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How do I snap to text curves?

karl_mochelkarl_mochel Member Posts: 42 ✭✭
edited December 2024 in Community Support

I have some numbers that I want to turn into stamps. To provide spacing I want to run construction lines off the widest parts of the numbers in the Sketch. OnShape doesn't let me select the curves for snapping. It lets me Select them but not operate on them. It only lets me select the construction lines of the framework it creates for the text. I would like to be able to ungroup the text from the framework so that I can work with the curves directly. Is there an easy way to do this?

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Answers

  • S1monS1mon Member Posts: 3,100 PRO

    Depending on what you're trying to do with the text spacing, you might be happy with the kerning-like options of this custom feature:

    https://cad.onshape.com/documents/4e187c2b2f7f4974f4e2b612/v/4446c75baffebee73f367acc/e/bbfe4eb9f6b097e2ab503d67

    If that won't solve your problems, you might want to convert text into surfaces or solids, and then you should be able to manipulate those the way that you need.

  • karl_mochelkarl_mochel Member Posts: 42 ✭✭
    edited January 3

    I ended up writing a Web Page to generate an SVG that creates the letters and rectangles. However, I have to go to Fusion with the resulting SVG. I like Onshape's experience better, but I am finding I have to use Fusion for basic capabilities.

    Onshape should support SVG as curves on Import. I really dislike having to convert things to solids to do something that should be doable and is better managed as a Sketch. The added steps and geometry slow down Onshape and the process.

  • _anton_anton Member, Onshape Employees Posts: 418
    edited January 3

    Is the custom feature insufficient for your needs? FWIW, it doesn't make you create solids.

    Doing everything in a single sketch is tricky. Because sketches have a constraint solver, you may actually see worse performance.

  • S1monS1mon Member Posts: 3,100 PRO

    I agree that we should be able to import SVG - it's 2025, not 1995. However, you can convert SVG to DXF, like it's 1995, and that will import into a sketch.

  • karl_mochelkarl_mochel Member Posts: 42 ✭✭

    No. I need to derive kerning off the letters individually to set the distance from the letter to the left and right edges of the press base.

  • karl_mochelkarl_mochel Member Posts: 42 ✭✭

    Do you know of a conversion tool that converts SVG curves to DXF curves that Onshape will import as Onshape curves. All the translations I have found turn curves into line segments and that is suboptimal.

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