Where does every design start? A simple sketch. 

Well some sketches can get quite complicated with a variety of sketch entities. It is best to define your sketches correctly to capture the project’s design intent and ensure that your design will update correctly with design changes. This often requires the use of an aligned dimension. Aligned dimensions can be created with the standard dimensioning tool in a sketch to align a dimension with the entity being dimensioned. In Fusion 360, the preview of the dimension will disappear when the cursor is hovering near the aligned sketch entity. This is the time you will want to click and the dimension will convert to an aligned dimension. 

In addition, the aligned dimension can be used to define the minimum distance between two sketch points or entities.  Watch this video to see how the aligned dimension is used in Fusion 360’s sketches. Pay attention until the end to see how an aligned dimension can be converted back to a horizontal/vertical dimension.