Engineering Reference

True position

The theoretically exact location of a feature, from which positional tolerance is measured.

Definition

True position is a diameter-based tolerance zone centred on the basic (boxed) dimension. A position callout of ⌀0.5 means the feature's axis must lie within a 0.5 mm diameter cylinder centred on true position — not within 0.5 mm in each direction, which would be a square zone and a much larger tolerance.

The round zone is deliberate: it gives equal tolerance in every direction, which is what a fastener needs.

Common misuse

Reading a ⌀ position tolerance as a ± tolerance. ⌀0.5 is not ±0.25 — the round zone is 27% larger in area than the equivalent square, deliberately.

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