PERP Osnap misbehavior

[vrphillips]

I have a few running osnaps set, including Perpendicular, which seems to be misbehaving. Attempting to execute a drawing command, such as Line, Circle, etc, I would expect my FIRST pick to pop to an Intersection or Endpoint or Midpoint, but AutoCAD repeatedly prefers to use the Perp osnap, on the FIRST pick. How is this possible? How can the first pick be perpendicular to anything? Second pick, sure- that makes sense, but the FIRST pick point just can't be perpendicular to anything . . . can it? PERP even jumps ahead of Nearest. Doesn't matter if magnet is on or off- tried it both ways.
We are running Acad 2011, but I have been observing this same behavior since Acad 2008. Thoughts? Suggestions?

[rkmcswain]

How can the first pick be perpendicular to anything? Second pick, sure- that makes sense, but the FIRST pick point just can't be perpendicular to anything . . . can it?

Yes it can. After picking a point, you should get a rubber-band line showing that your next picked point will construct a perpendicular to the entity to which you first snapped.

[vrphillips]

Yes it can. After picking a point, you should get a rubber-band line showing that your next picked point will construct a perpendicular to the entity to which you first snapped.

But I'm referring to the very first pick point- that's when the PERP osnap shows up. It doesn't seem as though the first pick can be perpendicular to anything; for the second pick, there may be a perpendicular, but not the first.

[rkmcswain]

But I'm referring to the very first pick point- that's when the PERP osnap shows up. It doesn't seem as though the first pick can be perpendicular to anything; for the second pick, there may be a perpendicular, but not the first.

That is the same thing that I am talking about also. See below. All I'm doing is running the LINE command each time.

http://cadpanacea.com/tmp/perp-firstptOsnap.gif

[cadtag]

RKs right -- that behavior has been normal for a while. IIRC it did not always work that way, but originally only applied on the second pick. So far I've not found a whole lof of need for the current behavior, and still use PERp primarily on the second pick. Habit maybe.

However, if PERp is taking unwanted priority when it's in your running osnaps, why not just drop it from the running set, and key it in on those occasions when you want it?

[jaberwok]

PERpendicular does seems to take priority - there is a whole thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=84752) (partly) about it.