Drag-and-Copy for Constrained Sketch Geometry (Ctrl+C to Commit)

[karanparmar6052FHTGY]

Feature Idea: Drag-and-Copy for Constrained Sketch Geometry (Ctrl+C to Commit)

A quality-of-life shortcut proposal for Autodesk Inventor sketch mode

Summary

Add a direct-manipulation shortcut for duplicating constrained sketch chains: click-drag an existing constrained edge (or chain of edges) outward/inward, then press Ctrl+C to commit the dragged position as a new, independent copy of the geometry — no dialog, no separate dimension step. This is primarily a quality-of-life improvement: it doesn't enable anything impossible today, it just reduces clicks and cursor travel for a common, repetitive action.

Problem

Inventor's sketch environment lets users grip-drag geometry that still has a free degree of freedom (DOF) — dragging previews a new position and, if unconstrained, moves the entity. But once geometry is fully constrained and dimensioned (zero DOF), there's nothing left to drag — the entity is locked in place. There's currently no gesture for "take this locked shape and pull a copy of it out."

The Offset tool exists for creating a parallel copy of a chain, but it requires several separate steps:

1. Activating the Offset command
2. Selecting the edge or chain
3. Clicking to place the offset distance
4. Often adding a dimension afterward to lock the exact value
5. Accepting (by default) an offset constraint tying the new geometry back to the original, whether or not that relationship is wanted

For a simple, common task — "give me a second copy of this shape, positioned where I drag it" — that's four to five discrete interactions and a fair amount of cursor travel between toolbar, geometry, and dialog. Compare this to dimensioning, where Inventor already offers a single-key shortcut (D) that lets users hover geometry and commit a dimension in one fluid motion, without leaving the cursor's current area. There's no equivalent low-travel shortcut for duplicating geometry.

Proposed Workflow

1. Hover/select a constrained edge or closed chain in the sketch.
2. Click and drag. Since the geometry is fully constrained, the original stays put; a live preview of a duplicate follows the cursor.
3. Press Ctrl+C at the desired position to commit. The dragged copy becomes new, independent sketch geometry at that location.
4. (Optional) Immediately press D afterward to dimension the new copy's offset distance precisely, chaining the two shortcuts together.

This turns "duplicate and roughly place a shape" into a two-key gesture (drag + Ctrl+C), with precision dimensioning as an optional follow-up rather than a mandatory step — and without forcing the user's hand off the geometry and over to a toolbar.

Why This Fits Inventor's Existing Interaction Model

• Inventor already supports grip-drag as a live-preview interaction for geometry with remaining DOF. This proposal extends that same drag gesture to fully constrained/dimensioned geometry — but instead of moving the (locked) original, the drag would generate and move a new independent copy, since the original has nowhere to go.
• The D-for-dimension shortcut already establishes that single-key commands during a live hover/drag state are part of Inventor's vocabulary. Ctrl+C-to-commit would follow the same pattern.
• It complements rather than replaces Offset — Offset would remain the tool for constraint-linked parallel copies; this shortcut targets the more common "just give me a duplicate here" case, with minimal cursor movement.

Open Questions for Design

• Constraint inheritance: Does the new copy get freshly auto-inferred constraints (symmetric, parallel, tangent, etc.), or just a single dimension/position with no other constraints? This affects how robust the copy is to later edits.
• Chain vs. single edge: For a multi-segment shape (like a 4-line diamond), does dragging one edge duplicate the whole closed loop, or just that edge? Likely needs the same "select chain" logic Offset already uses when you click one edge of a closed profile.
• Conflict avoidance: Inventor already uses click-drag on sketch geometry for on-the-fly relationship changes (e.g., dragging an endpoint to add tangency). Ctrl+C as the commit trigger should sidestep this, but it's worth confirming there's no collision with existing drag-modifier behavior.
• Multi-body / cross-sketch paste: Should this be limited to duplicating within the same sketch, or should Ctrl+C after a drag also support pasting into a different sketch/part (leveraging the same clipboard Inventor already uses for copy/paste of sketch geometry)?

Benefit

This is a quality-of-life improvement rather than a new capability — Offset already covers the underlying need. The value is in reducing a common, repetitive task (creating a positioned duplicate of existing constrained geometry) from a multi-step, multi-click command sequence to a two-action gesture that keeps the cursor near the geometry, consistent with Inventor's existing shortcut-driven sketching philosophy.