About Dragging Using Smartpick

Using SmartPick, you can accurately position geometrical elements with respect to each other or with respect to the background elements, by dragging a sketch's geometry.
This topic deals with:
 

Dragging Geometries Using SmartPick
  When you select and drag a geometry, SmartPick pointer appears. Here, we selected the vertical line of rectangle.


If you continue to drag, a transformation equivalent to the translation of pointer is displayed and some geometrical constraints are detected on other geometries.


Here, a tangency constraint is detected and displayed by SmartPick, and the shape of the rectangle is modified by the solver according to the translation of pointer. You can release the pointer to validate this positioning.

To avoid over constraining or overlapping of geometries due to automatic constraints creation while dragging and snapping the geometries, the type of constraints that can be created depends upon which geometry is dragged and to which geometry it is snapped.

The following table lists the types of constraints that can be created automatically, depending upon the types of dragged and snapped geometries:
Dragged → Point Line Circle Ellipse Curve
Snapped ↓
Point Co x Co x x
Line Co Mi x Pa Pe Ta x
Circle Co Cc Ta Ta Ta x
Ellipse Co Cc x x x x
Curve Co x x x x
Mark of a plane (Line) Co x Pa Pe Co Ta x

Co Coincidence
Cc Concentricity
Mi Midpoint
Ta Tangency
Pa Parallelism
Pe Perpendicularity


  • If the sketch or the selected elements are inconsistent, iso-constrained or over-constrained, dragging has no effect on the geometries.
  • The settings for solving mode and drag of end points of elements are also considered while transforming the geometries. You can define these options in Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Sketcher > Sketcher > Geometry > Solving Mode....
  • If you use Snap to Point in the Sketch tools toolbar, the SmartPick pointer is snapped to the grid.
  • If you use Geometrical Constraints in the Sketch tools toolbar, constraints detected by SmartPick are not created.
  •  If you press and hold the Ctrl key after detection of a geometrical constraint, the SmartPick pointer stays at the position of the detected constraint, even if you move the mouse pointer.
  • If you press and hold the Shift key while dragging a geometry, only the current position of SmartPick is displayed while constraint detection is unavailable.
  • During the dragging action, the contextual menu of SmartPick is unavailable.
 

Point Manipulation

  
 
  • If you select only one point, the current position of SmartPick is taken as a reference point to search the constraints with the other geometries (i.e. coincidence, concentricity, alignment and middle point constraint).

  • If you select a point on a line, which is not shared by another line, the reference line is set as the line passing through the current position of SmartPick, and the origin point of the line.
  • If you select a circle, which is not shared by another curve, the reference circle is defined by the center and radius: the center takes the current position of SmartPick, and the radius is equal to the selected circle.
    Only the radius of a circle changes in accordance with the translation of pointer. However, if the radius is already defined by a radius or diameter constraint, only its center is dragged.
 

Line Manipulation
  If you manipulate only one line, the line passing through the current position of pointer, and whose direction is same as the direction of the selected line, is taken as the reference line to determine the constraints with the other geometries (i.e tangency constraint).
 

Circle Manipulation
  If you manipulate only one circle, the circle passing through the current position of pointer, and whose center is same as the center of the selected circle, is taken as the reference to determine the constraints with the other geometries (i.e tangency constraint).
 

Curves Manipulation
  If you select several elements, or only curves (like spline, ellipse, hyperbola, parabola, etc.) one at a time, the reference element is considered as a point, and the current position of pointer is used for searching the constraints with the other geometries.
 

Dragging Over Background Elements Using Smartpick
  You can use SmartPick to position geometries on the last flown-over background element. In this case, background elements are treated as an existing geometry of a sketch and elements such as 3D points, vertex, curves and edges visible through the edited sketch's view background are automatically detected for positioning the dragged geometry.
To enable the detection of background elements, select the Detects the geometrical constraints on background elements check box in Tools > Options > Mechanical Design > Sketcher > Constraint.
  When you are dragging a sketch over a background element, a constraint detected by SmartPick is highlighted.

Background elements cannot be detected or selected if either of following visualization filters are active:

  • Low Light
  • No 3D background (for Sketch elements)
  • No 3D background (for Wireframe elements)
  • Unpickable background
  • Unpickable low intensity background