How to add dimensioning in paper space not in model space?

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nagmat84
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Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:05 pm

How to add dimensioning in paper space not in model space?

Post by nagmat84 » Thu Jul 09, 2015 4:10 pm

I am using the free, community edition of QCAD for private use. Years ago I used AutoCAD at work and I am missing a feature that I was used to use back then.

In AutoCAD I draw the model 1:1 with the actual dimensions in the model space. In order to prepare one or more printouts I switch to paper space, define a so-called view port on the paper and assign a scale (e.g. 1:100) and an offset to the viewport such that a certain fragment of my model is displayed on the paper. Everything else (frame, labels, annotation, revision number) are drawn in the paper space. This way it is possible to have different "views" (prepared printouts) of the same model being stored in the file.

(a) I do not see how I do the same in QCAD. If I switch to printing preview I can select one particular scale for the whole model. Then I can try to place the whole model on the paper. But I do not see how I can draw "directly on the paper" to add a frame etc. that is not part of the actual model but only exists for the printout.

In AutoCAD I was used to add dimensions, arrows and tips not to the model but to the paper space. This way the labels of the dimensioning always had the correct size independent of the selected scale. An an example let's assume the text of the dimension shall always have 2.5mm height if it is printed. If I draw a huge object (with extent around 10thousands of millimeters), I add the dimensioning to the model space and then print it at a scale of 1:1000, then the text of the dimensioning is also scaled to 0.0025mm. Of course, as a workaround I could inversely scale the dimensioning to 2500mm in the model space, but this approach has three major drawbacks: (1) It is not semantically correct. The dimensions are not part of the model. (2) I anticipate the scale of the printing. If I choose to print at a different scale in order to highlight a certain detail, the dimensioning becomes to huge/small again. (3) I cannot add different numbers of dimensions depending on whether I print an overview (which needs less dimensioning) or a particular fragment (which needs detailed dimensioning.)



Hence, my sencond question:

(b) How to I add dimensioning in the paper space?

Thanks, Matthias

EDIT: [Topic moved to relevant forum]

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Clive
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Re: How to add dimensioning in paper space not in model spac

Post by Clive » Fri Jul 10, 2015 10:31 am

Hi Matthias
In QCAD everything you add in the print preview will indeed be visible in your model space, the way to go is to use the model space (your main drawing area) for everything, using dedicated layers for dimensions, borders, annotations etc. then when in the print preview you can toggle the visibility of the layers as you need to - in practice once you adopt this method in QCAD it becomes very easy indeed.

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