From the course: SOLIDWORKS 2024 Essential Training

Creating ordinate dimensions - SOLIDWORKS Tutorial

From the course: SOLIDWORKS 2024 Essential Training

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Creating ordinate dimensions

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- [Instructor] Let's learn about ordinate dimensions. Now ordinate dimensions are very similar to regular dimensions, but it's more of a running style of dimension. So you can keep clicking on items and it'll automatically add a value that goes all the way back to the baseline or the zero point of wherever we create that dimension from. Let me show you how it works. Right over here I've got a part opened up and instead of using the smart dimension, let's go ahead and click on the dropdown and come down here to the horizontal ordinate dimension. So click on that one right there. And you have to choose where you want your baseline of your part to be. So notice right over here, I'm going to choose that as the baseline and notice that shows up here down with a zero. So just go ahead and click where you'd like that to be. Now the tool is active, so anything you click on is going to automatically add a dimension all the way back to this baseline feature. This zero mark right here. So over here I can click on like this hole down here. No problem. How about this hole here, sure. How about this edge here, no problem. And I can just go across the part by clicking on individual items here and they're quickly added to my design. And notice they all reference all the way back to that zero mark. So they all are basically plus or minus 5,000 or whatever your tolerance is 'cause they're all going back to the block tolerance. And it is a real quick and easy way to make a whole bunch of dimensions. Some people don't like these dimensions, but for things like sheet metal or components that have a lot, a lot of components, it would just be an absolute mess if you tried to use any other style of dimensioning. So definitely components that have a lot of features, the ordinate dimension is definitely preferable to use for those type of features because you can just add so many and it's very compact. Of course, once you get done adding dimensions this way or across the part, you can then go and create a vertical ordinate dimension. So right over here, vertical ordinate. And I can choose something like this bottom edge right here. And then I can just click on these components right here as I go up. And it can be edges, it can be circles, it can be whatever you want. You can even dimension to the top of like an arc like this. If you hold down a shift, you can choose the top of the arc and you got like that. And then of course if you come back and say hey, well maybe if I add a dimension here, it would kind of look weird over here. Well you can feel free to add another one on the other side, right? So I can say vertical ordinate, come over here, grab a vertical ordinate there, and then dimension some of the things that makes sense on this side. And same thing over here, I can hold down shift and grab the outside of that circle. And if I don't click shift, it'll actually choose the center point of that circle. So a couple different options there how you might want to dimension that. You probably don't want to put both of 'em on there, but it is available, right? So that's your vertical ordinate dimension. And across you can see how many dimensions we're able to add in a very short time period, but also very compact, right? So they're just all very nicely placed here and easy to read and see what's going on. Now my second example here is going to be a circular running dimension, which is similar to an ordinate dimension, but instead of just in a straight line, it's going to go around in a circle. So in this case here, I'm going to go over here to this drop down and come all the way down here to the angular running dimension. So in that case here we're going to choose whatever's going to be the first point of this thing. So I'm going to choose the outside of that circle and then I'm going to choose this circle here, right? And so notice, I get that zero point right there and you can click and add as we go around that circle, dimensions to all these individual items, right? As we go around all those holes and notice it's a little bit tight. So I can grab that and I can bring that out and notice they'll all come out and you know, they're all basically around that same circle. So that's a quick and easy way you can add dimensions around a circle to points like this and things like that. And it really saves you a lot of time versus having to create like regular angle dimensions. So that's both the running angular dimension as well as the standard horizontal and vertical ordinate dimensions. Definitely take a look at them, especially if you're doing components that have a lot, a lot of features and it's just going to be a mess to do it any other way. The ordinate dimensioning schemes are going to be your friend.

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