Various sketch mode bugs

[gex]

This is a collection of bugs (or weird behaviors) I collected over the last few days spent in beta:

1. Move gizmo bug

I have two parallel sketch planes and I’d like to move a sketch from one to the other. I move it to the other plane but instead of having having the original planes I get a new one (plane 3). When I try to move it back to the original plane I get another new one (plane 4) and plane 3 turns into a ghost plane: there is no content and it can’t be selected.

This works in stable, there is no new plane unless I miss the target plane or stop midway.

I tried the rotate around axis tool but this bug doesn’t affect it.

Gif with the problem

---

2. Project tool inconsistency

After not being able to move my sketch to the other plane I try to project it. The planes are parallel so it wouldn’t distort my sketch in any way. In stable I can select a sketch, hit P then select the target plane. In beta when I select my sketch and hit P the original plane turns into target and I’m unable to select another face.

Gif with the problem

A few hours later I figured out that I need to select the target plane first, then hit P and I can select the sketch I’d like to project. But to be honest this is the equivalent of Yoda grammar in my opinion. Especially because when I start projecting without having anything selected I select the sketch first then the target. So the steps are inconsistent and the order of required steps heavily depends on how you use the tool. I haven’t noticed this with other tools.

I noticed the purple sketch on the other hand what is parametric and when I change the original one the projected one is also changing. That’s a huge step forward!

Gif with Yoda logic

Gif with the right logical order

---

3. Project tool bug

With the discovery of the Yoda logic I try to project my original sketch so I select the the target plane, hit P, then the plane with my sketch disappears. There is no indication or whatsoever but it seems like the project tool triggers the isolation mode because later I tried it with more layers and only the selected one stayed visible.

As you can see on one of the previous gifs it works when the target is not the XY plane.

Works in stable.

Summary

---

4. Rotate gizmo bug

This is similar to the first one. I tend to mirror my sketches by rotating them 180 degrees in 3D because I don’t need to draw and delete mirror axes. Poor man’s sketch mirror tool. In beta when I use this technique I end up with a new layer with the mirrored sketch. It’s important to note that this is not a parametric copy, I can change the original sketch and the mirrored one independently.

Works in stable.

Gif with the problem

---

5. Mirror tool bug

I try to achieve the same thing but with the mirror tool. The result is the same, new layer with the mirrored sketch.

Works in stable.

Gif with the problem

These bugs are easy to reproduce but here is the project with the sketches I used:

sketch-bugs.shapr (6.9 KB)

---

+1 Random ghost layer

This is a tricky one because I cannot reproduce it consistently but it happened quite a few times. I’m not in sketch mode and have no layer selected (like hitting Esc a few times) and when I hit L a new ghost sketch plane appears. This is similar to the one in the first issue, there is no content and it’s impossible to select it on the sidebar. When it happens I can reproduce it with the same steps (Esc multiple times to have no selection then L) even after deleting the ghost layer. But it’s not always there. I will update the thread when I figure out the exact circumstances.

This is somewhat related to the sketch mode because I use the line tool and a sketch plane appears.

Gif with the problem

Update

I think I found the easiest way to create a ghost layer. Open a new project and enter sketch mode by hitting space. In stable there is no new sketch layer until you actually draw something but in beta a new layer appears what is empty and impossible to select in the layer list. This is different than using the sketch button in the toolbar (so space is not exactly a shortcut for sketch mode after all). Same thing happens when you have a sketch plane on the XZ plane for example but it’s not selected. Hitting space zooms to the XY plane and creates a ghost sketch layer.

Gif with empty project

Gif with existing XZ plane

---

+2 Missing closed profiles (reproducible in stable)

I created two (fit) splines along an arc and they intersect each other a couple of times. One of the splines closes the profiles with the arc but the other does not so I’m unable to use the faces I’d like to extrude. All three objects are on the very same plane and even if I misaligned some points (but I did not) there should be a couple of closed profiles.

I tried to reproduce this in a different project because I suspected that it has to do something with the arc or the number of intersection points but I couldn’t. I attached the project containing the bug and an another one where it works as expected.

Screenshot with bug

Screenshot with unsuccessful reproduction

spline-faces-bug.shapr (18.4 KB)
spline-faces-bug-unsuccessful-reproduction.shapr (18.4 KB)

Update

I recreated the whole project line by line in stable (5.460) because the beta .shapr files are not backward-compatible and I experience the same bug there as well. It’s exactly the same spline on the same side.

But this time I copied my sketch three times and weirdly all copies had different number of closed profiles. In the original sketch all 13 closed profiles are missing. In the second one only one. In the third and fourth the upper 6 only.

Screenshot with the different results

Update 2

Seems like translating the arc and the splines to another plane is a workaround.

Screenshot with translated splines

spline-face-bug-stable-with-workaround.shapr (31.1 KB)

[Peter_Gy]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, especially the gifs, they are extremely useful!

Sketch transformations are quirky at the moment: our current logic is that whenever you move a sketch out of the original plane (via movement, rotation or even mirror) we create a new sketch. But it’s also a bit buggy as we do create or leave behind empty sketches as well. We will definitely need to make it more smooth.

