Automatic dimensions
Drew can add automatic outer dimensions to drawing views.
Automatic dimensions for weldment bodies
When your create body sheets, Drew attempts to add these dimensions:
- The length of the body
- When the contour is rectangular: the width and height
- When the contour is circular: the outer diameter
- When the contour is a pipe: the outer diameter and wall thickness.
- When the body is sheet metal: the thickness
- When the weldment has non-straight ends: two angle dimensions
This is what the result looks like for a straight weldment:
Automatic outer dimensions for drawing views
We have four cool buttons to add outer dimensions to any view.
From left to right:
- Add three dimensions to two views: two to the main view and one to a secondary view. This only works for new drawings since we know the view orientation then.
- Add two dimensions to any view. Just select a view, then click this button
- Subtract one from the selected dimension. If you add a count to a dimension, like 10 (3x), clicking this button turns the dimension into 10 (2x).
- Add one to the selected dimension. Turns (3x) into (4x).
All four of these features are very cool 🙂
We actually analyze the raw view lines to find outer dimensions, we don’t use any other model data.
Here’s an example of the two buttons on the right: