Display resolution with alibre

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Quite by fluke I found out last friday, with a few hours to spare that i could buy Alibre 3d for $99 with the black friday deal. I have been playing with freecad but was fed up with bugs so I took the plunge having only used the free version of alibre for a few hours.

Then I found that there was an aissue with constraints. I could not get the mouse pointer to select items I could not get various activities to work. I emailed Alibre & the first reply was that my laptop -A dell Inspiron 1505000 running windows 11 is not really up to the job. They recommend

Hardware-Accelerated GPU scheduling is set to “On”.- I do not have a clue what that is

Then they recommend a resolution of 3840-2160 at 225%

The best I can get is 1920-1080 at 175%

The trouble is that at 175% I get very large desctop icons . & all other displays are affected.ie firefox task bar is silly size

I have to admit that I can select the nodes easier though

So first question is – can some computer expert tell me how to get best resolution & % for Alibre but leave everything as it was for the rest of my laptop,

The second issue I have- which has not been answered is that I have drawn a plate ( rectangle) in which I want to drill 3 holes of equal size along one edge. I can get the holes equal size Ok but I cannot work out how to get the middle hole to come half way along the plate with the other 2 holes an equal distance from that one

I have to do it by arrithmetic & place it a set dimension from one corner– or place it on an axis- but if the axis is not central to the plate then that does not work

Surely I should be able to position the outer 2 holes then the middle one should be made central to them by some equal constraint

Any solutions please

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Most lines in a sketch have a mid point so you should be able to place the central hole to that, as your mouse gets close it will show as a black node.

Another way if you know the length of the edge say Xmm is to place the first hole at random and then dimension that from one end as X/4mm. Then use a linear pattern to add the other two hole , again using X/4mm as the spacing

Can’t help with the other bit.

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Jason

Thanks for the response

So am I correct in thinking that I should draw a line beteen the 2 outer circles. Then look for a node on the line & draw the third central circle on that node. Have I got that correct

If I move one of the circles should it automatically move the middle circle?

Presumably it will if the line stays in place

If so Thanks

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Right

Gottit

Thanks

I note that the mouse has quite large blue square bits where it locates over the nodes . I have a job getting the mouse to connect with the node as there is just a tiny dot in the centre of a cross. So when I go to draw a line from the centre of a circle I cannot because it will not attach itself. this might be something to do with the snap. On the other hand it might have something to do with my only having resolution set at 125%

What do you have them set at please

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

There are several ways this could be done.  You could add reference line between outer holes then place mid hole on the mid-point of that line.

You could use symmetry constraints to fix outer holes equi-distant from a reference axis, and place central hole on that axis.

Place central hole in line with mid point of the plate, set outer holes equi-distant from mid hole – at least a couple of variations on how to achieve that.

Set dimension between outer holes and set distance to mid hole as half that distance, letting the software do the sums so that if initial distance is changed you don’t have to re-calculate.

 

I don’t understand the screen resolution recommendations – you live with what you have, unless choosing new hardware from scratch.

Check the Alibre help file,  search ‘ hardware accelerated’ that should find an article that explains the Windows setting for this (if supported by your graphics hardware).

I will be manning Alibre Help Desk tomorrow (Thursday) from about 0800 UK time, feel free to send a specific query to support if you need more help.

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

I have been playing with the display resolution & checke d the driver update. Suddenly the mouse pointed now selects the nodes & i am able to make lines connect correctly. I am having better success with the constraints as well. So perhaps there is some issue which is computer related rather than software. I am still having problems with the move command. I have to exit sketch then re enter it to get the move drop down box to work. But at least i can now work round that one.

So thanks for those that have taken the trouble to reply

Sam L

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I’m on 100% and 1680 x 1050 which is the default for my PC and never been changed

Also never use the move command.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Sam,

For me I can use it multiple times without problem in a single session, either repeatedly using the move dialogue without closing, or if I close and re-open the move dialogue.

See my answer from Alibre Help Desk – can do a screenshare if helpful.

 

[Sam Longley 1]

On Sam Longley 1 Said:

 

I note that the mouse has quite large blue square bits where it locates over the nodes . I have a job getting the mouse to connect with the node as there is just a tiny dot in the centre of a cross. So when I go to draw a line from the centre of a circle I cannot because it will not attach itself. this might be something to do with the snap.

The blue square that appears when near a node or similar indicates that you are within snapping range – you can adjust the snapping threshold value in the range 0 – 5mm.  It is accessed through    System Options -> Parts/Assemblies -> Sketching  ,  it’s the last item at the bottom of the dialogue.

[David Jupp]

On David Jupp Said:

On Sam Longley 1 Said:

 

I note that the mouse has quite large blue square bits where it locates over the nodes . I have a job getting the mouse to connect with the node as there is just a tiny dot in the centre of a cross. So when I go to draw a line from the centre of a circle I cannot because it will not attach itself. this might be something to do with the snap.

