Enhance Your Design Efficiency With Dimbreak

By Author: Martha Riva
Total Articles: 1
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In complicated drawings with many objects, objects sometimes overlap each other. After adding dimensions to them, it can become difficult to distinguish boundaries, objects, and dimensions. As an example, notice the overlapping objects in the drawing below:

Figure 1: Room

In the past, I would try to make drawings clearer and more readable by breaking some dimensions manually. Here is what I did. First, I exploded the dimensions, and then I used the Break command to break out portions, one by one. After a while, the drawing became clearer, but the procedure wasted a lot of my time. It was not a good way to do it.

Now with ZWCAD 2011, I find it is very easy to do this automatically. Just enter thecommand Dimbreak, and the software will do it for you:

Step1: Enter the command Dimbreak, and then type M.
Step2: Select the dimensions that you want tobreak, and then press Enter.

Notice that all the selected dimensions are broken automatically. The ...
... following figures show the broken dimensions, and the different kinds of dimensions that can be broken at a time.

Figure 2: Aligned dimensions

Figure 3: Linear dimensions

Figure 4: Angular dimensions

Now, some times when I find I need to change the locations of some dimensions. When it was a broken dimension in the past, this was an agonizing task for me. But ZWCAD 2011's Dimbreak command now makes this so easy. Without doing anything else, just drag the dimension to wherever you want, and the break point adjusts itself to the new location, too. Wonderful!

Sometimes, the break space is too small, and so I find that I need to customize its size according to my drawing. ZWCAD2011 provides this function, but its location a somewhat concealed. You can find it in the Other Items tab of the Dimension Style dialog box.

Figure 5: Modify dimension style

I like this fabulous new feature in ZWCAD 2011. It helps me a lot, and enhances my efficiency. I am enjoying it as much as a delicious snack!