Hi Bobby,

You may want to start out with laying out the 2D profile and posting that file. Through basic associativity and the extrude command you can get quite a few variations of your design just by moving the 2D profile.

Tim

I have a couple more very basic questions.

If I draw a rectangle, then want to add a line inside of it, I can enter the length I want, but can't figure out how to tell it to put the line 15" from another line.

I assume it has to do with the X and Y axis but I just can't figure it out. Sorry, I know these are elementary questions.

>>but can't figure out how to tell it to put the line 15" from another line.

Try the Parallel Line tool (fourth item in line tools). Create the parallel line, then type 15 in the data entry window.

Tim

One more question.

When I use the Smart Label to show the 15.75 measure on the Return area, I hold shift as shown in the video, then click on the other end and nothing happens. I tried and tried for over an hour, doing exactly what is shown on the video, and it simply does not work, I used the exact same file I attached and even made a completely new one and it does not work. Clicking on a line works perfectly and even the horizontal dimension works, but the smart dimension just will not do anything for the measurement between the two lines.

Is there a setting I may need to make?

Tim,

THANKS for the vid! It gave me a sudden inspiration that proved quite workable for what I've been trying to achieve. I like it better than what I thought I was on to a few days ago. I'd forgotten about sweeping this way.

Now, my workload is somewhat, but appreciably, reduced.

Thanks!

Dimensioning is one of those things I've virtually never pursed because I feel confounded and ignorant and forgetful about how to make dimensioning work for me.

I do not know what is in the dimensioning engine in Shark/VCP, but on the assumption it is not one of what I'm about to list below, I would say:

-- Gut the dims engine, eviscerating completely
-- Rewrite it to know the scale of the drawing
-- Give it an AI (artificial intelligence) to auto-size the arrows and text according to drawing extents and some general population of geometry
-- Make dimensions KNOW the planes, irrespective of user orientation when making dimensions
-- Make dims cursor-sensitive so that on mouse-over, the presence of the mouse with activation of a hot key or button will visually ballon the text to spare the user of billions of mouse miles of zooming (of course, in dense areas, filtering would be needed, or physical zooming would be)


When I'm in front view, Smart Dimension lets me draw the dimesion easily, but the text is readable only in plan view. The text needs a virtual gyro/leveler so that it's readable from any view, any angle. This would be useful on-screen and on-paper.

Honest, because I *CARE* about the future of Shark and VCP, I am frustrated by dimensions. I think I am avoiding dimensioning because I really do not look forward to anxiety attacks when thinking about the fact drawings MUST be accompanied by dimensions, and I do not want to have to resort to ACAD solely for dimensioning, nor export my VCP/Shark files to other formats just because of dimensioning.

To be fair to Shark, Tim and crew, and to readers, I will again, for the second day in months if not a year or more, try to get dims to work.

(In my case, I've got a 176m vessel in screen, down to just curves and a de-cluttered view. In front view, I am trying to dimension the two curves that control deck plate thickness. The dims start out with humongously large arrows, as my own pref never seems to stick. I have to change the prefs, but because I forgot I had two prefs, I was mucking about with the defaults. Switched to plan view, and had inconsistent results. Switched or side view, and did not get what I wanted, via Smart Dimension, Vertical, or Horizontal.

So, I tend to put in the layer names my intended thicknesses of objects. This is yeat another reason I must beg/cry out for the ability of layers' names to transport with copied/pasted geometry with an option to enable or disable it, or to auto-append conflicting names, or to match the source and target layer names and deliver the geometry appropriately to a layer.

The longer I can go without dimensioning, the better for me. I really want to belive that it is *ME* that is the problem, not Shark.)