Global Linetype scale ....

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Husky
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Global Linetype scale ....

Post by Husky » Tue Oct 15, 2013 7:51 pm

Recently I have seen a couple times topics regarding "Global Linetype scale". It is also something what confuse me. The default value is 1 what is set for mm. Right?

My question is:
Would it be not much more confident if this scale would response directly to the chosen drawing unit? If I like to draw in meters the default Global Linetype would change automatically from 1 to 1000 and the user has always the same Line effect in all his drawings. I'm absolutely sure that 95% off all user like to have the same line attributes in all types (units) of drawing - why they have to adjust this value separately?

Do I miss something?

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andrew
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Re: Global Linetype scale ....

Post by andrew » Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:48 pm

The global linetype scale is not logically connected to the drawing unit.

Basically, line patterns are made for printouts and defined to look good on paper. In the print preview and for printing, the global linetype scale should almost always be 1 or very close to 1, independent of the drawing unit or the drawing scale.

For example a dashed line with a line weight of 1mm is always rendered with 12mm dashes and 6mm gaps if the global linetype scale is 1.

In model space, there is no paper size, drawing scale, etc, so it is simply not possible for QCAD to know how the line patterns should be displayed. I understand that this is inconvenient, but I haven't found a solution yet which is completely satisfactory and compatible with other products.

One possibility would be to view the screen as 'paper' in model space and display line type patterns to look good on the screen. This would mean that dashes would have a constant size in model space and not increase when zooming in (like in QCAD 2). However, this is relatively costly since dashes have to be recalculated whenever the zoom level changes. It also makes line patterns unpredictable in model space (a text might be placed in the drawing so it does not overlap with the dashes of a dashed line - this is not possible if dashes are constant and independent of the zoom level).

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Husky
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Re: Global Linetype scale ....

Post by Husky » Wed Oct 16, 2013 7:47 pm

andrew wrote:The global linetype scale is not logically connected to the drawing unit.
Happens to me all the time - I just think to "simple" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Joke aside. I see now that this is much more complex than I thought. Thank you for the explanation! Good to know that you are aware of the inconvenience and I look forward to see (soon?) a solution with which you maybe will come up ...

Thanks!

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