What Gives With Polar Tracking

[Bill Tillman]

I hope I'm using the correct term here. I need what I call polar tracking enabled in my setup. That is when I highlight a line and hover the mouse over one of the grips it shows me the length and the angle the line was drawn to. From time to time, this stops working on me. So I press F12 which a post I once read said to do or F10 which another post told me to do. What I'm finding is that this is intermittent. I was working with my setup last night and all was well. But today it's disabled again. So I used the OSNAP window to select Polar Tracking On and it's just not working. I hate to reboot everything so is there something I'm missing in this?

 

BTW, the F12 key does nothing on my setup though I've read several places that it's supposed to do something. The.F11 ky does indicate snap tracking and F10 indicates that it controls Polar Tracking.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Bill Tillman

[SLW210]

DYNMODE should be the sysvar.

[RobDraw]

F12 does DYNMODE. There is no response on the command line but it does toggle.

[Dana W]

When I hold my cursor over the Polar Tracking toggle button on my task bar, the tool tip says F10 toggles it on and off.

[Dana W]

F10 shows <polar off> and <polar on> for me in the command line

[Bill Tillman]

Setting dynmode to 3 took care of it. It was set to -1. But my question then becomes how did if get reset in the first place. And this is not the first time this has happened. Yesterday my cell phone went quiet and I found it sitting there with the Do Not Disturb setting enabled. This is the 3rd time this happened in the last week. Darned if I did it. I had to read up on how to disable it. Yet it went into DND mode thrice in the last week or so. Could it be gremlins?

 

My Windows 10 just did an update. Wonder it that had anything to do with it.

Edited December 9, 2020 by Bill Tillman

[CyberAngel]

2 hours ago, Bill Tillman said:

Could it be gremlins?

 

You fed them after midnight, didn't you? Never feed them after midnight.

 

And whatever you do, don't get them wet.

[ammobake]

Out of curosity do you deal with drawings from outside contractors/vendors?

Or is it happening in your own drawings?

 

My own is set to "DYNMODE <-3>"

Not sure what the negative sign denotes.

 

Below is from the autocad help log....I've highlighted the toggle option in bold red.

There are a couple possibilities though and they can be checked/tested pretty easily.

 

possibility 1 - your F12 key somehow got stuck on your keyboard not allowing you to disable the 0 variable toggle.

 

possiblity 2 - you toggled as intended but either saved or autosaved the drawing while DYNMODE was still set to 0.   So when you loaded the drawing back in it stayed 0 even though you aren't using the toggle.  And if you F12 again it could potentially remain 0 since the purpose of the F12 is to set the variable to zero, temporarily. (though would need to be tested).

 

possibility 3 - (not sure if this is possible) but while DYNMODE was still set to variable 0 if you were to then save the current layout as your workspace setting, it would revert to 0 every time that workspace setting becomes current again.  If that particular workspace is what you use as your default, you could set DYNMODE to 3.. But every time you load autocad again it would revert to 0.

 

DYNMODE

Value	Description
0	All Dynamic Input features, including dynamic prompts, off
1	Pointer input on
2	Dimensional input on
3	Both pointer input and dimensional input on

If dynamic prompts are on ( DYNPROMPT is set to 1), they are displayed when DYNMODE is set to 1, 2, or 3.

When dimensional input is turned on (DYNMODE = 2 or 3), the program switches to pointer input when you enter a comma or an angle bracket (<), or when you select multiple grip points.

When DYNMODE is set to 1, 2, or 3, you can turn off all features temporarily by holding down the temporary override key, F12.

Settings are on the Dynamic Input tab in the Drafting Settings dialog box.

 

-ChriS

Edited December 9, 2020 by ammobake

[Dadgad]

4 hours ago, ammobake said:

Out of curosity do you deal with drawings from outside contractors/vendors?

Or is it happening in your own drawings?

 

My own is set to "DYNMODE <-3>"

Not sure what the negative sign denotes.

