Change unit of line width

[lindeloev]

I have a drawing using meters as unit. However, line widths are fixed to use mm as units and range only up to 2.11 mm so all line displays as thin 1 pixels despite efforts to differentiate their thickness. Is there a way to make a line actually display as thick when drawing in larger units, such as meters?

[Clive]

This is standard practice, please explain where you would represent an outline as in a meter unit thickness?

Is this for architectural/construction drawings?

Are you trying to represent wall thicknesses?

[lindeloev]

I am merely trying to make different parts stand out visually using width rather than color. E.g. to make it easy to distinguish a Window from a wall or a hedge from a tree. So the thickness is more like a symbol than a representation of thickness. Color would be another option but doesn't stand out in the same way.

I'm making a quick sketch of our house and garden. Just using QCAD because it's makes it easy to draw to scale.

[Clive]

Sure, understood. QCAD is a generic all-round CAD program, what you are talking about is CAD programs which include or have built in architecture wall drawing tools, which will allow you to draw walls at specific thicknesses all in one shot. QCAD doesn't have a tool like this and it would be time consuming to achieve the same result with it - draw a line, draw another line offset at a desired distance, enclose the line (make a rectangle) fill the line with solid colour to represent a thicker line etc. etc. etc....

Maybe someone can develop a plug-in for this ?

You cant beat QCAD for it's straight forward way of working,if I was using QCAD for sketching my own front and back yard I guess I would use different colours for the walls.

[lindeloev]

Thanks for clarifying! I guess an easy first step would be to allow for selection of unit for line width. QCAD obviously supports line width already, so it just needs to multiply by 1000 for meters relative to millimeters etc. That would still be fully generic.

Anyway, QCAD is still excellent for what I'm trying to do.

[Rtech]

Hi,

I'm also in urgent need of huge width line sizes.
The purpose in my case is to print guidelines for roller glue on top of plans.
This will be colored straight flat-end angled lines at 8.4mm width and zig-zag ones, so since such lines will be many, the only efficient way is by creating them as lines. Otherwise I have to create straight patches which then I have to copy, rotate, resize, place and combine for zig-zag -too time consuming and inconvenient.
Is it possible to change the preset line widths somehow?
If not, is there another CAD software that can do this?
Thanks.

QCAD version 3.15.2 pro
Win 7 64

[andrew]

Rtech: you could use polylines and set the Global Width property to whatever line thickness you need.

See also this thread:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=4534

[Rtech]

Rtech: you could use polylines and set the Global Width property to whatever line thickness you need.

See also this thread:
http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=4534

That's awesome, thanks!

It would be even more awesome if that global width could be set as preset (or last used properties) to avoid adjusting it each time for each line and then have to correct the placement of the line (if the line was drawn at the proper width, no corrections would be necessary).

[Husky]

... to avoid adjusting it each time for each line and then have to correct the placement of the line

Whats about to put all those "glue lines" on an extra layer - at the end of the day select this layer and change the "Global width" in the "Property Editor" in one go ...

[Rtech]

... to avoid adjusting it each time for each line and then have to correct the placement of the line

Whats about to put all those "glue lines" on an extra layer - at the end of the day select this layer and change the "Global width" in the "Property Editor" in one go ...

Well, that would be like parking a number of bikes, imagining you're parking trucks, while doing all the truck maneuvers...