I found just now I can create a datum line by starting with a datum plane and a point that is a vertex in a sketch that is selectable outside of sketch edit. Starting from that, I can translate it and get close to what I wanted. I notice a bunch of these messages: "Document::recompute: The graph must be a DAG." Not sure what step introduced them yet.
- cs-enc-part-cont-bottom-1-datums-7.png (40.64 KiB) Viewed 2410 times
Another experiment: create a dimensioned point in a sketch for attaching to fails since it is not selectable outside the sketch.
I wanted that because it keeps the sketch as the central master for most dimensions. Can you think of any way to have a point or intersection of construction lines show and be selectable outside a sketch?
I'd like to be able to keep dimensions and explanatory text notes in a master sketch, and have the body follow those dimensions.
peterl94 » Thu Aug 31, 2017 5:39 pm
I didn't find a way to place a datum line at a vertex either, but you could achieve the same thing with plane and a sketch. I still don't quite understand what you want to achieve, but maybe you could attach a primitive without needing a normal axis.
In the file below, I attached the plane and the cylinder with the attachment mode "translate origin."
I looked at your doc and see how you made extra sketches to locate a cylinder with a sketch vertex. My intent is a cylinder normal to my master sketch, (or skeleton sketch), so having extra sketches is not what I wanted. The purpose of my datum planes parallel to my sketch plane is to be a definition in the Z axis of where cylinder ends stop. I am wanting to avoid extra sketches and steps to keep the whole doc simpler since I have more detail to add and in the past, the more complex the more likely to break. Thanks for exploring this though.
Next I try attaching a cylinder to the datum line I created as above.
