Ironcad Compose measurement

[WPONG]

Greets -- 

I'm the mechanical on a multi-disc. team designing a tightly-packed product. The others need to interrogate my models for PCB component placement.  

I'm considering Ironcad Compose for this purpose (seems an obvious choice) and wanted to make sure it will go smoothly for the team.  I've opened my own models in Ironcad Compose for the first time and it looks nice and familiar to me.

However, it seems that measurement behaves subtly differently.  The scenario pictured is this:

1.  I would like to measure the distance from the a planar surface (treating it as an infinite plane) to the center of a parallel cylinder.  In IronCAD this is as simple as choosing "smart dimension," clicking the planar surface, then clicking the cylinder.  IronCAD treats the plain as infinite, assumes I want the center of the cylinder, and creates the measurement. 

In contrast, it seems IC Compose measurements as "surfacePoint-to-surfacePoint"  by default.  I've looked for settings to change this to behave like IronCAD, but haven't found them yet.  Thoughts here?  

On a hunch, I did a shift-click on the cylinder and IC Compose grabs the axis of the cylinder (hooray for predictability -- good job guys), but IC Compose still assumes I want the surfacePoint on the planar surface, instead of treating the plane as infinite.  Shift-clicking the planar surface doesn't seem to help.  Picture attached.  IC Compose returns 4.333, the distance from cylinder axis to the actual dig'd point on the planar-edge of the PCB, instead of returning the minimum distance from the cylinder axis to the infinite-plane containing the edge of the PCB.

2.  Related (though I acknowledge, strictly off topic, since this question pertains to IronCAD itself):  Sometimes I *do* wish to grab surfacePoint-to-surfacePoint measurements, but I haven't been able to make IronCAD-proper do this. I've twiddled the "properties" pane during measurement without success.  is there a way to accomplish this in IronCAD.  Thoughts here?

Thanks
--Will 

 

 

[HDEAR]

Thanks Will. Interesting question

*Following*

Harley

[IronKevin]

See video:

 

[IronKevin]

Answer to the second question:

 

[HDEAR]

Hi Will,

I went hunting - I found Malcolm had made several videos relating to measurement. If you type in 'measurement' in search, you'll find them.

Here's an example:  

 

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by HDEAR

[WPONG]

Thanks all.

1. Running a bit ragged these days so I will look into compose in the days ahead.

2.  Regarding measurement in IC -- Kevin, I'm still struggling to pick a point on the surface of a cylinder.  I've twiddled the "Minimum Distance" and "Linear Smart Dimension" buttons but maybe I'm missing something else.  Each time I pick a cylinder, it grabs the centerline, or a point on the centerline.  Below are a couple variations.

This sort of thing is pretty important as I'm packing some pretty dense assemblies together.  Hopefully there is another tip...

3.  Harley -- thanks a bunch. I'll have a look at Malcom's vid's in between the flurry... 

 

 

[IronKevin]

You are right, it does always snap to the center, I missed that earlier.

Bug filed, QA # 73659

[IronKevin]

Work-around:

[WPONG]

Ok.  Thanks Kevin.  Will think through the options.  This is obviously troublesome when measuring distances between many interleaved mechanical and electronic components.

--Will 

[Guest Very nice expaination]

On 4/23/2022 at 10:57 AM, IronKevin said:

See video: