Before You Begin

  A dimension system is a set of dimensions which can be handled either globally or individually.

Creating Dimension Systems

You can create (and therefore modify) the following types of dimension systems:
Note that you can create half-dimensions on stacked dimension systems only.

Manipulating Dimension Systems

  • By default, when manipulating dimension systems, Dimension following the cursor is activated. Go to Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Drafting > Dimension tab, to use or not automatic positioning.

  • A click over a dimension system enables you to select the whole dimension system. However, you may want to reverse this behavior to select a single dimension. Click Dimension system selection mode in the Tools toolbar to deactivate the dimension system. Selections will be now focused on dimensions rather than on the whole dimension system. Click again on the icon to activate the dimension system.

Modifying the Dimension System Attributes

You can modify the following attributes while you have no more than one dimension in the dimension system:

Modify while creating:

  • Type
  • Measure direction. Refer to Using Tools for more information.
  • Angle sector

Modify after creating:
 
  • When creating: to activate temporarily the Dimension following the cursor option, hold on the ctrl key.
  • When creating and editing: to activate temporarily the Snap by default option, hold on the shift key.
  • When creating an angle dimension: if the Dimension following the cursor option is activated, you can swap the angle sector of the first dimension according to the mouse position holding on the ctrl and shift keys. If the Dimension following the cursor option is not activated, you can swap to the complementary angle sector holding on the ctrl key and clicking on the dimension line.

Dimension System Properties

You can apply given properties to dimension systems. For this, use the edit Properties, see Editing Dimension System Properties. Note, chained dimension systems have no specific system properties.
 

Using Styles

You can use styles when creating dimension systems in drawings created with version R14 and later (or pre-R14 drawings whose standard has been updated or changed in R14 and later). Styles are defined in the standard used by the drawing and managed by the administrator.

When creating a dimension system, the Style toolbar displays the styles available for this type of dimension system and the styles available for its dimensions. (By default, the Style toolbar is situated at the top left of screen.) If only one style is available, it will be used by default.
  If several styles are available for this type of dimension system, you can choose the style that you want to use to create this dimension system by selecting it from the Style toolbar.

Refer to Using Styles for more information.