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:

1. The length of the body
2. When the contour is rectangular: the width and height
3. When the contour is circular: the outer diameter
4. When the contour is a pipe: the outer diameter and wall thickness.
5. When the body is sheet metal: the thickness
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. Add two dimensions to any view. Just select a view, then click this button
3. 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).
4. 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.

Change dimension count

Here’s a quick example of how to use the dimension count buttons: