Dimension tool - ignore background features on second click

Cedric_Eveleigh

Often when using the dimension tool, I click on one sketch feature, such as a line, I then move my mouse to place the dimension number where I want it and click again, as one does. Often for the second click, the dimension tool references another background model feature when I don't want it to and I just want to place the dimension number. With sketch constraints, one can supress inferencing by holding shift, but this doesn't work for supressing inference with the second dimension tool click. Is there another keyboard shortcut for this or is there a feature request that I'm not aware of (I did some Googling about this to no avail)?

MichaelPascoe

I'm having the same issue. I believe this is related to the imprinting update, which I like, but this is a problem.
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/16620/improvements-to-onshape-august-20th-2021/25

Before, you could dimension a line by clicking it once with the dimension tool. Now, you have to click both ends or else you might click a plane or face. Holding shift should remove snaps, but it is not removing the imprint.

Hans_Ole_Leirvik

I have started to place the secon click outside of everything to avoid this problem, then moving the dimension to the desired location.

Alex_Kempen

So, I'm pretty sure this behavior is actually related to the change which made it possible to more easily select planes with the dimension tool in the assembly replicate update (which was pretty near the imprinting update). Basically, before, there was some behavior implemented to disable clicking planes once something was clicked with the dimension tool. I assumed, and Onshape agreed, that this behavior was a bug, and it was subsequently fixed.

It's tricky since the old behavior was definitely a bit unintuitive when trying to add angle dimensions; on the other hand, it seems the case where one dimensions a line and then clicks off in space is now more likely to result in an undesired angle dimension (it isn't really a problem if the view is normal to the sketch, however). At this point, I'm not sure which behavior I prefer more, or if there's a reasonable compromise between the two use cases.

Cedric_Eveleigh

Fair enough. But would it make sense for holding shift to prevent the second dimension click from inferencing features? It seems like this would be intuitive for Onshape users because holding shift has a similar function of preventing inferencing that creates sketch constraints.

S1mon

I would vote for the click on the plane to have to be on the edge of the plane to add it to the dimension, otherwise pretend it's not there.

EvanReese

I've been having the same issue. I like the shift key idea. Another solution could be making the enter key do the same thing as clicking in empty space. right now it does nothing.

billy2

I thought this was a feature. OS now allows planar references in sketches. You can now dimension between a plane and a vertex, hurray!

I do find myself having to zooming out to dimension a line length. It's annoying but don't want to sacrifice referencing to a plane.

 Personally, it really bugged me that SW wouldn't reference planes in a sketch and always thought it was broken.

EvanReese

@billy2 I think it has always been possible, but non-obvious because you always had to pick the plane/face first, and couldn't do it on a second click. Now it might be slightly too obvious for my taste.

billy2

@Evan_Reese circa 1998, it's one thing I didn't like about solidworks when moving from pro/e. 

With pro/e we'd always tell our users to pick the largest reference possible and in this case a plane is larger than a edge or vertex. Back in those days everyone was learning parametric modeling and this rule enforced the importance of picking good references for your features. I think it's still true today that larger objects tend to stay in your model longer than the smaller entities and picking larger entities makes a more robust model.

In the beginning, the endeavor was to build robust models that could except change. Michael Payne said parametric modeling boiled down to references and getting them right. I think he was right.

I don't have a problem with 1st pick allow 3D references and all other picks filter on 2D sketch geometry. It makes no sense to allow 2 3D references in a sketch, one always has to be 2D. I'd vote this, let's filter the 2nd pick, it's a pain to zoom out all the time.

Does feature script allow changing the selection filter based on size of the selection set? 

Cedric_Eveleigh

I agree with @Evan_Reese. It would make sense for pressing enter to be equivalent to clicking in blank space to avoid inferencing background things. Alternatively, like I suggested ealier in this thread, holding shift could prevent inferencing, similarly to how this works for preventing inferencing for sketch constraints. The shift key option seems intuitive to me.

EvanReese

@billy2
FeatureScript doesn't allow you to edit the filter on a query parameter based on what was selected (as far as I know). The filter is just set once in the code and is fixed. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could figure out a way to do it, but I'm not that person

@Cedric_Eveleigh
I like the shift idea too for sure.