In case of (3), could you verify something? My suspicion is that the sketch that you’re trying to project from is after in the target and that’s why it is disappearing: when we activate the project tool we automatically roll back to that state to make sure we won’t allow the user to define relationships that can’t be satisfied. The feedback should be more straightforward indeed, I’ve got confused about it myself several times personally, too.

[gex]

hi @Peter_Gy!

our current logic is that whenever you move a sketch out of the original plane (via movement, rotation or even mirror) we create a new sketch

• so it’s not possible to move a sketch from an existing plane to another existing plane anymore? this is how stable works right now, moving, translating, rotating, none of these create a new plane if the target is an already existing plane. is this connected to the parametric modeling?
• in no 4. while the sketch is temporarily on a new plane the target is the same plane. in stable there is a temporary plane while i’m executing this operation but when the sketch reaches the existing plane the temporary one disappears as it would be empty.
• in no 5. the sketch stays on the plane, it doesn’t leave it even temporarily. the result is still a new sketch. you mentioned that a dedicated sketch mirror tool is in the pipeline will we need to use that to not create a new plane?
• will you add the option to merge sketch planes that are already on the same plane in the future? i move sketches to another plane primarily to do more more with them, connect or combine with existing sketches for example. even if parametric modeling is forcing us to create new planes all the time, the ability to merge them would solve these challenges.

In case of (3), could you verify something? My suspicion is that the sketch that you’re trying to project from is after in the target and that’s why it is disappearing

you mean later in the history? that is true but in this case i have some questions too:

• does that mean i need to plan very carefully in which order i create my planes in the beginning? in this example i can easily change the order of the history entries but maybe in a more complex project it won’t be that simple.
• and more importantly what if i’d like to project a sketch from plane A to plane B and another one from plane B from plane A at the same time? since projecting doesn’t fall into the category of operations that create a new plane automatically (like the ones you mentioned) this will be impossible in the future. i can come up with a workaround like creating a plane A’ and plane B’ (now that we can have multiple virtual planes on the same plane) and project sketch A and sketch B onto both plane A’ and plane B’ but is it really needed?

i have to admit i’m not used to thinking in the parametric way so these question might sound dumb.

[Peter_Gy]

There are absolutely no dumb questions. Our goal is to create a CAD application that is powerful yet easy to adopt. Questions like yours help us understand where we need to improve.

The behavior to create a new sketch plane is indeed related to the parametric changes. It is now possible to have multiple sketches on the same plane, which is a quite useful feature by itself and important for driving designs via more complex sketches. However, it also makes it non-trivial to decide which sketch should be the target of the transform operation, so at the moment we err on the side of being cautious and create a new sketch in all of these cases. But I will be the first to admit that its current state is often confusing, lacks many important features and has to be improved – and we will do that.

I indeed meant “later in the history”, thanks for confirming that. And yes, you are absolutely right, creating a complex parametric model involves some thinking ahead, which can be challenging. But the simple direct modeling operations (where you don’t have to care about such things) are not going anywhere, and also, in the majority of the cases you can simply reorder your steps as there are no circular dependencies.

and more importantly what if i’d like to project a sketch from plane A to plane B and another one from plane B from plane A at the same time? since projecting doesn’t fall into the category of operations that create a new plane automatically (like the ones you mentioned) this will be impossible in the future. i can come up with a workaround like creating a plane A’ and plane B’ (now that we can have multiple virtual planes on the same plane) and project sketch A and sketch B onto both plane A’ and plane B’ but is it really needed?

What you are describing is a circular dependency (B would depend on A and A would also depend on B) and it can indeed only be solved by approaches like you suggested. On the other hand, have you ran into a practical situation where this would be required? In your cases I suspect just being able to simply copy the sketch part (without maintaining the relationship) would suffice, it’s just that it’s buggy at the moment.

[gex]

It is now possible to have multiple sketches on the same plane, which is a quite useful feature by itself and important for driving designs via more complex sketches.

i like this idea because sketch planes can be crowded sometimes. in current stable as a workaround i usually move some sketches a few mms away to keep them separate. however at the moment this operation is irreversible, there is no way to merge sketch planes or move something to an existing one. examples:

• i’m careful with my design and plan ahead but later on an incremental change requires me to move/copy one more sketch
• at the end of a complex sketching i’d like to “unify” the results into one plane. as far as i understand the right way would be projecting the results into one plane but the projections get their own plane

On the other hand, have you ran into a practical situation where this would be required?

the workflow i described above when i copy or project a sketch to another plane to have a less cluttered space temporarily then copy or project the result back to the original plane is the situation i had in mind. but there are many ways to get around this restriction so i don’t feel the necessity to solve problem.

[gex]

i can provide a more simple example for the “+2 Missing closed profiles (reproducible in stable)” problem, it happened again in stable with only a few lines/circles.

screenshot with the missing face

screenshot with moved sketch what closed the missing profile

simple-missing-faces.shapr (4.3 KB)