Sketch layers

[Anonymous]

Im very often creating very complex sketches, e.g. for multi-body parts ( sometimes I'm creating 6 parts from one sketch, after some time they are hard to read).

In Inventor I miss a layer manager in sketches (something like in AutoCAD). There is one in Drawings, but I think there should be one in sketches also. 

I will be great to have ability to move some parts of the sketch to different layers, change color of the layer, or hide some lines.

[AttilaFarkas]

Hi,

Use blocks in the sketch. It makes the complex sketches more simple. You can also set different colors for the blocks. I often use this technique.

Regards,

Attila Farkas

[DRoam]

I think this is a great idea. I often make very complex sketches for my multi-body parts, and it makes it difficult for the correct profiles to be proper closed loops. This would make managing my profiles much easier, without having to create multiple sketches with projected geometry, which is not nearly as robust as using a single sketch.

Also, the problem with using blocks is you can't control the geometry inside the block by dimensioning between geometry inside a block and the rest of your sketch. The "flexible" option is a joke, it does nothing. Plus, blocks are just cumbersome and require way too many steps to set up and use. Blocks are really intended for sharing very specific geometry between sketches or between parts, and they do well at this. But they're unnecessarily complicated for simply managing the geometry inside a sketch.

Layers would be perfect, as they'd allow us to sketch the geometry for multiple parts in a multi-body, but use a different layer for geometry belonging to each part. This would give really great control as well as flexibility.

[Anonymous]

I'm also using blocks, byt they aren't good for everything. Thy have some limitations. I use blocks for sketching geometries, that are constans ( e.g. mounting surfaces form imported parts).  Also, sometimes I want to hide some parts of sketch ( especially, when I'm creating multi-body part) 

[Anonymous]

Yes sketch layers would be good. Great idea, particularly for designs when complex master sketches are required to control the overall design intent of the part.

I too dislike blocks & agree with the comments on their limitations. Not being able to reference sketch & block geometry together is a limitation... you lose the ability to properly control the 'intent' of your design. The use of blocks inside a complex sketch can also prevent the overall sketch from being fully constrained. 

[DRoam]

Here's a related Idea (currently 40 votes): Sketch Closed Profile - Indicator

These two ideas combined would be really great and make dealing with complex sketches much, much easier.

[DRoam]

All,

@Anonymous made some really good points on his own suggestion, Grouping of drawing and sketch elements.

He suggested simply Grouping geometry as opposed to using layers. I personally think this would be more fitting to the Sketch environment. Layers carry with them the added complexity of a Layer Manager where you must create, name, and manage layers. I personally don't think that level of complexity and control is necessary or conducive in the Sketch environment.

In addition, with groups, you have the added ability of nesting, where you can nest a group within a group, which could be handy.

Given all of that, I'd propose that it would be more fitting to use Groups rather than Layers to accomplish the functionality described in this Idea (segregating clusters of geometry, controlling the color/visibility of groups, etc.).

Whatever the case, I definitely don't think both layers AND groups are necessary. This isn't AutoCAD, we're not drawing floor plans here. We're sketching part geometry (possibly Assembly geometry if it's a multi-body). Adding both would introduce so much complexity into the Sketch environment as to be counterproductive.

So my suggestion would be to only implement one, and whether it's called "Layers" or "Groups", make it as simple as possible. And possibly implement a "nesting" capability... and possibly provide a layer/group manager for additional control. But not if it makes the "grouping" process too complex and cumbersome.

[Anonymous]

Nesting maybe are an advantage of groups. but you can group and manage geometry that you are already drawn.
With layer i thought that you can predefine some layers (ex. construction lines, points, and other additional geometries, diferent colors of some dimensions and so on) and with such predefined layers you can create template file. With grouping it could be harder to get such an effect. For me it would be very helpful to have some templetes with predefined layers. I have done that with .idw files and now my work is much easier.

[Anonymous]

Hello, I think Layer and Groups are different tools so the best would be to have both.

Layers can contain the groups I'm proposing.

Groups are more like blocks, without the need to name and keep track of them.

Groups do not generate instances as blocks do, so they wouldn't change when one is duplicated and then edited.

[^_^clovis^_^]

Hello ,

To make things closer to the Inventor structure, a layer could be a derived sketch of a "master" sketch. Changing entity from a layer to another one would be like moving an entity (circle..) from a sketch to another one.

my 2cts

[Anonymous]

I would concur with the original poster @Anonymous that organizing different sketch features would be very useful. Where I work we design fairly large and complex machines, and we use skeletal modeling heavily. One of the constant frustrations is the desire to have multiple sketch elements interacting in a single sketch, but the impracticality of it because of there being so many constraints and overlapping. However, when you break a particular set of sketch objects across several sketches to deal with this, you end up utilizing a lot of projected geometries--which can be a whole other ball of wax and pain. Having a grouping function would help a lot I think.

I would also tend to agree with the additional suggestions made by @DRoam

[DRoam]

The more I work with complex master sketches in skeletal and multibody parts, the more I realize how helpful this would be. It would be great to  be able to freely dimension/constrain between the profiles for various parts (which you can only do if they're in the same sketch), but also be able to separate them from each other when it comes to profile selection (which you can currently only do if they're in different sketches). Layers would allow us to do both.

Currently, profile selection in master sketches is not only tedious when creating extrusions and such, but it's also prone to error if the way the profiles overlap changes due to parts shifting around; Inventor doesn't always guess right at the resulting new set of sub-profiles to use for each feature.

[galczysJern]

I'm also creating very complex sketches for multibody parts.

At the moment it is very hard to distinguish certain parts in the sketch.

Also working under part shape, sometimes imported geometries can cover-up field of view.  

Also, I think that the whole multibody parts creation environment needs some enhancements

[Anonymous]

I just want to reiterate what was mentioned originally in this thread by DRoam over 7 years ago: fewer but more complex sketches are theoretically easier to manage through more direct relationships/reducing dependency chains, but when lines and points are stacked due to constraints the loss or inaccessibility of information can make it extremely difficult to manage closed loops or specific sets of geometry in general. But the benefit is it's way more robust than any projected sketch or model geometry.

Even just being able to select closed loops and narrow editing scope to limit interference by other loops and allow for editing to be made with respect to it, to its own geometry and its relationships to other parts of the sketch. I could see the same thing being valuable for assigning semantic meaning even to sets of construction geometry which wouldn't necessarily be closed loops themselves.