circle drawing and patterns option

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marS
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circle drawing and patterns option

Post by marS » Mon Jul 15, 2013 11:11 am

First, thankyou for your work. I recently started using QCAD and I'm liking it.
I have 2 thoughts/suggestions:

1) tangent circle
Do you guys plan on adding the option to draw a circle tangent to two other circles? Like in the latest versions of LibreCad.

2) about drawing paterns
This is a bit complicated.. I wonder if it's possible at all to do.
Let's say I have a square and I'm drawing something on it. On another window I have the same square repeated horizontally and vertically.
Each time I draw something on the single square, in the window with the repeated square, I see the same drawing on each square.
This is useful because I don't have to copy and paste the drawing each time to see how it looks on a repeated pattern.
I hope it was clear. Maybe an add-on or a plug-in may do this I'm not sure.

Thanks again!!

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Clive
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Re: circle drawing and patterns option

Post by Clive » Mon Jul 15, 2013 11:59 am

marS wrote: I recently started using QCAD and I'm liking it.
Hi marS and welcome to the forum, yes QCAD is a great 2D CAD program to use :wink:
marS wrote: I have 2 thoughts/suggestions:

1) tangent circle
Do you guys plan on adding the option to draw a circle tangent to two other circles? Like in the latest versions of LibreCad.

2) about drawing paterns
This is a bit complicated.. I wonder if it's possible at all to do.
Let's say I have a square and I'm drawing something on it. On another window I have the same square repeated horizontally and vertically.
Each time I draw something on the single square, in the window with the repeated square, I see the same drawing on each square.
This is useful because I don't have to copy and paste the drawing each time to see how it looks on a repeated pattern.
I hope it was clear. Maybe an add-on or a plug-in may do this I'm not sure.
Thanks again!!
Please feel free to add feature requests here: (its a good place to submit them, so they don't get forgotten! :wink: )
http://www.qcad.org/bugtracker/

Both your suggestions sound good to me, 'circle tangent to two other circles' - yes what a benefit to the circle tool set this would make!

Regarding the dynamic multiple copying idea - wow 8) , this sounds cool. What an excellent suggestion - and what a 'plug-in' this would make, I could see the potential time saving this would add for pattern designing.

marS
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Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:41 am

Re: circle drawing and patterns option

Post by marS » Mon Jul 15, 2013 3:28 pm

I know maybe QCAD is more a professional, technical sw but having this option with the precision drawing of QCAD, would be perfect.. at least for me (I'm a graphic designer) Maybe for most users it's useless.

Do you guys know the site myoats?
Just with a few lines it generates paterns in a circle and shows the result in real time.
The only problem you have to draw online.. you don't have the precision of a CAD sw.

p.s.
I know this is even more complex than the one I wrote earlier, but it's just a thought :mrgreen:

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Clive
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Re: circle drawing and patterns option

Post by Clive » Mon Jul 15, 2013 4:04 pm

marS wrote: Maybe for most users it's useless.
Not at all, something like this would be absolutely fantastic - however I'm not sure how difficult/time consuming something like this would be for Andrew to implement, only he can advise you on this!
marS wrote:Do you guys know the site myoats?
Just with a few lines it generates paterns in a circle and shows the result in real time.
Just had a look - really clever 8)
Anyways...for now this workaround may (or may not) help you out ?

Using the Move/Copy tool is a good way of creating a rectangular array, which may speed things up a little, rather than lots of copy and paste work.
Example:
1.Draw your pattern (notice the use of the grid).
Pattern repeat 1.png
Pattern repeat 1.png (3.02 KiB) Viewed 15816 times
2. When finished, select all and use the Move/Copy tool.
Follow the prompts in the command line for - Reference point and Target point.
Pattern repeat 2.png
Pattern repeat 2.png (33.11 KiB) Viewed 15816 times
3. Once the 'Target' point has been defined, the Move/Copy dialog window will open with options. Choose the 'Multiple' option and the number quantity.
Pattern repeat 3.png
Pattern repeat 3.png (18.92 KiB) Viewed 15816 times
4.Repeat the process again, this time selecting the whole row and the end result should be something like this!
Pattern repeat 4.png
Pattern repeat 4.png (11.48 KiB) Viewed 15816 times

marS
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Re: circle drawing and patterns option

Post by marS » Mon Jul 15, 2013 7:24 pm

Thanks, clive for taking the time to explain in such detail!! :mrgreen:
This is exactly how I do it now.

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Clive
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Re: circle drawing and patterns option

Post by Clive » Mon Jul 15, 2013 7:32 pm

marS wrote:Thanks, clive for taking the time to explain in such detail!! :mrgreen:
Sure, no problem.
marS wrote:This is exactly how I do it now.
Oh well, it may be useful for others. I thought you were just using the Copy/Paste tool as you mentioned in your first post. Anyways I still think you have nothing to lose by submitting a feature request via the link I posted :wink: .

marS
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Re: circle drawing and patterns option

Post by marS » Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:20 pm

Well let's see if the suggestion is liked by more people in this discussion, I'll add it there.
I don't know how such a feature could be named :roll:

I think I'll do a search also on Google to see if I find any video sw utility that lets you repeat a selected portion of the screen.
I'll let you know if I find anything :mrgreen:

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