The second part of a series of updates intended to make designing and data input quicker and easier to understand may I present to you – visual descriptions.

The concept is simple. The text description “UCA length” whilst making sense to common users of this site (Upper Control Arm length) may not mean that much if this is the first time you’ve had to enter the dimension. You can use the glossary to look up the usage but that means navigating to another page and losing the flow of what you’re doing.

After a bit of thought it seemed to me that what is needed is a “live” example of the dimension you’re entering in the form of a label overlaid on the existing model. Need an example? In the above image the focus is the “UCA length” input. On the right of the calculator the dimension displays which part of the model this value relates to. Simple but effective, eh?

Visit the Suspension Geometry Calculator or open one of your existing models to sample visual descriptions yourself.

The final update to this series will allow you to enter dimensions using the ISO8855 and SAE J670e standards.

Part 1 of this series relates to inline dimensioning