Am I using blocks correctly?
Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 2:25 am
I'm an utter novice at QCad, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was going about this all wrong. If there's a better way I'd love to hear it!
The problem I'm trying to solve: I want to create a blueprint of an existing house. It has a basement, a 1st floor and a 2nd floor. I'd like to create three layers for each floor: one for the floor plan proper, one for electrical, one for plumbing. Right now I'm working on just the 2nd floor (it's smaller than the other two). I hope to eventually be able to lay adjacent floors on top of each other and figure out where the plumbing & wiring should be routed (it's a foreclosed house that's been stripped of all plumbing & wiring).
To simplify the process of diagramming each floor I created several blocks: interior door, wall, window, sink, etc. The "wall" block is just a 5" x 120" rectangle. I'd like to use multiple "wall" blocks to build the floor plan. But to do that I need to insert several of them, rotate them and resize them.
Right now I'm trying to figure out the resizing. I've created the wall block and have inserted one into a drawing. Right now my drawing consists of just a wall block, 5" high and 120" wide. The wall's bottom left corner is at the origin, with the wall block extending to the right. If I Modify -> Scale I can blow it up but that multiplies both the height & width by the given factor, making the wall too thick. If I try Modify -> Stretch I enter the 1st & 2nd corners (I've been using the bottom left and bottom right corners), the reference point (bottom left corner again) and the target point (I manually entered 229,0 - where I'd like to bottom right corner to be) but it doesn't change the size of the wall block. It only moves the reference point (small red circle with a + in it) out to where I'd like the rightmost end of the wall to go.
If I try Modify -> Lengthen it says "The chosen entity is in a block. Please edit the block". I assume that if I do that it'll change the length of all my wall blocks, not just this one.
I'm assuming a block is more like a template, and not a rubber stamp where every copy looks exactly like every other.
I'm using the community version of QCad (v2.0.5.0) on Fedora Linux 17 (up-to-date as of yesterday).
Any clues as to what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!
The problem I'm trying to solve: I want to create a blueprint of an existing house. It has a basement, a 1st floor and a 2nd floor. I'd like to create three layers for each floor: one for the floor plan proper, one for electrical, one for plumbing. Right now I'm working on just the 2nd floor (it's smaller than the other two). I hope to eventually be able to lay adjacent floors on top of each other and figure out where the plumbing & wiring should be routed (it's a foreclosed house that's been stripped of all plumbing & wiring).
To simplify the process of diagramming each floor I created several blocks: interior door, wall, window, sink, etc. The "wall" block is just a 5" x 120" rectangle. I'd like to use multiple "wall" blocks to build the floor plan. But to do that I need to insert several of them, rotate them and resize them.
Right now I'm trying to figure out the resizing. I've created the wall block and have inserted one into a drawing. Right now my drawing consists of just a wall block, 5" high and 120" wide. The wall's bottom left corner is at the origin, with the wall block extending to the right. If I Modify -> Scale I can blow it up but that multiplies both the height & width by the given factor, making the wall too thick. If I try Modify -> Stretch I enter the 1st & 2nd corners (I've been using the bottom left and bottom right corners), the reference point (bottom left corner again) and the target point (I manually entered 229,0 - where I'd like to bottom right corner to be) but it doesn't change the size of the wall block. It only moves the reference point (small red circle with a + in it) out to where I'd like the rightmost end of the wall to go.
If I try Modify -> Lengthen it says "The chosen entity is in a block. Please edit the block". I assume that if I do that it'll change the length of all my wall blocks, not just this one.
I'm assuming a block is more like a template, and not a rubber stamp where every copy looks exactly like every other.
I'm using the community version of QCad (v2.0.5.0) on Fedora Linux 17 (up-to-date as of yesterday).
Any clues as to what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!