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Customer Forum > KeyCreator CAD & CKD Viewer > Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

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jason@cadcamadvantageinc.com - 9/14/2021 5:24:58 PM

Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

This seems so much harder to understand than 2D or 3D. When I try to teach people how to use this, it is so much more "natural" to explain to them that they are designing in 3D space or 2D space. Z Free or Z lock has no meaning in CAD until you explain it as 2D or 3D. Then and only then does it become understandable. If it was just left alone, this wouldn't be a problem. Who in the world thought it would be a good idea to change this of all things that could be changed in this system??

OK... Rant over. Back to your regular scheduled programs.

Jason Brown
Cad/Cam Advantage, Inc.
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jmccullough@kubotek3d.com - 9/14/2021 6:15:32 PM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

Hey Jason, thanks for bringing this up. I'm the guy that wanted to change this terminology, and our training/support team reviewed it before we implemented it. As far as I know you are the first to question it (but everyone else is welcome to comment too). I am interested to hear more detail from you on this.

The change is meant to help new users from outside the CADKEY/KeyCreator community understand the concept, so your feedback that you are seeing the opposite impact is a bummer. We have a lot of people run trials of the software without a KeyCreator expert there to personally guide them - which are the one's I'm concerned about. I'm guessing you've been explaining this UI to new people for many years and 2D/3D has not been an issue.

I've personally talked to a number of users over the years that did not understand what the 2D/3D switch did. Many assumed it had something to do with drawing vs modeling. A few were setting it without knowing why. When we reviewed it, I specifically wanted a descriptive set of termonology here that would be unique in order to help emphasize the unique power of this option - whcih most CAD programs do not have.

In my view 2D/3D was also an oversimplification. What was formerly called 2D mode is very powerful when you need to project a 3D position to the CPlane XY plane, which itself can be at any 3D orientation.

You guys may be aware that Kubotek is getting ready to introduce new variants of KeyCreator with a new UI which is more "office-friendly" (ribbon and content menus, etc.). These are part of a push to indtroduce KeyCreator to significant numbers of new users and grow the community.

We have been building these as separate products so that we don't force significant interface change on our long time users (which would not be positive for productivity).We have been hopeful that terminology changes and modernizations (without any behavior changes) like this one can be re-learned without much negative impact. We considered leaving some terminology differences between the variant products (ie. not changing 2D/3D to ZLock/ZFree in Pro), but in the long run it didn't seem necessary.

John Wright McCullough
GM Marketing, Kubotek3D

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jason@cadcamadvantageinc.com - 9/14/2021 6:37:13 PM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

Thanks for the reply John. I didn't mean to step on your toes on this as I'm sure you guys do a lot of research before imp[lementing stuff. And to be fair, I teach very few people compared to actual teachers.

I agree, the 2D/3D switch is very powerful and useful and I use it EVERY day. I believe most users do or will just the same. So getting it to be understood correctly is essential for this program to be user intuitive.

To me, the 2D/3D terminology was easy to understand, but I learned it a very long time ago, and so I may be just a bit biased as to how it resonates as to what it does. lol But I find myself stopping for a beat when I need to change it now. I have to repeat to myself, "OK Z free is 3D, Z lock is 2D" and then make the selection. It was second nature before and never skipped a beat on it. It's just a hiccup that, with more time, will hopefully become second nature again. But it's almost embarrasing admitting losing time (albeit very little until it adds up) on what seems like such a trivial command.

I did not know about the variants. Very interesting. I look forward to seeing what they are doing. But even more so, I am extactic that they are leaving the majority of the system for now. I would be utterly lost if they made significatnt changes in the UI. ESPECIALLY ever getting rid of "classic mode". Please be sure they NEVER get rid of that and always have it as an option. F key commands that are memorized can be smashed so much faster than icon clicking, it's not even funny. (insert smiley here)

_ Jason

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Hans_Winkler - 9/14/2021 6:57:54 PM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

I would be utterly lost if they made significatnt changes in the UI. ESPECIALLY ever getting rid of "classic mode". Please be sure they NEVER get rid of that and always have it as an option. F key commands that are memorized can be smashed so much faster than icon clicking, it's not even funny. (insert smiley here)

I TOTALLY AGREE with Jason!

