamtre of the glass (doesn't necessarily have to be round), the second one gives me the radial section which I can then either rotate or sweep (follow-me in sketchup) along the path of my choice. So I have learned to feel draw the radial section and imagine how it look while I draw it, long before it's read to be swetp or followed-me. If a line doesn't fit my idea of what has to be there, I simply adjust. In sketchup, I shatter the geometry to bits and then I weld it back into one shape (otherwise sketchup will create an uneven surface). In Inventor, I've obviously no clue what I'm doing 😛

The table isn't finished. Between me posting the table and now I have managed to turn the leg I wanted but that's on the laptop I've switched off for the evening. And yes, in the table ipt I've purposedly deleted all dimensions.

I'll be honest, I usually get things right the first time. If I make a mistake, I don't edit. I just save the file/part containing the mistake and I start over, so that for one finished product, I end up with a little bit of a personal version control. Table "no name" 1 then 2 and so on. The mistakes are valuable and usually, when I start over, my design has already evolved, ideas have occured and what I end up with is usually a far cry from what I had initially intended to get. Normally that's an improvement but I would be cheating if I were to say that it's always an improvement 🙂

The school I am going to is teaching me how to become furniture carpenter. I am more enclined towards design, but I figured that if I draw it, I would definitely like to know how it is being made, maybe not all design ideas I have - many many of them - are practical from a pure production point of view. So before I begin to design - hopefully professionally at some point, I want to be able to do all the things I might ask others, through my designs to do -. So. If I mess up in the design, I know I'll have to bear the consequences of my own stupidity, in other words be responsible for my own mistakes, which I think is good :).

Nope, I haven't yet sent anything to the shop floor yet because I am the shop floor, so to speak. The first week - the one just finished -  was the introduction into the whole deal. I'm not even supposed to have begun designing, but who cares what I do on my own time - and yours apparenty, my apologies for that - and my own computer.

The opgave 10 file is the one I have made following the instructions in the manual I got, so the good job goes to the guy who made the instructions, not to me. Still, had I known beforehand about the pattern tool, I would have definitely chosen to use it as well, as repetition seldom fosters creativity 🙂

As to your point about dimensions, I suspect it is quite right. It is of course much simpler to edit a dimension. The question is, even if I have deleted them, can I not simply add them back with the dimension tool in the sketch view, whenever I need to edit them?

But yes, if someone has to edit my file, that someone is in big trouble on multiple fronts. For one, they could likely not make heads and tails of my contorted way of doing things. And further, if I caught them editing my files, I'd erm... not be nice. NOT that I usually am nice - let's not set false expectations here. I am very MINE about the stuff I make and all the work I do is strictly stored on my machines. I made, it's MINE, it stays MINE until I decide otherwise. And if I do, I will definitely make sure that what I deliver is crystal clear 🙂

And yes, I am completely, utterly and totally bonkers, all I lack is a certification in that regard. Or in any other 🙂

I will edit the files tomorrow afternoon and see where that gets me.

Until then, many many thanks for your help and for the valuable information you have thrown my way. I may sound strange and negative, but deep down I promise you, I do listen 🙂 Mostly 😛

Have a nice afternoon over there, I'm off to la la land 🙂

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello Jd
1. ...I just wish there was a way for them to be there without me not seeing them unless I wanted to

2.  I'll be honest, I usually get things right the first time....

3. ....what I end up with is usually a far cry from what I had initially intended to get. ..


4. ....Still, had I known beforehand about the pattern tool, I would have definitely chosen to use it 

5. .. can I not simply add them back with the dimension tool in the sketch view, whenever I need to edit them?

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1. There is an easy way to do this - but I will not reveal the secret until you have more experience.

2. In my more than 25 years of experience I have known only one person who could make this statement.  

3. This contradicts with your #2 statement.

4. I was giving you props for using the Pattern Feature tool correctly.

5. Get lazy! Do not do extra work. Do not repeat work.

[Anonymous]

Good Morning JD,

thank you for your reply.

1. Are you kidding me? I mean seriously? You'd see a person drown and not offer them a rope before they learned how to swim? *sigh* Oh well, I guess I better get on with my quest for the holy grail. Oh wait... no... wrong picture here, I was looking for something else... what was it again... I forget...

2. 25 years ago I was only 13 and I am pretty sure your statement didn't apply to me back then. Another place, another time and I won't go down memory lane. Ok, I'll go. At that point in time I was struggling with school math, hating the guts out of algebra because I kinda hate numbers with a passion and loving geometry because it made me think. 2d geometry to be more accurate, things along the lines of triangles, squares and all other entities with straight lines I had to proove things about. About my granddad pointing out that yes, two segments were identical lengthwise although, on paper I could see they were not and him laughing and taking my ruler away telling me it's of no use in geometry, pointing towards the names of the angles (like ACB and BAC and so on) and to the segments between the angles saying: "it doesn't matter how they look, it matters what we think them to be". So I learned how to draw them without a ruler because he was right. Circles were tougher without a compass, but he taught me how to make a compass with my fingers so in the end, all I needed was a pencil. Good times hehe.

