Constrain Distance (and other Constrain Tools)

[Bruce Kieffer]

I can't figure out how these tools work. I read the Help, but still no luck. I found the tools by accident when I was modifying a workspace. Are there any movies that show using these tools? Were these tools in VW 2016?

[zoomer]

Ha, found these too the last days. Wasn't sure if these were old and legacy or too new ...

Looking for "constrain" in 2017 help brings a bit more information ...

Edited September 22, 2016 by zoomer

[Andy Broomell]

They're definitely old. I remember playing around with them, but never having much luck...

[Pat Stanford]

They are very old. From the MiniCAD days.

Basically you use them by clicking two points on the objects you want to constrain. They objects then behave "kind of" like they are a group.

If you have two objects with a constrained point, those points on the two objects will remain together. If you move one, the other will move also to keep the constrained point together.

If you have two objects constrained parallel, if you rotate one object, the other object rotates also.

I just played with them for a couple of minutes and they appear easier to use than I remember.

Mostly, I think they are used with Constrained Dimensions" to provide the ability to change and object and have the dimension automatically change or to change a dimension and have the object automatically change.

Never been able to use them successfully in a real workflow.

[zoomer]

I was just wondering because their Icons look quite up to date.
more than many current Tools.

[Bruce Kieffer]

I removed them from my tool palette. Couldn't figure out how they work, or what good they might do me.

[Art V]

These can be quite useful, as a kind of semi-parametric property without having to create actual parametric plug-in objects.

For example if you have a circle and an arc with their centerpoints aligned and you want the arc always to be at a fixed distance from the circle outline you can use constraints for coincidence (centerpoints) and distance (between circle and arc, or two circles if you prefer).

When you change the dimension of one, the other changes accordingly while the centers will remain aligned.

It is just too bad certain combinations don't always work as expected or hoped for and not in all situations. Maybe I should make a wish list item for this to have it improved.

 

[Marissa Farrell]

I also wish the constraints worked better.

To my understanding, they only work in 2D reliably, and even then there are sometimes restrictions that I didn't think I'd run into.

If you push on them getting improved, I would suggest pushing hard on getting 3D constraints implemented! That should solve a lot of the limitations, and I will certainly back you up internally.

[Tom Klaber]

1 hour ago, MarissaF said:

I also wish the constraints worked better.

To my understanding, they only work in 2D reliably, and even then there are sometimes restrictions that I didn't think I'd run into.

If you push on them getting improved, I would suggest pushing hard on getting 3D constraints implemented! That should solve a lot of the limitations, and I will certainly back you up internally.

 

They do not even work in 2D predictably.  I took a Revit course and was impressed by their constraint system - I requested on of our own - and was pointed to these tools.  At first I was happy but right away in my testing, I found these should NOT be used except for the simplest of circumstances.  I found that these constraints would resize and move objects in strange ways.

VW needs to start thinking about a 3D update to these.  I always hate saying this -but Revit has a nice constraint system and it would be a good model to use when thinking about the types of predictable functionality we need. 

[Marissa Farrell]

 

Just now, Tom Klaber said:

They do not even work in 2D predictably.  I took a Revit course and was impressed by their constraint system - I requested on of our own - and was pointed to these tools.  At first I was happy but right away in my testing, I found these should NOT be used except for the simplest of circumstances.  I found that these constraints would resize and move objects in strange ways.

VW needs to start thinking about a 3D update to these.  I always hate saying this -but Revit has a nice constraint system and it would be a good model to use when thinking about the types of predictable functionality we need. 

I've never worked with Revit directly, but I was always a big fan of the constraints in Inventor, which I'm sure is similar enough. I've mentioned it here before, but my voice isn't nearly as big as our users, so the best I can do is back all of you up and share my knowledge of how they work elsewhere.

[Art V]

18 hours ago, MarissaF said:

I also wish the constraints worked better.

To my understanding, they only work in 2D reliably, and even then there are sometimes restrictions that I didn't think I'd run into.

If you push on them getting improved, I would suggest pushing hard on getting 3D constraints implemented! That should solve a lot of the limitations, and I will certainly back you up internally.

Thanks for the advance support on this 

Would it be possible for you to take a look at the 2D/3D constraints in Bricscad. They also have a parametric kernel that is similar to Parasolid. Their 2D/3D constraints are decently documented and so far work as intended (even though it is sometimes a matter of trial and error for more complex combinations to figure out)
Often I have objects at fixed positions and distances that need to be updated together, but it works better in Bricscad than in VW, as some things just down't work in VW, so that is why I am suggesting to take a look at Bricscad.

I'd like Vectorworks to implement constraints in a similar way. Maybe I have a sample document laying around when testing the constraints in Bricscad in order to figure out how it could work in Vectorworks (at a time when the documentation was too skimpy on that).

 

[Art V]

16 hours ago, MarissaF said:

I've never worked with Revit directly, but I was always a big fan of the constraints in Inventor, which I'm sure is similar enough. I've mentioned it here before, but my voice isn't nearly as big as our users, so the best I can do is back all of you up and share my knowledge of how they work elsewhere.

Don't worry, we, the users, will back you up on this