Draft Constrain
Description
Apart from entering coordinates in the task panel of commands or using snapping, there is another feature available in the Draft Workbench and the Arch Workbench to help you draw accurately. After picking a point you can constrain the movement of the cursor to the X, Y, or Z direction of the current Draft working plane for the next point. This can for example be used to create a perfectly vertical line.
While constraining the movement of the cursor the task panel will lock the coordinate values that are not being modified
Horizontal and vertical constraints
Hold the Shift key while drawing to force the next point to be constrained horizontally (X direction) or vertically (Y direction) in relation to the last point entered. The horizontal or vertical orientation depends on the position of the pointer when you press Shift; if you are more east or west from the last point, it will be horizontal; if you are more north or south, it will be vertical. To change the orientation, just release Shift, move the pointer to a new location, and hold Shift again.
Some tools like Draft Offset and Draft Trimex use constraining differently. They do not constrain vertically or horizontally but use a different method more adapted to the particular tool, for example, constraining the operation to a certain line segment.
X, Y, Z constraints
Press one of the X, Y or Z keys after a point to constrain the next point on the specified X, Y, or Z direction. Press the same key again to release the constraint.
Pressing X or Y is equivalent to holding Shift and constraining horizontally or vertically, respectively.
Notes
- Constraining can be combined with snapping.
- Drafting: Line, Polyline, Fillet, Arc, Arc by 3 points, Circle, Ellipse, Rectangle, Polygon, B-spline, Cubic Bézier curve, Bézier curve, Point, Facebinder, ShapeString, Hatch
- Annotation: Text, Dimension, Label, Annotation styles, Annotation scale
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- Draft Tray: Select plane, Set style, Toggle construction mode, AutoGroup
- Snapping: Snap lock, Snap endpoint, Snap midpoint, Snap center, Snap angle, Snap intersection, Snap perpendicular, Snap extension, Snap parallel, Snap special, Snap near, Snap ortho, Snap grid, Snap working plane, Snap dimensions, Toggle grid
- Miscellaneous: Apply current style, Layer, Manage layers, Add a new named group, Move to group, Select group, Add to construction group, Toggle normal/wireframe display, Create working plane proxy, Heal, Show snap toolbar
- Additional: Constraining, Pattern, Preferences, Import Export Preferences, DXF/DWG, SVG, OCA, DAT
- Context menu:
- Layer container: Merge layer duplicates, Add new layer
- Layer: Activate this layer, Select layer contents
- Text: Open hyperlinks
- Wire: Flatten
- Working plane proxy: Write camera position, Write objects state
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