Coordinate dimensioning in drawings?

[gwubs]

Anyone know of a way to coordinate dimension in a drawing? By this I mean: Select a point for x,y 0,0 and then click on points, vertices, circle centers &etc. and have SW fill in the x,y coordinate. I need to do this on a very detailed cut profile drawing. I am producing a DXF for the cutting company, but policy dictates that a complete drawing be provided as a CYA thing, in case there is a problem with the DXf like scale or something.
I use ordinate dimensions extensively, but the drawing is getting very cluttered. I recall doing this in 2D (not that I'd ever consider going back). Sounds like an enhancement request huh? Maybe someone has a macro?
Thanks
Gerald W.

 

[MadMango]

You need to read the SW Help file, coordinate dims are covered fully.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[TheTick]

Look up "ordinate dimensions" in the help.

 

[gwubs]

MadMango & TheTick, I apologise for not being more clear in defining coordinate dimensioning as opposed to ordinate dimensioning. I would like to dimension X & Y in ONE dimension - COordinate. I realize that this may not meet any particular drawing standard. I have searched this forum, and the SW Help, and was looking to the resource of the creative individuals who frequent eng-tips for help.
Cheers
Gerald W.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I believe this has been requested before, but no resolution was given.

A co-ordinate dimension as you describe does not exist in SW (AFAIK), however points of a profile can be obtained via API, and it may be possible for a macro to be created to place those co-ords at selected points ... or maybe a table similar to a Hole Table could be generated.

 

[fcsuper]

A hole chart can give you this for hole wizard holes, but I don't remember anything that can be put in the view itself, for holes or otherwise.

Matt Lorono
CAD Engineer/ECN Analyst
Silicon Valley, CA
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources
Co-moderator of Solidworks Yahoo! Group
and Mechnical.Engineering Yahoo! Group

 

[TheTick]

If you have ordinate dims, you can put the dimension values into a note and then hide the original dimensions on a layer.

 

[TheTick]

Seems to work. Dimension values in notes carry decimal place and tolerance along with them.

 

[gwubs]

Thanks All, I may write a macro to accomplish this, either pure API, or work with TheTick's method. In my 2D days we used a product called Visual Cadd, and co-ordinate dims were pretty handy.
Thanks
Gerald W.

 

[smcadman]

In AutoCAD (calm down, calm down, don't throw tomatoes at me) we had an autolisp program that was basically a reverse point cloud. You pick the different points and it would place a number by each point and then when you were done it would give you three columns: point number and X and Y columns for your coordinates.

It sounds like you need a macro similar to that. For those who remember playing connect-the-dots in parallel line development in sheet metal (such as the images shown here

http://weldingdata.com/pipetemplatesample.htm)

it was a charm.





Flores

 

[SnowCrash]

"What next?", I asked? Well, doh, upgrade to SW09 and wallah! BOM and balloons available in the assembly screen image, working from insert/annotations and insert/tables on the menus.
At first glance the relationship between balloons and the BOM is slightly muddled.
Of what value is this?
One might ask of what value is a baby . . .
Oh well. To be seen, I guess.

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2009 SP 2.1
Nvidia Quadro FX 1000
AMD Athalon 1.8 GHz 2 Gig RAM

 

[smcadman]

SnowCrash, for those of us who didn't smokem peace pipe for lunch, can you translate that into modern english for us?

Flores

 

[gwubs]

Wrong Thread?

 

[SnowCrash]

Okay, I can't find the quote, but some famous guys were discussing some newfangled thing, like radio, or an automobile, or whatever, and the one guy says something like, "Of what possible use is that thing?" and the reply is what I said, "you might as well ask of what use is a baby?" since it is all unknown potential. What I was trying to say is the ability to add ballooned BOMs to a model view of an assembly seems useless to me, but I am sure it has some kind of potential value.
To someone. ??

--
Hardie "Crashj" Johnson
SW 2009 SP 2.1
Nvidia Quadro FX 1000
AMD Athalon 1.8 GHz 2 Gig RAM

 

[trsbrown]

I think what he was trying to say was that adding ballooned BOMS has no relevance to automatically adding X and Y ordinate dimensions to a drawing.

Gwubs- This doesn't answer your question but from my experience with cutting companies, if you give them a couple dimensions on the .dxf and also a .pdf with those same dimensions, they should be able to tell if the .dxf goes out of whack when they open the file...if it does, then they know what the dimensions should be and how to scale the .dxf.

 

[gwubs]

trsbrown - we both know that what you describe is what actually happens, HOWEVER when the crap hits the rotating impellor, there is nothing like a drawing. We are required to detail the drawing so that a person could do manual layout. We provide a DXF as a courtesy (timesaver) to the cutting company, and emphasise that the drawing is the driver. Like I said in my original post, it's a CYA thing. If something goes bad and is not caught, that drawing is a lifesaver.
In line with your comment, when I worked as a machinist, we often did complex shapes with one or two check dimensions to control part size through tool offset, and let the computer and CNC machine handle the details. That was all under one roof, so if there is a screw up there is no question who's company is paying...

 

[trsbrown]

I don't know of any easy way of doing it...but I do know of a way. You'll probably hate it, haha.(as you should, but I don't know of any other way, so maybe a macro expert can take a stab)

1. Create ordinate dimensions as you normally would.
2. Create a note pointing to the feature you're dimensioning.
3. In the note: click on the x coordinate, then hit the comma key, then click on the y coordinate.
4. Hide the ordinate dimensions you created the note from, but leave the zeros to identify the origin.

If you change the part, the dimensions in the note will update but the arrow and note position might not change, so be careful about that.

There has to be a better way out there, but I don't know what it is.

 

[trsbrown]

Nevermind...going back and reading the thread...that was TheTick's way of doing it. Doh!

I'm going to bed now.