Measure Tool - Dual Dimensions

[otcunanan]

I want to be able to see inches and mm when using the Measure Tool.

I set Dual_dim to Primary[Secondary] through model properties, but that does not seem to have an affect on the Measure tool.

I know that you can toggle between units through the options on the measure tool, but I'd rather not have to keep switching back and forth.

Running Creo 3.0 M110

[BenLoosli · Accepted solution]

That option is only for dimensions, not the measuring tool.

I don't think the measuring tool will display dual dimensions at this point. Since it used primarily for verifying your design, it will default to your units of design.

[CLOUSER]

Sad, most "mid-range" products can do this.

[Patriot_1776]

You can easily switch back and forth from any unit to any other unit while the actual measured distance is still displayed, i.e. you don't lose your measurement.  It's easy, the setting is in the "Options" button above the "Units" in the pop-up measurement window.  I think the measurement tool is far better than solidQuirks.  I've never needed both at the same time on the screen so it's certainly not any sort of major issue, and having the ability to use any unit and not being limited to just "dual dimensions" to me is a far greater advantage.  🙄

[CLOUSER]

Funny.  Having extra features is "limiting".

You do realize that you Creo users are basically victims of Stockholm syndrome?  Right?

Someday you may be free enough to see all the features and functionality they failed to give you these decades, and for what reason?  Why not let us have the ability to DESIGN THE BEST WAY WE PREFER!?

But go ahead and defending inconvenient ways of doing the most basic things like clicking and clicking to find what SolidWorks puts right at your fingertips.

How about this functionality for starters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFiPxAMmxKc

I need this right now.  I can workaround by adding planes, multiple placements, etc, but once you use this functionality, you simply appreciate it's convenience and power and then wonder why PTC doesn't just look through all of the functionality of their modern competitors and ADD IT?  I say the same thing to their competitors that lack features that Creo offers.

[StephenW]

Just out of curiousity, how long have you Creo?

[CLOUSER]

Apparently not long enough!

The problem is that a lot of you learned how to use the software ages ago and are fine with the quirks.  People get set in their ways.  I have clients struggling with SolidWorks and angry about the software and they refuse to take my advise and use it properly.  They prefer to use it the way we all did fifteen years ago and then blame the software, when a few tweaks to their design process and the software would easily handle their workload.

I, on the other hand, want the software to be transparent.  That means if I think it, I can do it with minimal effort.  In fact, one day software will read our intentions and do it.  Before that, software may be able to customize its self based on our prompting.  For instance, a simple feature like dual dimensions (which I would be willing to bet there are more SolidWorks users who use dual-dimension on their Measure tool then all the number of Creo users combined), why couldn't we simply tell the software to adapt?  With artificial intelligence on the way, I expect that this will happen.  Then I'll complain a lot less.

But the fact is that I'm an engineer, not a CAD person.  My job is to get a product to a customer, it is not to use CAD.  CAD is one of many implements I use to do this, so from my perspective it is extremely inconvenient to have a steep learning curve, to have rigid design flow because the software only does it one way, quirky interface, and so on. 

What I need is a holodeck like on Star Trek.

But to get there, we need baby steps.  Where is PTC on voice commands?  Why isn't that ubiquitous in the CAD industry?  The API's already exist.  I've had SolidWorks users argue against it because they "worked in a noisy cubicle environment".  So what?  Many don't, and even if they did, what if they got promoted to an office.  I want ALL the functionality and then I decide what to use and what not to use.

What about designing in VR?  Gesture control?  Why are these software companies not really innovating and implementing technology that is already here?  I'm sure they're dabbling in it, but where is it? 

Check this out, 2013!!!!!!!!!!!!  And this guy doesn't even run a 4-5 billion dollar a year CAD Software company like SolidWorks!  This is him just screwing around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNqs_S-zEBY

[Patriot_1776]

"Stockholm syndrome"?   Bwahahaha!  Oh man.  Hey fellas, we have another SolidQuirks whiner on our hands.

Yeah, "limited".  In other words, I showed you how to EASILY cycle thru ANY different unit without losing the actual measurement, and you whine because it didn't give you the 2 you wanted simultaneously.

Besides, I can't take you seriously when you claim people don't take your "advise" instead of "advice".

Go back to SolidQuirks and be happy, there's no need for you to be here if all you're gonna do is whine.

LOL

[CLOUSER]

You really think it's easier to have to click, click, click to get a dimension than to simply look at the display?  Really?  If you like it that way, that's fine, but it's not more convenient.  The math says otherwise.

More clicking = Less convenient

I'm working, as so many people do, in a system that has blended inch and mm dimensions.  How perfect it would be to see BOTH each time I measure.

But I suppose you prefer a myriad of buttons over a zipper.

