About Dimensioning Tools

There are a few things that you need to know about the tools at your disposal when creating or editing dimensions.

This topic provides more information on it.

The following are discussed:

This page discusses:

See Also
About Dimensions

Dimensioning Tools in the Tools Palette



The Tools palette appears whenever you select a command for which specific options or value boxes are available. This enables you to know immediately when specific tools are available for a command. The options or boxes available in the Tools Palette depend on the command you selected, and on the context.

When selecting Dimensions, the Tools Palette provides a number of options which are described in the table below.

IconCommandDescription

Projected Dimension (according to the cursor position)





Force Dimension on Element



Force Horizontal Dimension in View



Force Vertical Dimension in View



Force Dimension along a direction



True Length Dimensions (for isometric views only)



Intersection Point Detection

Dimension Properties

The Dimension Properties in the Object Properties panel lets you apply the given properties to all the dimensions you are going to create.

The following properties are available:

  • Line type (regular, two parts, one part leader, or two parts leader)
    Note: When you select the Two Parts or Two Parts Leader options for the Line type, the dimension line representation is set to two parts or two parts leader, and its second part is oriented horizontally according to the screen.
  • Tolerance type
  • Tolerance value
Important:
  • For the ISOCOMB combined tolerance, use the following type of syntax in the tolerance value box: H6 (+0.5 / -0.3)
  • When creating a new drawing, the Tolerance Type box (here: ISOCOMB) drives the unit of the dimensions to be created. By default, the value used in this box for each type of dimension is usually defined by the Dimension Styles (Me > Preferences > Standards > [standard name] > Styles > [dimension style] > ValueDisplayFormat > MainValue > Name). However, if no value is defined by the styles, the one which will be used by default is that defined as your default unit choice in Me > Preferences > General > Parameters and Measure > Units section.
  • When editing an existing drawing, if you change your default unit choice in Me > Preferences > General > Parameters and Measure > Units section, then the numerical display format which best corresponds to the selected unit is automatically selected in the Numerical Properties instead of the current default value.

Numerical Properties

The Numerical Properties in the Object Properties panel lets you apply numerical properties to all the dimensions you are going to create.

The following properties are available:

  • Numerical Display Format
    Important: When creating a new drawing, the Numerical Display Format box (here: NUM.DIMM) drives the unit of the dimensions to be created. By default, the value used in this box for each type of dimension is defined by the dimension styles (Me > Preferences > Standards > [standard name] > Styles > [dimension style] > ValueDisplayFormat > MainValue > Name). However, if no value is defined by the styles, the default value is the one defined in Me > Preferences > General > Parameters and Measure > Units section.
  • Precision

    Precision values are interpreted in either of the following formats:

    • Decimal format: Values lower than or equal to one are interpreted using the decimal format.

      By default , the following decimal values are proposed:

      1.0 - 0.1 - 0.01 - 0.001 - 0.0001

    • Fractional format: Values greater than one are interpreted using the fractional format.

      For example, 10 is interpreted as 1/10.

      By default, the following fractional values are proposed:

      10 - 100 - 1000 - 10000

Note: You can independently change the Precision value and Format by right-clicking the dimension and selecting Properties > Value tab.

Style

You can use styles (i.e. a set of default values for each kind of element) when creating dimensions. Styles are defined in the standard used by the layout and managed by the administrator.

When creating a dimension, the Style in the Object Properties panel displays the styles available for this type of dimension. If only one style is available, it will be used by default.

If several styles are available for this type of dimension, you can choose the style that you want to use to create this dimension by selecting it from the Style.