The blue square that appears when near a node or similar indicates that you are within snapping range – you can adjust the snapping threshold value in the range 0 – 5mm.  It is accessed through    System Options -> Parts/Assemblies -> Sketching  ,  it’s the last item at the bottom of the dialogue.

Yes I sussed that already. but it just appeared as a tiny dot regardless of the snap intensity. Now it does appear as it should. I have downloaded a new imtel graphics driver & the blue mouse nodde now shows.

I noticed that the move command is now working properly as well. Also the activate sketch command works every time. Before I had to press the refresh button otherwise it sometimes froze when I entered sketch mode.

I am also able to run on the windows recommended 125% rather than the alibre recommended 250%

I think that my next move will be to update my laptop in the new year..

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Sam,  where do you get this ‘Alibre recommended 250%’ from?

I don’t see anything about that in the Help Desk records, so am wondering who gave that suggestion – it clearly isn’t helpful.  Even with 3840×2160 monitor, I only use 200% scaling.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Well done you, I missed that one

I’m 1024 x 768 and things are fine with a 14 year old computer on win 7

I use a 5 button intellimouse optical because they are so good, does gaming etc, the lot, about 40 bananas from china on ebay

Re: selecting stuff, Your computer is probably too slow probably because of the amount of background tasks windows is doing, increasing the resolution will make things worse lol

My GPU is GEforce GTX 745 (2014), your GPU is from 2017

So try reducing the resolution = less work for your card

If you want to experiment with different computers you can download Alibre to a different computer

Make a note of your licence details

Then release your licence back to Alibre via the utilities tab

Then get your licence back on the new computer

Welcome to the club, after the early period of insanity you will have no regrets

[Sam Longley 1]

On 6 December 2023 at 20:10 Sam Longley 1 Said:

… They recommendHardware-Accelerated GPU scheduling is set to “On”.- I do not have a clue what that is

…

It’s an Operating System setting that allows the GPU and CPU to share work.   Normally the Central Processing Unit does Input-Output, ordinary maths and executes ordinary programs whilst the Graphical Processing Unit does high-speed arithmetic on large blocks of floating point numbers.  Vectors and matrices are particularly suited to the gazillions of calculations needed to manipulate images, where the position of millions of pixels change, in a video game at 32 frames per second.   However, it’s often useful for a computer program to use the GPU for any maths involving large blocks of floating-point numbers, and it may also be faster for a GPU to get the CPU to work on small blocks.   Lots of interesting trade-offs depending on the characteristics of a CPU/GPU/memory combination in a particular machine.   No harm done by setting Hardware-Accelerated GPU scheduling “On”, so why not try it.  If it helps Alibre will run faster, but depending on the exact hardware Alibre might run slower or no difference.

The control is in Window Settings->Display.  Full how-to description here.

The best resolution question is more complicated – see other answers!

Dave

 

[David Jupp]

On David Jupp Said:

Sam,  where do you get this ‘Alibre recommended 250%’ from?

I don’t see anything about that in the Help Desk records, so am wondering who gave that suggestion – it clearly isn’t helpful.  Even with 3840×2160 monitor, I only use 200% scaling.

Sorry I should have quoted 225%

It is in the instructions emailed to me

https://help.alibre.com/articles/#!alibre-help-v27/hardware-accelerated-gpu-scheduling/q/scheduling/qid/39945/qp/1

hich is where I got the recommended resolution from- (which I cannot acheive)

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

Sam,

That is not a recommendation – those settings merely reflect the settings on the computer where the screenshots for that article were taken.

The instructions in the article are about enabling hardware accelerated graphics scheduling, at no point does the article instruct making any changes to display resolution.

It’s just the items outlined by red boxes in the screenshots that you should be looking at (as detailed in the text outside the screenshots).

[Ady1]

On Ady1 Said:

Well done you, I missed that one

I’m 1024 x 768 and things are fine with a 14 year old computer on win 7

I use a 5 button intellimouse optical because they are so good, does gaming etc, the lot, about 40 bananas from china on ebay

Re: selecting stuff, Your computer is probably too slow probably because of the amount of background tasks windows is doing, increasing the resolution will make things worse lol

My GPU is GEforce GTX 745 (2014), your GPU is from 2017

So try reducing the resolution = less work for your card

If you want to experiment with different computers you can download Alibre to a different computer

Make a note of your licence details

Then release your licence back to Alibre via the utilities tab

Then get your licence back on the new computer

Welcome to the club, after the early period of insanity you will have no regrets

On Ady1 Said:

 

 

 

Welcome to the club, after the early period of insanity you will have no regrets

I am sure that I will get there but it is 20 years since I last used CAD. I first started using it in my busines when I purchased Autocad version 3 on an XT . I needed a bucket to collect the tears from my eyes from looking at the green screen. It was a revelation to get an NEC colour monitor.

 

[Sam Longley 1]

On 6 December 2023 at 20:10 Sam Longley 1 Said:

Quite by fluke I found out last friday, with a few hours to spare that i could buy Alibre 3d for $99 with the black friday deal.

 

Alibre Atom 3D: £79 ($99) in the US.  £199 in the  UK.

Rod

 

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