You can call it SolidQuirks or whatever (comparative revenues say otherwise), but if it can outperform Creo in so many ways, wouldn't you want to add those functionalities and at least have them as an option?  I mean, Creo is finally adding multi-body capability, which SolidWorks has had for close to two decades, which is an incredibly powerful tool in the right hands, and they just bought Onshape which hopefully will bring a new era of usability and interface improvements...I can only hope.  You do realize that it is the same people that started SolidQuirks that started Onshape, right, with a relentless philosophy of modernization.  So the brass at PTC must have some respect for their efforts. 

As a consumer that writes a check every year for my CAD software, I would like to get something for my money, not just the bland, annual updates that is typical throughout the entire industry.  If you were paying for the software, wouldn't you also want more features, more options, and so on?  At least something for your maintenance fees?

Fascinating how many people there are in technical industries that are happy with the status quo and are happy doing their job the way the software dictates.  Or maybe they just are scared of change?

[BenLoosli]

"You do realize that it is the same people that started SolidQuirks that started Onshape"

And these same people used to work for PTC before starting SoidWorks!

"Creo is finally adding multi-body capability, which SolidWorks has had for close to two decades"

Unigraphics and NX have had multi-body capability since UGSolids was released in the early 1990's, so almost 30 years now, before SW was even formed. Not surprising that the SW team choose the same solid modeling engine as Unigraphics used, Parasolid, which is what allows multi-body capability.

[Patriot_1776]

Multi-body modeling isn't needed, or from my use of it in NX 8.5, even an advantage.  I can use quilts in Creo and get the same result without the downsides I've seen in NX.  Yeah, ok, if the flavor of the month is now multi-body, fine, add it.  I'm more interested in volume sweeps, REAL capability in that area, not the limited capability in S/W.

In another thread I posted models that S/W simply COULDN'T create when I was evaluating it.  

[CLOUSER]

Most of the people that I've run into that oppose multi-body modeling simply don't understand it.  I've converted a few people who now agree with me that it's one of SolidWorks most powerful tools, especially in their Weldments environment (now called Structural).

Although I agree with you that SolidWorks has limited abilities, so does Creo.  And where SolidWorks is limited, few of those limits are huge in my opinion.  In other words, I have been able for around 20 years to do over 99% of what I need to do with SolidWorks.  Very rarely have I had to "cheat" the geometry to get what I want or "close enough".  My biggest complaint is that they can't handle the ZTG coming out of Pro and other CAD.  Importing those files is hell.

Considering some of the features that you personally want, you would have to admit that some of the examples you gave are somewhat esoteric or can be achieved through slightly less-convenient processes.  Do you really think most Creo users draw stuff like that? 

In some cases, realize that in SolidWorks, if you can draw a 3D sketch (something I can't find in Creo, is it there??), then you can create complex sweeps quite often, and if it's hard to sketch in 3D but you can define it mathematically, then you can do a table or equation driven 3D sketch and get the crazy profile you are looking for.

I've seen hundreds of thousands of files generated in Pro and Creo and really never saw anything like the examples you gave.

So as far as software functionality goes, yes, I would like to be able to generate the geometry I desire, but overall I want the experience to be easy.  I don't want to feel tortured to create the most basic designs.  In the past, I have hired ex-Pro users to use SolidWorks.  They were amazed at how prolific I was with such an "inadequate" software.

I would love to see any examples you can give about using quilts instead of multibody.  I'm looking at parts that represent welded assemblies, for example, which may include a lot of sheetmetal, structural shapes, and a few machined parts here and there.  And then to be able to automatically generate a cut-list and individual body details on a drawing, all from the part environment so there are no mates to haul around at the assembly level and also no out-of-context relationships that can break, priceless.  Also to be able to do Boolean is quite often very convenient.

SolidWorks has a library of structural shapes that can be used in the Weldments feature, I'm sure Creo has this as well, but I can do it all in a part with SolidWorks and avoid mates.  I hear Creo uses the assembly mode for Weldments.  Some SolidWorks users have asked for this option...to be able to do weldments as an assembly.  So why not have the option in SolidWorks to do weldments in a part or assembly?  And I ask also, why not in Creo?

The point is that unless there is one and only one perfect way to do something, shouldn't the user be allowed to choose?

Show me some examples, I'm very interested.

[BenLoosli]

"The point is that unless there is one and only one perfect way to do something, shouldn't the user be allowed to choose?"

This flexibility comes at a cost to software designs in providing the options and the configuration controls to set up a multi-design method.

One of the statements we used to say about Unigraphics was:

What is the best thing about UG? The multiple ways to do things.

What is the worst thing about UG/ The multiple ways to do things.

And that was used inside the development team of UG, too. I have had many friends who worked there when I used UG for 20 years.

