Dim history blues

With dims now having history on by default in V6, I’ve been running into what I would consider some rather large problems. The biggest, and the one that makes me wish we could turn off dim history entirely is that dimension end points fly off regularly. I dimension in layout space, and very often, one end of the dim seems to move from the layout space position of the thing dimmed to its model space coordinates in layout space:

DimAngle text and arrow position often changes position just by making a detail active them backing out again. I can’t yet come up with such a repeatable example for the Dim fly off, but it happens with such regularity, that my current workflow is to dim out a detail, select the detail and all its dims, move it a bit in layout space to break all the history, then move it back.

I also don’t find the history particularly useful as implemented. Lets say I have a drawing like the one above. When I pan the layout, I get:

Of if I move a feature like this:

Some of the updated dimensions are correct, but some (ordinates dims) don’t survive. Cosmetically, their positioning is also not useful. Some things moved (Dim end points), some did not (leaders), some things collapsed (DimAngle), and some (ordinates) are now incorrect. So instead of being a convenience, it has in fact added to my workload because I have to more closely inspect everything to make sure it is still correct.

It would seem to be to be useful, it has to not only be reliable (not show incorrect dimensions, collapse, fly off), but moving anything in a detail has to result in a readable result. So not only do the dimension end points have to know where they are and what they are snapped to (which is true now), but the dimension line location and text location have be aware or where the dimension end points are moving to, and move the same amount to be readable.

Thanks,
Sam

I thought the plan was to be able to turn dim history off entirely … am I wrong about this? It really should be the user’s option.

Hi Sam - I can repeat this bit - making a detail active, zooming making the layout active once or twice seems to do it.
Still poking, thanks.

Now I can’t repeat it…

Somewhat… https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-40983

BTW, @SamPage, all - different question but, just mucking with this - somehow it seems slightly weird to me that when I make a detail active, I can still see layout space dimensions. Is that OK, or desirable?

-Pascal

It seems more repeatable with dimAngle, but Dim suffers the problems.

For me it isn’t an issue. To be honest, I never considered it would do anything else than how it works now. I’m not totally sure I see how it would be useful, but if others think it is the bees knees, I could probably overcome my initial panic of seeing dims disapear :slight_smile:

OK, thanks, Definitely not worth it then , I’ll shut up - I don’t actually use this dimensioning stuff in real life to a very great extent anyway, but it seemed odd to me that when I zoomed in the active detail, the dims were floating in front at a completely different scale. until I went back to layout.

-Pascal

Pascal, do you have a YT for the leaders not following along?

Hi Wim - leaders not knowing about History, do you mean? I do not, but I see that they do not know about history, either automatically or not…

-Pascal

Yes.
As @SamPage shows in the pictures, it’s important to have all annotations - and not just some - know about history when the workflow in RH6 is as it is.

RH-40983 is fixed in the latest WIP

Now when you pan modelspace in a detail, entire dimensions will move by that amount

RH-41167 is fixed in the latest WIP

I’m not sure what was fixed in RH-41167. [and I only now notice that I was asked a question in that YT… sorry].

At any rate, I’ve opened a new issue for annotations with leaders (diameter, radius, area, …) not being historic.
It’s a bit mixed: Diameter and Radius are completely ‘clueless’ about changes, but Area at least updates its value.

https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-43937

Hi Wim - I don’t see that here in the latest in-house (6.2) - it seems to work as expected… except when using ModifyRadius… That is, I can scale or move circles and it all works right.

-Pascal

(6.2.18031.16351, 2018-01-31)

I see that I shouldn’t have used the word “completely”.
The YT is specifically about ModifyRadius, yes.

Except for DimArea (and possibly related cmds - yup, just checked DimCrvLength) - this one doesn’t follow the curve on Move.
cheers,
w

Hi Wim - yep…

https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-43949

thanks,

-Pascal

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@lowell, could you open RH-44101 for public viewing?

It should be visible now

Hi Wim - try now… it’s the ‘touch’.

-Pascal

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