Topic Title

Here's a wish. This was always something I've wished for,
but now that I'm doing in-house plan checking, I see the
problem all the time. How about a feature for "partial"
associative dimensions? These would allow dimensions on
a partial plan to remain associative, but to be invisible
past the "cut line" of the partial.

We make heavy use of partial plans, and a large pain is when
the many changes occur to the main plan, the dimensions need
to also be updated on the partial plans. The dimensions on
the main plan are associative, but exploded to unassociative
on the partial plans, requiring both a manual calculation
and a manual change to the exploded dimension text. Further
complicating matters is that partial plans are usually
slightly different, because of elevation style variations,
options, etc, so that any like-changes result in differing
dimension values. Often, these exploded dimensions are
stretched the same distance as the main plan, but the user
can forget this, and the resulting dimension values are
now incorrect. It's almost impossible to keep the dimension
values correct and up-to-date on parital plans the way things
stand. Just a wish.

Oh, I forgot to add, that for dimensions that are cut off by a cut line, we
graphically add an arrow at the cut line to indicate that the dimension
continues past the cut line. Maybe something like this could be added
both to be useful and to distinguish between other types of dimensions.

Are you using Xrefs for your partials? This sounds like an clipped xref (or self-ref) with the main plans associated dims turned on would do the trick for you. Can you post some screen shot examples of your situations for a closer look.

Josh,
No, we're not using Xref's for our partials. By definition, we cut the
partials because they're different from the main plan. A French
style may have inset windows where Craftsman doesn't, but to keep the
rooms the same size, we may pop-out the French walls 8" or whatever.
So the French house might be 8" deeper in overall dimension string, and
this has to be reflected on the partial plans. Everything behind the cut
line is the same, plan wise. But dimensions often need to change across
the board, and when you have one plan with assoc and the partial with
exploded, it causes confusion. Maybe I'll try to work up a simple cad
layout to show you.

I don't think we need a layout now, you explained it well. I think the key idea for now if possible would be to make your cut line after an entity that could be used as a standard point of reference from the main plan that you can dim to in your partial plan and keep all your dims associated.

Another idea would be to create a symbol of a partial dimension with your special arrows and notations as symbol attributes. I think this would work very well in this situation. If your not actually dimensioning to something else, the need for an associated dim doesn't really make since, to me at least at this point in the discussion. Any other ideas?