Surface Texture Tool

Surface Texture Tool
This tool lets you place a surface roughness or texture dimensioning symbol in a drawing. The tool is installed in the Dimension Tools palette and must be turned on for testing from the Test Tool in NewTools.

The tool uses the Leader Text style (see Line Styles).

The size of the symbol is set relative to the font size chosen for the tool.

To set the behavior of the tool, press the Option key and select the Surface Texture tool from the Dimensions Tools palette.

The dialog is highly tutorial because the terminology may be new to many users. You may select to use microinch or micrometer. Click on the arrow to the left of the texture ruler to switch units. A microinch is one millionth of an inch, or 0.000001". A micrometer is one millionth of a meter, one thousandth of a millimeter, or 0.001mm. (The average diameter of a human hair is about 2000 microinches.)

The most common, or recommended, choices are shown in the texture ruler. There are additional choices in the preferred series, click on the arrow at the right end of the texture ruler to make these available.

If you click on the Help button at the bottom center of the dialog, the dialog will turn into a help screen

that will show the typical ranges of textures produced by various methods, plus photographic examples of what these look like on the right side of the dialog.

To use the tool, click on a line or flat side of any object, or on a circle or circular arc, then move the mouse. If the flat side is at an angle, the symbol will be rotated parallel to the side, and you may press the Option key to toggle between this presentation and a horizontal depiction. Move the mouse away from the side to get a leader, and beyond each end of the flat side to get an extension line.

You may also press the Option key and click and drag in the drawing to draw a surface texture symbol with a leader.