Tracing vintage model glider plans - curved elements
Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:50 am
I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on how I'm going about the following:
I'm using QCAD Pro to trace vintage model glider plans.
Aside from issues associated with poor scans or drafting errors, it's a fairly simple task. Tracing curved components such as wingtips, rudders, fuselage can be more or less difficult based on how simple the shape and line quality. I've used the following methods:
-Formers are often elliptical, those are easy.
-Use different shaped circles and ellipses, play with size and angle. It could take a couple circles and an ellipse to rough out one tip. The next step I typical use the spline tool set to snap to entity and cherry pick the underlying form.
-create a series of cross hatches the intersecting points describe the curve the connect the dots with spline tool.
Then typically I'll explode the spline, select the new entity and move to the proper layer if it isn't there.
I'd love to find some tricks. This kind of task can flow easily or fight me to no end. I'm not sure my results are as smooth as I'd like them. This is likely a slightly screwball task, reminds me of land surveying...... You try to find a few known landmarks, look for as many known measurements as you can find published, then you can of walk it out, do your circuit and hope you end on the point you started at.
I'd appreciate any tips or critique of my current method.
Thanks,
-Robert
I'm using QCAD Pro to trace vintage model glider plans.
Aside from issues associated with poor scans or drafting errors, it's a fairly simple task. Tracing curved components such as wingtips, rudders, fuselage can be more or less difficult based on how simple the shape and line quality. I've used the following methods:
-Formers are often elliptical, those are easy.
-Use different shaped circles and ellipses, play with size and angle. It could take a couple circles and an ellipse to rough out one tip. The next step I typical use the spline tool set to snap to entity and cherry pick the underlying form.
-create a series of cross hatches the intersecting points describe the curve the connect the dots with spline tool.
Then typically I'll explode the spline, select the new entity and move to the proper layer if it isn't there.
I'd love to find some tricks. This kind of task can flow easily or fight me to no end. I'm not sure my results are as smooth as I'd like them. This is likely a slightly screwball task, reminds me of land surveying...... You try to find a few known landmarks, look for as many known measurements as you can find published, then you can of walk it out, do your circuit and hope you end on the point you started at.
I'd appreciate any tips or critique of my current method.
Thanks,
-Robert