Hi eric, re: ViaCAD - ViaCAD seems to use the same method as Rhino and AutoCAD where the dimension lives on a particular plane in model space, not the SketchUp "text always facing you" method. It seems that the vast majority of CAD programs do it the non-SketchUp way as well, which does make me a little bit worried about doing it differently... However, the SketchUp way does seem to simplify things quite a bit.


> For 3d details I now often simply set the perspective view I want and then annotate with
> some other software so the the dimensions and notes always face the reader. This is pretty
> awkward and time consuming but work better than Rhino's method.

Yeah the SketchUp way is the closest to adding in annotations in a 2D illustration or bitmap editing program, with just purely 2D text pasted onto the result.


What about with 2D plan views, the Rhino method actually works fine for those views rather than 3D views is that correct?


Then the next question is - does the "screen oriented" method cause any inherent problem in plan views? In some cases I suspect the answer is "yes" unfortunately, here are a few examples where it was helpful to have orientable text in the dimension:







These sorts of oriented annotations kind of come along automatically with the Rhino/AutoCAD way.


So I guess I kind of need to know - is that kind of orientable text a "must have" feature for dimensions or would it still be useful to have dimensions in MoI even if they were all only screen oriented text?

Now that I dig into SketchUp's dimensions a little more I see that there is an option under EntityInfo where you can change a dimension to either be screen oriented or not.

Of course the more kinds of special modes a particular feature has the more difficult it is to develop it.

- Michael