xline & rays could not dimentioned by angular dimensioning. why?

[khoshravan]

In my drawing I have two xlines which makes an angle. I was trying to measure the angle by angular dimensioning and figure out that, xlines are not recognized by angular dimensioning. Also ray has same story. Isn't there any solution? Why xline and ray is not categorized as line in angular dimensioning?

[ReMark]

Maybe AutoCAD purposely treats them as non-dimensional entities because that's what they are intended to be. They are "aids" to constructing your relative geometry.

[khoshravan]

I agree with you. This was a lesson for me not to use these lines as objects in my drawing.

[ReMark]

I agree with you. This was a lesson for me not to use these lines as objects in my drawing.

Some lessons are best learned the hard way. Those lessons tend to stick in our long term memory.

[khoshravan]

Some lessons are best learned the hard way. Those lessons tend to stick in our long term memory.

 

Exactly that is why I am persuaded to ask questions rather search the Forum as it is pointed in the rules. For questions asked and replied, I get a personal feeling and they are typed into my memory and rarely I can forget them. But I don't know why I don't have the same feeling and reaction toward what I get from search results.

[dbroada]

XLINEs and RAYs are "special" objects. If you place one outside the limits of your other entities and zoom extents they don't appear. If you trim them so they have a length they will become normal LINEs and can then be dimensioned.

 

I use them as "sighting" lines to ensure my objects line up or use them as initial construction lines before trimming away what I don't need.

[ReMark]

Perhaps because the answers were not specifically directed at you and your specific problem? Difficult to say. One must have some measure of confidence that a proposed solution makes sense I suppose.

[khoshravan]

XLINEs and RAYs are "special" objects. If you place one outside the limits of your other entities and zoom extents they don't appear.

 

That is a good point. I haven't thought about it.

 

 

If you trim them so they have a length they will become normal LINEs and can then be dimensioned.

 

This is a good point too and maybe answer to my question if I want to dimension them by any means.

[irneb]

I think giving ADesk "credit" for thinking about XLines/Rays not being "dimensionable" is going a bit far. It's actually a lot "simpler" than that. They simply didn't implement a way for an angle dim to be fitted onto a xline/ray.

 

If you use DimAngular on 2 lines, the dimension's control points (i.e. grip-points) become the endpoints of those 2 lines. Now an xline has no endpoints, and a ray only has one. So the usual DimAngular fails - it simply cannot find the correct number of endpoints. You could of course use DimAngular's option and then place the control points manually.

 

But this is getting a bit technical, and your best bet would be to follow the advise already given: i.e. only dim on "normal" lines, and perhaps "convert" xlines & rays by trimming.

[rkent]

In my drawing I have two xlines which makes an angle. I was trying to measure the angle by angular dimensioning and figure out that, xlines are not recognized by angular dimensioning. Also ray has same story. Isn't there any solution? Why xline and ray is not categorized as line in angular dimensioning?

 

After you have started the dimangular command, hit enter (this starts the specify vertex option), not use intersection to pick the intersection of the two lines, now with nearest pick on the xline and on the ray, etc. place your dim.

[Tiger]

After you have started the dimangular command, hit enter (this starts the specify vertex option), not use intersection to pick the intersection of the two lines, now with nearest pick on the xline and on the ray, etc. place your dim.

 

Just goes to show that you learn something everyday - I had no idea I could do that! And as frequent user of XLines and always sigh when I remember I can't dimension them - this is awesome!

[rkent]

Just goes to show that you learn something everyday - I had no idea I could do that! And as frequent user of XLines and always sigh when I remember I can't dimension them - this is awesome!

 

It was mentioned by irneb first but I thought I should post it by itself with instruction.