3. Nope there is absolutely no contradiction between the two. At 2, I referred to the process. At 3 I referred to the idea. It goes like this: Along comes an idea, usually before I fall asleep. I fall in love with it and the next day I start drawing. The drawing is, from a geometrical point of view, flawless. But along the way, as the idea progresses into the actual 3d model, it matures. Sometimes it remains barren and I end up with exactly what I thought of. But more often than not, the idea grows into something more. At this point I stop, save, make a copy and carry on with it, keeping the "fail" for future use because it still contains the initial idea while my work has turned into something else. I'm not sure if I am explaining it right... it's like I want a straight line, I draw a straight line. I want another, I draw another, but where do I want it? At one end? At the other? In the middle. If I can't decide which, I save all, I decide to follow the one with the most potential and leave the other two behind as a concept I can pick up at a later time if the one I picked ends up not tickling my fancy. (I think it was Plato who made the difference between the plane of ideas and the plane of reality. In the plane of ideas, there is a perfectly flawless... idea of a particular object, defining it. In the plane of reality we see glimpses of that idea, all imperfect, all flawed but still recognizably similar to the idea.)

4. Thank you 🙂 And I was merely stating that I had not deserved them, seeing that I followed instructions. A couple of times actually, until the darn buttoins finally did what they were supposed to rather than what they thought they wanted to.

5. I am trying to get lazy but those visible dimensions really disturb me. My brain works a little like a CAD program. If I imagine an object, before I begin drawing it, I play with it in my mind, I orbit around, I pan, I experiment with it. When I begin drawing, I feel where the lines need to be. And when Inventor "helps" me with dimensions, they create lines where there ought to be none and I have to remove them to follow my pattern or I lose the feel of it. It's the same on paper, I don't draw one line, I draw many lines, until I get the one that's just right. Then I use an eraser to erase everything and I only draw the line I wanted. Sometimes, when it's an actual drawing, I simply use a liner to keep the good lines and I erase everything else. I like neat, but making things is never neat, so I've found my own way of neatness through the mess. My madness always contains a pattern even if I fail to see it. Maybe it's also the fact that when I was a kid, white paper was at a premium, what I usually got was the lined type and that annoyed me because it already had lines where I didn't want them 😛

So yes, we've established that I am nuts. Now can you tell me please where I can delete the dimensions? 🙂

Thank you.

[mcgyvr]

You are only hurting yourself by treating Inventor like Sketchup.. or trying to apply practices/workflows,etc.. from sketchup to Inventor.

Learn Inventor properly..

You need to retrain your brain for proper CAD workflows..

Once you do I promise you will HATE sketchup with a passion... 

The functionality between the 2 programs is totally different... 

As stated in another thread of yours... DO NOT get fancy yet.. DO NOT try to customize anything... Once you have moved past learning Inventor on its terms and have moved on to where you are trying to be more efficient,etc.. then you can do that kind of stuff if you want. But DO NOT customize anything yet..

Learn Inventor how its delivered out of the box... Become a "skilled" user then you will have the knowledge to customize it properly.. 

Proper dimensions/constraints,etc.. are VERY POWERFUL.. Do not try to bypass them.. That would be a HUGE mistake.. 

[jyager]

I think if they spent as much time learning Inventor as they did typing these replies they'd be Autodesk Elite by now.

[Anonymous]

Hello McGyver,

thank you for your post.

There are several types of learning a new skill. We can watch others do it and learn like that. Or we associate the new skill with an already present skill, defining similarities and disimilarities. Since I only know Sketchup, that is the only association I can make so I make it and then decide whether or not it is correct. I will make mistakes and I will learn from them as well.

A CAD is a CAD. Each has their own way of achieving the same goal. Some ways are simpler and allow more freedom for the creative element, some ways are convoluted and adherent to procedures to the detriment of creativity.

As for hating sketchup, that's not going to happen. I am learning Inventor because I must. No one can tell me that I cannot continue doing my own designs in sketchup 🙂

And no the functionality is the same. You click a button, you draw a line, you click another, it.s a curve and so on. The process is different, the procedures are different.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean by customization. All I wanted was to find out why one particular keybind stubbornly refused to work. To me keybinds are not about being efficient, they are about being comfortable and, if I am spending half my time looking for buttons and clicking them individually, I can be neither. I have assigned the first couple of keybinds and I can do the things I am required to do. When I find out more, I will assign more. I hope you are not thinking that I am assigning keybindings haphazardly just because I think some function might be nice to have for this button. And if my keybindings are less than optimal, I can simply change them :).

And yes, you are correct, the dimensions and constraints appear to be interesting at the very least. I wish there was a button I could use to doggle dimensions display on or off so that they stop cluttering my sketches. I mean, constraints have the f8 f9 combination.

Though it may seem that I am not listening to what you are saying, I actually am. 🙂

Thank you for your advice 🙂

[mcgyvr]

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@Anonymous wrote:

As for hating sketchup, that's not going to happen. I am learning Inventor because I must. No one can tell me that I cannot continue doing my own designs in sketchup 🙂

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Don't be so sure..

If you learn Inventor properly I guarantee you will not want to touch throwup again.. 

[CCarreiras]

Now you are just playing, making some toy models, and sketchup is awsome for that!!!

But one day, when you will have to produce those real toys in, the real world, i guess you will not love sketchup so much.