Along the same lines, we should have an option to Remember the Horizontal/Vertical Snapping within the Sketch Preferences on the dwg. The vast majority of the time that I or anyone else in the company want draft entities on a dwg we want them to be horizontal or vertical. Actually if all of the settings in teh Sketch Prefernces could be remembered, that would be ideal. Individual config options for them would also be acceptable. Whatever it takes to get it so I don't have to keep setting this option all the time, and so my coworkers don't have to get frustrated at using sketch entities because they don't know or forget to do this.
For me the issue is in detailing drawings. When dimensioning to a rounded corner, witness lines are added to ensure the dimension intent is understood. When adjusting the lines, they do not keep the original reference. When the model changes, the lines do not move with the feature.
The only work around that I have found is to make sketches in the part. They then have to be on a layer and that layer needs to be turned on and off per view.
Not everything should be done in a model and there is still good reasons to sketch individual symbols...why should we be forced to purchase and open an entirely different program, and import it in just to be able to sketch some required symbols on the drawing? Creo should be able to do everything AutoCAD can do, along with the parametric modeling.
I wouldn't disagree that a drafting function, to be more than a joke, should be comprehensive. The issue here is what drafting options are on by default and whether this is settable in config.pro. First, it is not and should be. Second, in 15 years I've used a draft grid about once but use horizontal/vertical snapping constantly. So, to me it's a silly option to be set by default to on and just as silly that horizontal/vertical snapping is not. But, still, keep in mind that that it would be possible to deselect an option that is on by default; and if it were customizable, it could be set any way you want. I just generally think it's odd for a program to have "options" that are not configurable. BTW, setting by drawing or session is selectable, not configurable.
David Janes, by in large I agree with you. We are starting to use drafting grid much more extensively because I found that if the setup is done well, and some grunt work is done to create a library if symbols, then it is by far the most efficient way to create hydraulic schematics that I have seen with any of the software that we own. This is important to us because we do our own testing and need to specify and document the test setup. Creo can do this well, when first the library is created and second certain features like snapping horz/vert and to the grid are selected (along with a about 5 other commands in my mapkey to make Creo sketching friendly). This allows us to create consistent and reusable ISO schematics quickly and accurately without inundating our users with yet another another program.
Currently Creo does not make the setup easily, and I would really like to work with them to improve the symbol interface that we use so extensively (which seems not to have been updated in apparently over a decade), but once the symbols are created, anyone can quickly sketch their schematic "from scratch". The annoying limitation with regard to this idea is that I cannot consistently turn on certain features using a mapkey because it only toggles it and if the first mapkey is interrupted (due to necessary PDMLink reason), then it will just toggle it on and off rather than keep it on.
I completely agree that options should be in the configurable at startup, and would then allow users to turn them on (or off) via a mapkey for certain situations.
I am trying to understand the way that "parametric sketch" is being used by users, so I would really appreciate if you can help me better understand the tendency of using this option
So when you are working with the draft tools in drawings, what percentage of your drawings are going to use the "parametric sketch" option vs not using this option and working with the regular non parametric sketch
Also it would be interesting for me to hear about the different use cases that would require you to use sketching tools in the first place
For us, the use would be mainly for schematics (electrical, hydraulic, etc.). We have started using Visio to create schematics. The harness module is to cumbersome and problematic for us to use and sketching in a drawing with CREO is unusable.
We also import dxf files of our fabric patterns from the sewing dept. to make drawings of the patterns. These need little manipulation, but each shape must be made into a draft group to ensure that lines do not move.
If I am adding sketched entities to a drawing, I would always want them to retain any constraints used in their creation. To "lock" the entities to a view, I have to create a draft group and relate that draft group to the view. This locks the shape of the group and moves it with the view, but allows the group to be moved in relation to the view (purposely/accidentally).
For the small amount of sketching I do in drawings, I don't have many troubles with the sketching tools. The issue is the loss of constraints after placing an entity (horizontal/vertical, parallel, coincident, etc.)