[xPR1MUSx]

I'm rebooting this old thread because it's one of the first google hits on "CREO dual dimension". It's clearly a functionality that people use. I work on assemblies with Imperial and Metric parts all the time. If you're using COTS parts in your designs, it's almost impossible not to. The CREO work flow you suggested to switch from inch to millimeters requires Click, Click, search, Click, Click. That's something I need to do dozens of times daily, and thousands of times in my lifetime. That's not easy. That's cumbersome. Especially if you never use most of those units. That's just a bunch of mental filtering. But see a plausible alternative below, where you can make your measurement selections persist with check boxes. That's all it would take. You could measure in microns and miles if you wanted to. But to say that "I don't need to switch much, so everyone else is just whining" is just not accurate.

"Go back to SolidQuirks and be happy"??? Trying to find efficiency in workflow...

Suggested Measure Tool Improvement

[CLOUSER]

I'm sorry no one cares about your desire to work more efficiently.

How would their lives be irreparably damaged by dual dimensions?  I wonder.  It's not like they would be forced to use it.

It could be that once it's implemented, everyone will see how wrong they are?

I remember years ago actual SolidWorks users that were opposed to fixing the Zero Thickness Geometry (ZTG) issue that SolidWorks has.  I was dumbfounded.

And their reasons were asinine. 

One guy was a machinist who only occasionally used SolidWorks.  His reason to KEEP the ZTG error was that "you can't machine a ZTG feature", as if SolidWorks was only for designing machined parts and that the CAD was supposed to somehow check your work for machinability for you!  (BTW, there are ZTG features that can be machined theoretically)

I gave him a list of a dozen or so reasons you may want to model ZTG, including and one of the most important, importing models from CREO that contain ZTG.  I then modeled some parts that were very easy to create in any CAD system that are impossible to machine (like a simple, cubic block with a circular void inside), and he still didn't get it.

The great news though, whether the CREO apologists like it or not, is that every new release of CREO feels strangely more and more familiar to this old SolidWorks user.  So hopefully in an upcoming release, they will add that elusive line or two of code that will give you your dual dimensions, and then many, many CREO users will finally see what they were missing all along!

BTW, I work with hundreds of CREO users, directly with dozens and dozens, and have yet to have one oppose the idea of dual dimensions.

Stay strong brother!

[Patriot_1776]

I work with bazillions of CREO users, directly with zillions and zillions(!!), and if only 2 of them want one upgrade that isn't a big deal because you can EASILY get the information the way mentioned, then it's not an issue that PTC is ever going to address....for good reason.

They should fix the split circle/cylinder issue WAY before they do anything about the measurement thing as the "split" issue causes untold failures.  I've seen the failures starting from way back in '96.  Then there's the solid body sweep issue (like, they don't really HAVE one) they need to address, or the fact that you STILL can't see threads except in wire frame mode, or that when using family tables if one instance has a different material the appearance still doesn't work right.  Or any other major issues.

[CLOUSER]

But is it really only two?  Have you actually done an honest survey?  Out of a zillion users, I'll bet it's more than two. 

How difficult is it to actually add the dual dimension feature?  I can't imagine it's that challenging.  Why do you care if its there or not?  Will your life be irreparably damaged by the additional functionality?

Why are you OK with "easily" getting the information when you could "effortlessly" get the information?  Explain please.

effortless > easy

This is another excellent example where I tell everybody that if PTC designed an automobile, to depress the brake pedal, one would first have to pull a lever, turn a knob, and then flip a switch, and THEN AND ONLY THEN could you depress the brake pedal.

In SolidWorks, you just simply press the brake pedal.

At least we agree on the split circle problem.

[StephenW]

If you post your request in the ideas area, maybe you'll get some traction with a product manager.

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Creo-Parametric-Ideas/idb-p/creoparametric

This thread is basically useless other than the orginal post and the marked solution which is unfortunately that it is not current functionality.

If you want to have more input, join the technical commitees at PTC/User https://www.ptcuser.org/Technical-Committees/About-Technical-Committees

They definitely have more sway than a post or a product idea.

[BenLoosli]

Also, this 'idea' is not one that will drive new sales of Creo for PTC. It is a nice to have enhancement that IF the development team is working on that are of the code they may decide to implement. The technical committees have the most say in what a product manager will have his development team work on for future releases.

[BenLoosli]

And he links in a video on YouTube of a design done not in SolidWorks or Creo, but in Siemens NX.

[CLOUSER]

Exactly, maybe read my comment about SolidWorks (OR ANY of the mainstream CAD systems for that matter) not being able to do this despite insane annual revenue.

We've been using mouse and keyboard for forty years and none of you have a problem with that?

[StephenW]

If inclined, feel free to add your vote to the product idea

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Creo-Parametric-Ideas/Dual-dimensions-or-multiple-dimensions-in-Measure-tool/idi-p/1004313