Reference Planes and Drag Controls

After some confusion at work around drag controls and the different way reference planes can affect families, I quickly threw this together. I hope it helps anyone else that has been confused by the topic.

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Drag controls will be automatically created when an ‘instance-based’ dimension is created between two reference planes.

​The process is:
1.    Create a reference place and create your ‘instance-based’ dimension.

2.    Check you are not dimensioning to a level or face, otherwise, the drag controls won’t appear.

3.    Check the ‘Is reference’ property of the reference plane. This property will affect your family in these ways:
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• Not a Reference - This type of reference plane can’t be aligned to or dragged when inserted into the project.
• Strong Reference – This type of reference plane can be aligned to and dragged when inserted into the project. However, its drag controls will drag your whole family.
• Weak Reference – This type of reference plane can also be aligned to and dragged when inserted into the project. However, its drag controls will stretch your family.
• Left, Right, Front, Back, etc (the rest of them) – The rest are all strong reference planes with fun names!

4.    Insert your family and start stretching and dragging!
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​(Note: Drag controls in projects are only visible 2D views.)