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Soli - 9/15/2021 1:14:46 AM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

I agree with you, Hans, about F key commands.

My fingers remember a lot of key commands, since Cadkey version 5

and I continue to use them.
I can't imagine KeyCreator without these commands.

Solomon Steinberg,
Israel

DELL OPTIPLEX 7050
NVIDIA QUADRO P2000
KEYCREATOR 13.5
KEYCREATOR 2021 SP2

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Dana - 9/15/2021 11:27:44 AM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

Yes, classic mode forever!

But regarding the 2D/3D vs. zlock, I'm one of those who supported the change in terminology as it confused a lot of people, as I learned when I was doing Cadkey tech support and training years ago. People tended to think "2D" meant you were working in 2D, and that's not the case, I told them to think of it as "depth lock"... it simply forced all location picks to a particular depth in 3D space; you're still working in 3D.

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jason@cadcamadvantageinc.com - 9/15/2021 3:13:52 PM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

Dana- " People tended to think "2D" meant you were working in 2D, and that's not the case"

But you are working "2 dimensionally" even though you may be out in "3D space" somewhere. So I still think of this as working in "2D". Everything you do in 2D is like you are writing it on a flat sheet of paper. (Same thing as layout mode) Forgive my ignorance, but how can this not be the case?

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Dana - 9/16/2021 7:49:55 AM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

jason@cadcamadvantageinc.com wrote: But you are working "2 dimensionally" even though you may be out in "3D space" somewhere. So I still think of this as working in "2D". Everything you do in 2D is like you are writing it on a flat sheet of paper. (Same thing as layout mode) Forgive my ignorance, but how can this not be the case?

But that's not what it's for, or at least not how I use it. Say I have a solid with some holes in it. Below it, but not touching, I have another solid into which I want to put some blind holes in line with the first solid. I set the depth to the top face of the second solid (where the blilnd holes will go) and set zlock ("2D"). Now when I select the center of the holes in the first solid, the position will snap to the depth I set on the top of the second solid, and the holes will be the correct depth.

Or maybe I'm inserting a solid primitive, I need it to be a certain distance below and in line with something else, I set the depth to where I want the new solid to be and use zlock to make it insert at that depth without having to use offset position entry.

I'm not working in 2D at all, just temporarily locking the construction depth. Zlock.

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jason@cadcamadvantageinc.com - 9/16/2021 9:35:16 AM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

Understood. And that's a great explanation. Yes, I see it as locking the construction depth in 3D space. But if you were doing this in any kind of skewed view, (Which I think most of us do? or you wouldn't be able too see the second solid under the first) you would need to be sure you were utilizing the world/CPlane switch correctly as well as the Z value setting. Which means you understand you ARE working 2 dimensionally after all.

I understand this is just a terminology difference and some of us (if not just one of us, lol) are going to have to get used to it.

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Soli - 9/16/2021 9:42:53 AM

RE:Why not 2D/3D anymore and where in the world did Z Free and Z Lock come from??

I wrote and I use an utility to set the construction plane and 2D depth.
This helps me to place fasteners in the correct place by selecting center holes which are in different depth.

===================================================

// Begin Macro Record

// This Macro is intended to be a Macro Script

set Const3D , 1

MASKCLEAR

MaskEntity 3 , 43

Prompt "SELECT A FACE OR A CIRCLE; PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE" , 3

WAIT 0.5

callfunc 0xAA21// Select a new cplane

CLEAR position , hPosEnt

DOUBLE position[3]

HEntity hPosEnt

type_pos=0

Set PosSnap, 1

Set PosSnapPnt, 0

Set PosSnapEnd, 0

Set PosSnapCtr, 0

Set PosSnapMid, 0

Set PosSnapQuad, 0

Set PosSnapTan, 0

Set PosSnapX3D, 0

Set PosSnapX2D, 0

Set PosSnapCtr, 1

GETPOS "SELECT A POINT FOR DEPTH", type_pos, position , ,hPosEnt

if (@key == -3)

goto end

set Depth , @ZCPLANE

notestate

set Const3D , 0

notestate

:end

MaskClear
======================================

Solomon Steinberg,
Israel

DELL OPTIPLEX 7050
NVIDIA QUADRO P2000
KEYCREATOR 13.5
KEYCREATOR 2021 SP2

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