Thanks for the reply, but I think I need to clarify my example. The idea is to be able to create the hole in such a way that it stays in the middle of the face regardless of how I resize the block in any dimension. And that the hole stays round. I don't actually need to do this particularly, but it is a basic use of the tools provided by solid modeling software.

-kyle

Is anyone here familiar with any professional solid modeling software? I have a couple thousand hours of experience with Pro/E and so I suspect I am fairly engrained in their modeling mindset. I am hoping someone here can either get my terminology right or verify that SketchUP can't do what I want.

I am very used to capturing design intent such that I end up with the final result I was looking for rather than dragging stuff back and forth until it happens to be where I wanted it. Let's try a simple example. I have a block with a hole in the middle. I then want to make the block wider but keep it the same height and keep the hole in the middle (which means the hole has moved as the block got wider). Can this be done in SketchUP? Or will I have to manually move the hole if I ever resize the block?

A related question would be, can you setup dimensions so that they control the model rather than just monitoring it?

Regardless, I am a big fan of free (and especially open source...) software. But, SketchUP may just not be able to do what I want. Thanks for any pointers.

-kyle