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is there a way to highlight what isn't contained in a sketch?
david_lang457
Member Posts: 90 ✭✭✭
I have a couple rather complex sketches that are saying that they are not fully constrained, but I do not see any blue lines or points
arm and no idler arm in
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/764e57e1318b9953e5986480/w/d0fb021f278db7c3ec637c49/e/54dd0c60efcb38c2a5a9f9f6
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Answers
doesn't look like anything is unconstrained. when I opened your doc.
I finally found a point that wasn't constrained, it would be good to add some way to make such things more obvious. (a way to pulse a circle around a problem, or just blink the unconstrained components.
sorry, I found it just shortly after posting (an unconstrained endpoint from an offset action), but it was hard to track down in a large sketch like this (and this was FAR from my largest or most complicated)
I just forgot to hit send on my followup post :-(
And this is why we recommend keeping sketches simple (among other reasons) 😀
it's just so convenient to be able to dimension everything together. I can sometimes do it by layering a bunch of sketches, deriving from other sketches, but I've also just had that break in 'interesting' ways when the first sketch had a component change it's size 'too much' for the ones that derived from it to figure it out. I was able to work through it by changing the size in small steps rather than all at once…
😁
@NeilCooke
Even in a very simple sketch, the invisibility of blue endpoints wastes a huge amount of time and energy. On a 4K monitor I really have to just guess and try to drag stuff.
There should be a 'check geometry' tool to find unconstrained sketch entities AND also open gaps between curves. Would save very much time and nerves with imported geometry.
We just need there to be color coding on the endpoints with larger dots, so it's possible to actually see. Other CAD tools color code the points based on whether they are connected or open. We have color coding for constrained/unconstrained, but with the colors and size of the dots, it's impossible to see.
To expand on Martin's idea - In the sketch UI box, there should be a checkbox, right under "show constraints" box, that is named "highlight undefined", this tool would toggle the blue color to a more visible color, and / or show highlight spots on said geometry. As for larger dots, this would be fine inside a command like I just mentioned, but might be confusing, if it were in the standard sketch mode. If this isn't an IR yet, would someone file one please. I'd vote that up.
I think the black/blue scheme is partly to blame. I see blue very well but have red green deficiency. Other may see red very good and have trouble with blue. There just needs to be more contrast and maybe a size difference like bigger for unconstrained and barely bigger than line width for constrained.or vice versa. I definitely wouldn't be opposed to making it a bit more obvious where a problem might lie.
In my previous CAD, it took them years until they came up with a tiny pink dot that indicated almost closed curves, and when it finally arrived, it looked like no big deal, but it took a lot of trial and error out of everyday work.
Would it be possible, to highlight only the conflicting constraints in an overdefined sketch, instead of all the sketch? That would make troubleshooting a bit easier, too.
It's a lot hard than it seems to figure out which constraints are conflicting, but yes, if they could that would be a great win.
Also, sometimes you want the equivalent of a 'fix' constraint if you have several things in a sketch, you can't anchor them to the origin directly, and adding dimension lines from an object to the origin frequently adds distraction (lines that go between things that aren't connected)
yes you could do them in separate parts studios, but if they are using the same variables/config options that is adjusting your work to the limits of the tooling
I just Googled this same issue and realized you can turn on beta dark mode from the top right profile menu, which makes the black elements white while keeping the blue ones blue. Screenshot below, dark mode on the left, default light mode on the right.
Now that i know what i am looking for, i can see the difference in the light mode too, but the difference is so much clearer in dark mode.
Very much agree left is easier to pick up than the right. but not super great on either of them.
That's useful. I generally like dark mode of light emitting screens (e-ink I like the white background), but on my 4k monitors, dark mode makes it much harder to see many things.