Associative Dimensions (Concept)

Dimensions can be associative, nonassociative, or exploded. Associative dimensions adjust to changes in the geometric objects that they measure.

Dimension associativity defines the relationship between geometric objects and the dimensions that give their distance and angles. There are three types of associativity between geometric objects and dimensions.

You can determine whether a dimension is associative or nonassociative by selecting the dimension and doing one of the following:

You can also use the Quick Select dialog box to filter the selection of associative or nonassociative dimensions. A dimension is considered associative even if only one end of the dimension is associated with a geometric object. The DIMREASSOCIATE command displays the associative and nonassociative elements of a dimension.

Special Situations and Limitations

You may need to use DIMREGEN to update associative dimensions after panning or zooming with a wheel mouse, after opening a drawing that was modified with an earlier release, or after opening a drawing with external references that have been modified.

Although associative dimensions support most object types that you would expect to dimension, they do not support the following:

Hatches
Multiline objects
2D solids
Objects with nonzero thickness
Images
DWF underlays

When selecting objects to dimension, make sure that the objects that you select don't include a directly overlapping object that does not support associative dimensioning such as a 2D solid.

Associativity is not maintained between a dimension and a block reference if the block is redefined.

Associativity is not maintained between a dimension and a 3D solid if the shape of the 3D solid is modified.

Dimensions created with QDIM are not associative but may be associated individually with DIMREASSOCIATE.

NoteIn releases prior to AutoCAD 2002, the definitions of associative and nonassociative dimensions were different and were controlled by the DIMASO system variable. The behavior of dimensions is now controlled by the DIMASSOC system variable.

For information about working with associative dimensions in combination with previous releases, see Save Drawings to Previous Drawing File Formats.