-ChriS

 

Looks like the Negative value means you have a setting stored, but Dynamic Input features are not turned on.  

[Dadgad]

10 hours ago, Bill Tillman said:

I hope I'm using the correct term here. I need what I call polar tracking enabled in my setup. That is when I highlight a line and hover the mouse over one of the grips it shows me the length and the angle the line was drawn to. From time to time, this stops working on me. So I press F12 which a post I once read said to do or F10 which another post told me to do. What I'm finding is that this is intermittent. I was working with my setup last night and all was well. But today it's disabled again. So I used the OSNAP window to select Polar Tracking On and it's just not working. I hate to reboot everything so is there something I'm missing in this?

 

BTW, the F12 key does nothing on my setup though I've read several places that it's supposed to do something. The.F11 ky does indicate snap tracking and F10 indicates that it controls Polar Tracking.

 

Bill you sound like a good candidate to explore the SYSVARMONITOR functionality.

If you find particular Variable settings changing with annoying regularity, this will display an alert whenever it happens,

after taking a few minutes to set it up how you prefer it.

That will also help you understand what lisps or behavior is triggering the unintended variable changes real time, and easily reset them to your favored usual settings.

[ammobake]

That would make sense Dadgad. 

It looks like in the drafting settings dialog box i have dynamic inputs on but there is something overriding it.

I do sometimes use dynamic input so I'm not sure what other setting that would be.

 

It turns out you can show the Z-field for dynamic pointer input (for 3d modeling)

Never knew that! It is off by default.

 

Options > 3D Modeling (tab) > 3D Navigation > Dynamic input

 

-Chris

[Dadgad]

4 hours ago, ammobake said:

That would make sense Dadgad. 

It looks like in the drafting settings dialog box i have dynamic inputs on but there is something overriding it.

I do sometimes use dynamic input so I'm not sure what other setting that would be.

 

It turns out you can show the Z-field for dynamic pointer input (for 3d modeling)

Never knew that! It is off by default.

 

Options > 3D Modeling (tab) > 3D Navigation > Dynamic input

 

-Chris

 

I have never really taken advantage of, nor gotten used to using them, but they are highly customizable, as is easily discerned by clicking on any of those System Variable descriptions in the SYSVDLG, which begin with DYN.

 

When I am prowling around in the SYSVDLG, I favor using the cursor buttons to navigate, as it will open each one, on the fly, for a quick overview

of potential customization options.  It is a really good way to learn a lot very quickly.  I am definitely not a slave to DEFAULT settings. 

Make the software behave how YOU want it to, not how Autodesk anticipated that MOST people might prefer, we all have our own approaches

to the sorts of work we do.  

 

While the following screenshot would likely represent sensory overload for 99.99% of users, as Dynamic Grip Stretch entry fields, there are likely a very few users who would favor

this sort of virtual omniscience/omnipotence.   As is abundantly clear in our software, as in our daily lives; due to the fact that there is access to way more data (good, bad or indifferent) than one could ever need or process, that makes it our responsibility to determine that which is accurate, has relevance and will be of assistance.  

 

 

 

[Dadgad]

On 12/10/2020 at 3:11 AM, Bill Tillman said:

Setting dynmode to 3 took care of it. It was set to -1. But my question then becomes how did if get reset in the first place. And this is not the first time this has happened. Yesterday my cell phone went quiet and I found it sitting there with the Do Not Disturb setting enabled. This is the 3rd time this happened in the last week. Darned if I did it. I had to read up on how to disable it. Yet it went into DND mode thrice in the last week or so. Could it be gremlins?

 

My Windows 10 just did an update. Wonder it that had anything to do with it.

 

It certainly wouldn't surprise me, I have my Windows 10 updates delayed, as they have a track record of rolling out what amount to BETA TESTING updates.

I'd sooner wait a couple weeks until they have been tested by users in the real world, and debugged.