Feature Request: distance constraint

Feature requests
1

When designing a sketch, I want to constrain lines to each other. In Fusion, this is achieved with a distance constraint. In Shapr3D it seems like the only way to do this is to add an extra construction line between the two lines you want to constrain and constrain that line. This adds an unnecessary extra step and is frustrating

Example: draw a rectangle that is 40mm x 60mm. Draw a vertical line inside. Constrain the vertical line exactly 10mm from the right wall of the rectangle. You can’t without drawing another horizontal line

2

You can constraint two parallel lines to a given distance without a construction line: just select both of them and set a value of the dimension that appears or press the lock icon to fix the current value:

If it does not work, it’s most likely that the lines are not parallel.

3 Likes
3

Ahh. That makes sense. I was looking for it in the constraint panel. I am coming from fusion360 so that’s why I didn’t expect to highlight both lines

Ah, and I see the same can be done for points and angles if the lines aren’t parallel. Great!

1 Like
4

Hey Peter, in practicing the distance constraint (and trying out the macOS version), I’ve found it to be a bit clumsy to actually set the value. In the video you’ll see two issues:

  1. I find it very difficult to find the text box to enter the distance in. If I was using the distance constraint tool in fusion, I would click the line or lines I wanted to constrain, and just start typing the value in. But here, I have to hold shift (which I’m ok with) select both, and then click a 3rd time while scanning to find the text box. When setting all four edge constraints for this inset rectangle, it becomes a lot of overhead
  2. I wasn’t able to type on the keyboard. This seemed to stop working after bit. not sure why but I won’t fault this feature for this bug
5

actually, on point 2… it is very consistently happening where most of my keyboard input isn’t being accepted (it’s making the error ping sound)

how do I best file a bug report that would be helpful for tracking this down?

6

You don’t need to click it. Just press tab and start typing.

7

The most useful is to enable both options for “Tutorial mode” in Preferences and record a video of when it happens. The ideal would be a stable reproduction from a blank workspace. It’d be also great to have your exact OS and system version.

8

Thanks, I discovered the tab trick not too long after (on a different laptop where the keyboard input works) and that is definitely more usable

9

ah, so there’s no “report a bug” button I can press in the app that would provide diagnostics / system information? And damn… feature request: hot enable/disable of tutorial mode without having to restart the app

The laptop with the issue is running a version of macOS 14.0 so perhaps it would be worth testing on a developer beta if you’re not already (I’m not sure if I’m on the latest at the moment)