AutoCAD - QCAD Hybrid Users

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IanVG
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Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2021 2:27 pm

AutoCAD - QCAD Hybrid Users

Post by IanVG » Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:10 pm

Posting this from a reply to a different topic, as this seemed more appropriate for a discussion of its own. I'm curious if there are any other users that want to use/already use QCAD, but have the additional requirement of working with these files in AutoCAD. Anyways any kind of posts/responses are totally acceptable here!
IanVG wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:10 pm
I'm interested in this thread as well. Except that I'd like to add, that I want to use QCAD to create (preferably) .dxf's or (if necessary) .dwg's for cross-software operability. Put more simply, I want to create drawings in QCAD and then view them in their native file format in AutoCAD (I work with others who exclusively use AutoCAD).

Right now, I'm coming across issues with line type scaling for drawing a schematic in QCAD - it prints and shows up fine in the QCAD environment, but in AutoCAD I need to mess with LTS to get the hidden lines to show up properly dashed. I'm going to play around with drawing much longer lines (instead of drawing them within the 36"x24" sheet that print off on) and see what that changes. I'm also having trouble with text not showing up correctly in AutoCAD and some issues with blocks, but again, this may be due to the fact that initially brought all these shapes with a .dwg drawing from AutoCAD.

Anyways, if nothing else, I'll just update on personal pointers to avoid problems when working with both AutoCAD and QCAD. Any other hybrid users out there?

Edit: Typo, in hindsight this post is more appropriate for an entirely different topic post.
Edit 2: I just found out that multi-line text is a source of problems with working between QCAD and AutoCAD... I'll see what work-arounds/minimum effort workflow is best for working with these kinds of objects.

Edit 3: One neat feature of using both QCAD and AutoCAD is that you can setup the viewport in the layout in QCAD so much easier than in AutoCAD, so the only work you need to do in AutoCAD is using pagesetup to get the plot scaled to the window of your title-block or whatever.

Edit 4: One fix I've found for the line-type scaling issue is just to first thing change the LTS in AutoCAD to something that works for you (for me it was 0.025). But this is only because (maybe a mistake?) I modeled in QCAD at a scale of 1:1. The line-type works well there, but not in AutoCAD at default settings. In addition, I think that since QCAD doesn't support annotative blocks and all that jazz, I will just stick with having different files for different kinds of scaled drawings so I don't have to deal with the clutter of a bunch of blocks in QCAD. E.g. having a "Project-Name"-Schematic.dxf for a 1:1 and a "Project-Name"-1-4.dxf for a 1/4" = 1' scale. Seems like the best solution so far.

Edit 5: The crux of getting printed lines to show up the same is the global linetype scale. The same value will not produce the same kind of line from QCAD to AutoCAD. I'm thinking that maybe a plot scale or annotation scale setting in AutoCAD is the way to overcome this.

Duncan Lithgow
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Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2020 5:00 pm

Re: AutoCAD - QCAD Hybrid Users

Post by Duncan Lithgow » Sun Jan 09, 2022 9:23 pm

IanVG wrote:
Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:10 pm
...
Great that I'm not the only one trying to make this work! As your comments suggest scaling seem to be the main problem. I've just opened a file my wife has made in ACAD and the scales seem to be a problem. I have access to both so maybe we can do some testing together. Disappointing how slow QCAD is on large drawings. This was a 1 Mb Autocad DWG, then a 4 Mb sluggish QCAD DXF.

CVH
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Joined: Wed Sep 27, 2017 4:17 pm

Re: AutoCAD - QCAD Hybrid Users

Post by CVH » Sun Jan 09, 2022 11:21 pm

Duncan,

You may read on the forum that QCAD is not an ACAD clone nor that it is intended to 'replace' it.
In the past, several huge and/or problematic files where posted and in most cases the 'sluggish' nature could be fixed.
Most of the time it boils down to keeping things simple. Why over-complicating things only because you can?
Straight splines are just lines, round ellipses are circles or arcs, hatching at scale 0.001 are solid fills ...

Not so long ago a 10Mb dxf aside several other large and complex files where no issue whatsoever.
I run it on 32bit and it seems that I usually have an edge over 64 bits.

Indeed, QCAD handels dxf entities in a different manner and there will be an end to what is possible/acceptable.
In several of such cases Andrew has simply proposed a refund.

About LTS I can only add that I like the 'Screen-based LineTypes' solution of QCAD.
One can't compare a screen dpi with a printer/plotter dpi by far.
When printed I can't find anything mathematically wrong in the patterns or weights.
From your words it seems that ACAD does, but I find many reports over ACAD 'misbehaving' too.
The fixes are usually some 'dark' settings or commands that need to be run.

I would like to see what the major problems are in an example file + the generated outputs in pdf.
Isolate the issues, document them in full and report them.

Regards,
CVH

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