Under Defined Drawings

[PEU]

Hi, I'm making a drawing of a finished piece, I entered all the dimensions I see are relevant, but SW still says the drawing is under defined.

Is there a simple way to know what measurement is missing?

Using the autodimension makes the drawing unreadable, thats why I avoid it.

Thanks

 

[MElam]

Drawings always say underdefined (unless you sketch some extra geometry and fully tie that sketch to the part). It has nothing to do with having all dimensions on the drawing.

I think the under defined message in the status bar is left over from sketch mode. Since you can sketch on a drawing, you are in sketch mode.

 

[Thane]

Do you have any dimensions or relations that relate your sketch to the origin? If you do not relate the position of your sketch to the origin (or another sketch that is already related to the origin), Solidworks assumes the sketch is floating in space.

 

[Areva]

Check all your sketch entities have the required constraints. I have had sketches with all relevant dimensions added and coincident to the origin remain under defined only to find a vertical line, I thought I had drawn vertical, did not have a vertical constraint (as a result of my clumsy drawing technique). When applied the sketch became fully constrained.

This can happen more often than not when heavily editing sketches. Tangent & vertical/horizontal constraints can get lost somewhere.

Eddy

 

[EngJW]

Tiny stray lines, lines on top of lines, lines not trimmed to a corner or to a tangent point will also cause an underdefined message.

 

[Rossco1]

could be you need to add sketch relations(vert , horizontal,tangent etc) not dimensions to get a fully defined sketch
see Arevas comment.
I am assuming that you are talking about sketching to create a part?
What i tend to do is (as an example)
when drawing a part , is set it up so that the origin is the center of the part (where possible)which makes it easy to mate as well
and set up for patterning.
cheers

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

What PEU is talking about is in the Drawing mode, not the Part or Sketch mode.

If you look at the bottom right hand side of the screen you will see a "Status bar" which shows the cursor position, "Under defined", "Editing sheet" & the drawing scale.
As Melam pointed out, the drawing always shows "Under defined". This is probably because the views are never fixed ... they can always be moved around on the sheet.



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[macPT]

The state is view dependent. I have drawings with views that shows a "Under defined" state, while other shows "Fully defined" and even "Over defined". I don't know why (in the case of "Over defined", I gess it as to do with extra dimensions added to the view).

I wouldn't worry much about it. Just be careful if you add extra items (like center lines, axes,...), to fix them properly (with geometric constraints or adding dimensions - in this case put them in a hidded layer). This way, if you change the part, these items will move accordingly.

Regards

 

[rporter]

I have found that in a drawing sketch that has everything defined that you still need to select one line and make it fixed. That has solved the problem for me. If you dont do that then some funny things can happen if you grap a line and move it.

 

[Areva]

CorBlimeyLimey your right.

PEU the confusion has arisen because you quoted “autodimension” which is only available in part/assembly sketching mode (sldprt/sldasm). I assume you meant “insert model dimensions” which applies only to 2D drawings (slddrw).

Eddy

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

In SW2005 Autodimension is now a feature which can be used in drawings.

http://www.solidprofessor.com/flash/Tips/autodim.html

Eng-Tips:-
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[Areva]

Wow ......thanks CoreBlimeyLimey.

I will have to try that on Monday at work.
I have 2005 there & 2004 on my home PC.

Must read the what’s new PDF again. I missed that one.

Eddy

 

[CADGemini]

Another way to fully define sketches on the drawing is to box select around all the sketch entities and select "Fix" from the relations menu.

I have not had any problems using this method.

Best Regards,
Jon

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