When working with cumulative dimensions when the items being dimensioned are close together the dimensions start stacking on top of each other like my sample 1. This is ok, but at times it can become confusing to know what point the dimension text refers to. No problem. Just add a pointer, right?
Wrong. If I select a pointer for the string I get the automatic results shown in sample 2. It's mess. So I have to manually adjust the dimension text positions to get a readable set of dimensions as shown in sample 3.
This is better, but there is still an issue: the connection to the dimension line is made at the mid-point between the point being dimensioned and the origin or the previous dimension closest to the origin. This is very confusing to those not familiar with how cumulative dimensions work. Most workers in the field think the dimension is between the leader tick marks, not the dimension from the origin.
So how do I solve the problem? What I do is use the automatic position shown in sample 1 and add a manual polyline pointer to the tick mark that the dimension is taken to. It is now clear what point is being dimensioned. I will sometimes shift the text to add a bit of space to the pointers read better.
So what do you think? Is this how cumulative dimension strings should work when pointers are required?
Still looking?
