Inventor 2015 What's New - Sketch Relax Mode

by David Gate

Inventor 2015 has a number of new features, one that although being very simple is really useful. This is Sketch Relax Mode.

How many times have you tried to edit a sketch, only to find that constraints or dimensions prevent you from making an easy edit? Often you end up deleting constraints, editing/deleting dimensions, reapplying them, it can take a little time, especially if you drew the sketch a long time ago or your colleague created it. Firstly in Inventor 2015 the constraints are now clearer and easier to interpret.

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But Sketch Relax mode is what is going to make your editing life even quicker.

When turned on this allows you to drag and move sketch entities as if they weren’t constrained or had dimensions locking them in place. It is almost as someone has deleted all the constraints and dimensions. But once you have finished your drag it then reapplies them and your sketch stays constrained.

The easiest way to turn it on is to use F11 or the little shortcut while in sketch mode.

You can tweak how the relax mode works by heading to the new constraints settings dialog.

The key things to take away are that while in Relax mode you can drag entities around and it will update dimensions to new sizes during the drag mode it will make dimensions driven.

It will maintain constraints where it can, but if not it will remove them. Look out for them getting highlighted before it will delete them, obviously this then can leave your sketch not fully constrained.

Take a look at my video which shows this tool in use. Remember once you have made your edit to turn off Relax mode. Also take a look at the help files for more information.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-A70EA377-475A-4A54-86B4-D653ED1708D0