Draft Constrain

From FreeCAD Documentation
This documentation is a work in progress. Please don't mark it as translatable since it will change in the next hours and days.

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.