Dimension Tools and Dimensioning

Dimension Tools and Dimensioning

Dimension Lines

This HowTo document will detail the:
  1. Dimension Tool
  2. Removing Dimension Lines
  3. Auto Dimension Tool
  4. Auto Dimension Whole Page
  5. Dimension Set and Property Sheet

Dimension Tool

Dimensions are associative. This means that if you re-size a cabinet that you have dimensioned, then the dimension lines will update accordingly. Turning on ‘Snap to Handle’ will ensure that the dimensioning command tool will know which cabinet handle they are meant to be associated with. 'Snap to Handle' is located on View tab in the ‘Snapping’ group of commands.
NOTE: There are several quick and easy ways to do this e.g. Tape Measure or placing a shorter cabinet and then dragging a handle to stretch to correct size. However, often it is an advantage to see all the dimensions while working and here is where this tool is useful.

Tutorial

We are going to accurately place a small cabinet into a wider gap using the ‘Dimension’ tool, located on the Annotate tab, to calculate the gap between the two filler cabinets placed.

The dimension tool works in a 3-click process.

After selecting the ‘Dimension’ tool:
  1. First click defines where you want the dimension to appear,
  2. Second click is where you want the measurement to start from,
  3. Final click defines where you want to measure to.


TIP: You can set label and line properties as desired by right clicking on Dimension tool command and select ‘Format Dimension Tool...’ from presented menu.  This will open a ‘Property Sheet’ to allow you to change label and line properties.

For more details refer to CabMaster Pro Help Topics [F1] from within your software i.e. Property Sheets / Drawing Tools / Dimension

Removing Dimension Lines

  1. Turn on the ‘Select’ tool
  2. Move mouse over dimension lines you want to remove, until handles appear on this area
  3. Click left mouse button to select dimension line (Should now appear light grey)
  4. Simply hit the ‘Delete’ key or right click on the handle and choose ‘Clear’ on drop down menu.

Auto Dimension Tool

This tool allows you to automatically place a Dimension Set long a specified cabinet or wall.

All you do is:
  1. Select 'Auto Dimension > Tool' from the Annotate tab,
  2. Then click on the wall along which you want the dimensions. 

You can also just right click on a wall or single cabinet and select 'Auto Dimension'. Once they are placed, you can edit these DimSets manually as normal.

Auto Dimension Whole Page

‘Auto Dimension > Whole Page’ is a handy feature, which tries to place DimSets on along each wall in the drawing in the best way it can find.

Of course, if final product is not exactly how you prefer it done, you can always rearrange it to your liking. If you change the properties of the DimSet tool after auto-dimensioning the whole page, you can update the automatic DimSets simply by clicking the command again.
NOTE: This will only affect the DimSets originally created by the Auto Dimension tool, i.e. If you added some extra DimSets manually they will not be affected.


When you select the ‘Auto Dimension Whole Page’ option the dimension lines should be added as per the illustration.

If you wish to use this feature, then it is advisable to activate very early in your drawing, as it can take a long time to activate on complicated drawings.

If you get the wrong results here, your default DimSet tool settings may be incorrect. Read on below for further information.

Dimension Set

Dimension Sets offer more powerful features which allow you to dimension drawings quickly and effectively. Dimension Sets (or DimSets) are collections of dimension lines where each line can be measuring a different part of a drawing.

To manually format and change dimension lines offset for each type of measurement, right click on tool and select ‘Format Dimension Set Tool’ from drop down menu.



Trouble Shooting

Load - If you click on the tool and nothing happens then use the ‘Load…’ option to select available DimSet (.qtd) files.

Save As - You can also create DimSets (.qtd files) to suit your own requirements. Simply change the settings as discussed below and ‘Save As…’ For example, ‘DimSet with Kickboard.qtd’ was created so that Kickboards would be measured.



The following will discuss each page of the Dimension Set Tool property sheet.

Lines page

A list of all the ‘Dimension Lines’ in the current DimSet is shown.

The checkboxes  next to the line names indicate whether the lines are displayed on this DimSet or not. This means you could have one standard DimSet which has every different type of line you ever need, and only display the ones you want to use for each DimSet e.g. ‘DimSet with Kickboard’ with only dimension lines for kickboards.



Add new lines or remove old ones by using the applicable tools located just above the list of Dimension Lines. You can also Copy/Paste the List. 


‘In Front’ and ‘Behind’ determine how close a cabinet must be to a wall for it to be counted in dimensioning.


** The values are for the whole DimSet, not on an individual line basis.

If you have some cabinets which do not reach all the way back to a wall, you can increase the ‘In Front’ value to the width of the gap so that they will be taken into account when that wall is dimensioned.


Line Style page

Dim Line dropdown menu allows you to select which line of the DimSet you are working on.

Offsets - If offsets are set to the same value all the lines will be on top of each other, making it hard to view. Notice that there is an ‘Offset’ box. Each type is automatically set an appropriate ‘Offset’ value, but these can be changed manually here. 







The following controls let you specify the length, colour and style of the lines. You can turn them on and off using the button icon on the left.

Arrows drop down - Used to specify and display arrows on the end of dimension lines. The edit box on the right of ‘Arrows’ sets the length of the arrow heads in real-world dimensions.



Ticks drop down - They are the same as those for the arrowheads, so you can turn them on and off using the button icon on the left.

Stems drop down - These are the lines which extend from the ticks to the object being dimensioned and are typically drawn with a lighter dashed line style.

Lines drop down - Like the other parts of the dimension, you can hide or display dimension lines using the icon button.

Colour - You can change the line colour and look. To change colour, double-click on coloured boxes. A ‘Colour’ option box as shown will be presented for selection.

Aggregated A dimension line usually shows the width of each cabinet that is measured by the dimension, but sometimes you might wish to display only the total length of the line instead. Checking the Aggregated box means the dimension line will not be broken up into multiple measurements but will collect all the lengths into a single dimension. These two images show the difference between a normal and aggregated dimension along a row of cabinets.







Any sub-dimensions which disappear when you tick the Aggregated box are only hidden, not deleted, so unticking it will show all the individual measurements again.


Line Filters page



Include - You can check or clear these depending on which types of cabinet you want included in the dimension calculations. These can be set differently for each line in the DimSet.

Height Range - Allows you to set the upper and lower boundaries of the line. Any cabinets  within these boundaries will be dimensioned with that line.


Line Label page

This page allows you to change the appearance of labels. The example below shows the Upper_Cabinets measurements in red (Font = Arial).

Dim Line drop down provides you with a list for selecting the current line in the set.

Angle Field - Be aware that the angle field on the Label tab is relative to the angle of the line, it is not an absolute angle, so setting this to zero degrees will always print text along the line.


Extra Note on Colour:

The colours can be set on the Line Style page to show you what dimension line is represented. There is normally more than one way to achieve the same effect, as discussed on the previous page.
TIP: Click the attachment to download this HowTo to your desktop as a .pdf

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