Snap to dimension line

[yayingo]

However, the point is that it still snaps to the extension line of the dimension, regardless of the aperture or the zoom level.

[nestly]

Yes, you have to be zoomed enough to be able to tell what your aperture is over and closest to. You can literally have hundreds or thousands of Snap points inside the aperture in a busy drawing. In the following animation, I made the Aperture visible during selection to demonstrate that only objects within the Aperture get searched for possible OSnap points. If the aperture is not over the dimension, there's zero chance it will snap to the extension line.

 

[nestly]

Also keep in mind that you don't need to have the crosshair at the point you want to start the line, AutoCAD only needs to have acquired the OSnap point. This allows you to reduce the number of objects within the Aperture, and snap to exactly the intended point even when there are many coincident OSnap points.

 

[yayingo]

Very illustrative and clear. I guess I should zoom in a bit more to avoid snapping to the dimension line. I wanted to draw a perimeter at the zoom level shown below. You can see several dimension lines close to the corners. No objects or lines should be able to snap to dimension lines, though.There should be a setting that prevents or turns off snaps to dimensions. It could result in a total mess. Frustrating.

I appreciate your help. If someone else has any other way to solve my "problem", it would be greatly appreciated.

[JD Mather]

I guess I should zoom in a bit more to avoid snapping to the dimension line. ...No objects or lines should be able to snap to dimension lines, though...... If someone else has any other way to solve my "problem", it would be greatly appreciated.

 

I don't zoom in, I set my osnap to endpoint and click the line anywhere left or right of midpoint that I'm interested in, probably never really get close to the end. I don't use blue against a black screen either - too hard to see.

AutoCAD finds the endpoint for me.

 

The solution has already been given early on in this thread - upgrade to AutoCAD 2015.

[RobDraw]

The solution has already been given early on in this thread - upgrade to AutoCAD 2015.

 

Brilliant! sorry...

 

I remember back when I first started with AutoCAD, real time panning and zooming were something new. I now find it so second nature that I do it with a lot of other things without even thinking about until I realize that it doesn't work.

[nestly]

When my brain directs my eyes to a specific area of a drawing, my mouse hand/finger gets the same message. In most cases, I probably have enough drawing awareness that I already know whether zoom/pan will be necessary and begin doing so before even looking. It's not like I have to zoom then click/pick, it's all one operation, and I'm probably zoomed back out by the time the left button stops oscillating from the click. Zooming is just no big deal, certainly better than fiddling around trying to pick a specific edge of a 2x4 stud when the entire floor plan is visible on screen. If any two objects in the selection area are closer together than the size of the aperture (6-7 pixels) a zoom is justified and time well spent.

 

Regarding the new 2015 Dimension Osnap filter. It's not much of an improvement. The only snap point that's filtered out is the endpoint of the extension line closest to the node. Everything else, including the nodes will still be acquired by OSNAP just as they would be if the dimension object was exploded into individual entities.

 

[RobDraw]

I'd say that feature came up a bit short of what it should have been. That's a lot of SNAP points still active.

[Dana W]

I remember back when I first started with AutoCAD, real time panning and zooming were something new. I now find it so second nature that I do it with a lot of other things without even thinking about until I realize that it doesn't work.

Sounds like me. I find it amazing that so many users seem to have a reluctance to use the zoom functionality very much. Some say it wastes time. I say poppycock. It eventually comes as fast as any reflex action, and it saves having to go back and fix those end points you JUST missed even though the marker was lit.

 

Once one gets used to it, you can set your zoomfactor incredibly high. I've gotten to where 60 feels natural. Any higher than that and the display starts to ratchet with the wheel clicks because of my stupidly inadequate graphics card and my really cheap mouse. I think Snap-on made the clanky ratchet on the wheel.

 

Get a touch screen, then you can even zoom Cadtutor.