How to control offset lines

[ChristianSmith]

There must be a logical explanation to offset lines. I'm working in an assembly right now and want to show how different components fit together using an exploded view and offset lines. However, when I try to create an offset line many times they do everything but what I want them to do. Is there a trick to this?

I'm using wildfire 5.0 by the way.

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[JayShah]

Hi Chrisitan,

I can undestand your concern. I had the same first impact when I was using offset lines for first time. I was not able to find any permenant solution regarding that but it worked fine for me when I Edit the position of my component by using "Copy Pos" feature. (View Manager > Explode tab > Edit position > Copy Pos).

Thanks,

Jay

[ChristianSmith]

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean. I understand view manager, copy position thing, but how exactly do you use that to get correct offset lines?

[ptc-2980652 · Accepted solution]

I create a lot of assembly illustration type drawings and use offset line quite a bit.

in general they work pretty well, just select the outside surface of a screw and the inside surface of the hole.

Sometimes the result is not what you want "the offset line takes an ilogical path to the hole".

just delete these offset lines, and recreate them but this time turn on your axis, and select the axis close to the end of the screw and close to the end of the hole. This ussually gives the result you want.

Good luck.

Dave

[ChristianSmith]

Works like a charm, I knew it had to be something easy like that I just couldn't seem to figure it out.

[Ivan_]

For years I have tried to use the offset line for exploded views, and I can't wrap my head around how brutal it is.

Why can't I edit the references after, or at least pick the direction I want the line to go.

This is a very poorly implemented feature and something that PTC should at least slightly improve, otherwise whatever productivity we gain from enhancements get's eaten up at this stage trying to guess what references to choose to get the line to possibly go the route we want it to.

[BrianMartin]

Hi Ivan...

You can also mix and match axes and surface normals. If you pick an axis FIRST, this gets the offset line going in a nice straight direction. For your second pick (the other end of the offset line), if you pick a surface you'll get a reasonable line to work with. Picking two surfaces is always a bit tricky because you're never quite sure where the offset line will appear. Axes are the most reliable. But you can always mix and match to get the stability of axes with the flexibility of surfaces (especially for things without axes).

I feel like that didn't make as much sense as I intended. I hope it helped somehow.

-Brian