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Dimensions – Lesson 8 – Alphacam Router Tutorial
YouTube: https://youtu.be/VDrE_CvZULY
To give you more information on the CAD functionality of the Alphacam, it is worth saying a few words about dimensions. At least to add or check basic dimensions.
Dimensioning is in the CAD tab. Choose this option.
And first we need to specify what kind of dimension we want to add. Choose first, Horizontal.
And go to the Configure tab and increase Text Height, enter 7.
And click OK.
Now we can determine the horizontal distance between two points (or the length of the line). We can use the End-point of snap and indicate two points. As you add horizontal dimensions, right-click in the work area.
We will return to the window with the dimension type selection, and now select the type – Vertical.
Instead of selecting a specific snap every time, we can turn on the Auto Snap, this will cause the snaps to be turned on all the time.
Sometimes, when several specific points are close to each other, for example, the center of the circle and the end of the line, pointing the appropriate point with the use of auto snaps may be difficult. In such moments we can switch to single snaps.
Now size the diameters.
And now let’s size the fillet radius.
Dimension text can be edited. To do this from the Geometry tab, choose Edit Text. Let’s select the dimension whose text we want to edit and here we can enter any text.
In situations such as this, to improve the appearance of the dimension, it is worth using the option Move Dimension from the CAD tab. After even a slight shift, the text of the dimension will improve and it will be clearly visible.
Dimensions in the drawing are usually needed to check something, or when printing a drawing. However, most of the time they will interrupt. You can hide dimensions. In the left part of the window we have the Project Manager. Choose the Layers tab. And here we have a list of default drawing layers. One of them are Dimensions.
To hide dimensions, simply uncheck the box next to the layer name.
On the occasion of the layers, it is worth mentioning the purple geometry that appeared after using the Bolt Hole Circle. This is the construction geometry. It is also on a separate layer, Construction layer.
Draw an example line.
And we will make construction geometry out of it.
To prepare the construction geometry, expand the Geometry layer, in the geometry list we need to locate the geometry to be the construction geometry. We can select each geometry in turn and look for the right one or we can use the Find option.
Let’s show the line. This is the last geometry on the list. And now, using the drag and drop method, move this geometry to the Construction layer.
If any tab in the Project Manager is hide, select View | Show Project Manager Page and select the tab that is missing or simply select Show All Pages.
At this we will finish drawing the first part. Let’s save this drawing. From the File menu, choose Save As. For example, create an Alphacam Training folder on the desktop and save the file under the name p1-geometry-2d.
