QCAD Bugtracker

Would it be possible to add a feature which turns selected text into solid fill hatched polylines?

That would make it possible to migrate the drawing from one computer system to another without having to worry whether the used font is installed on both systems, like when sending a drawing to a manufacturer for laser engraving.

Right now I can do it by hand, letter by letter, and that is a rather labour-intensive task.

A ' Multi ' Breakout tool or added option to the existing Breakout tool.

For example see attached image.

An option to remove all segments within a chosen boundary would be good, in my example I want to remove all the hatching within the Red circle.

So after exploding the Hatch, currently I have to remove all segments singularly!

Of course I could have placed the circle first and hatched around it - but in this and most instances it is easier to design and to produce the Hatching first and then place my circle/shapes etc.

Would it be possible to make a Plug in tool for a Hatch generator, so custom made hatches can be saved as .pat files?

I have a lot of up and coming future projects that I would like to make my own ‘custom’ hatches for.

It would be very useful to have an extra option to only detect duplicates within a user defined area.

3.0.8.
Bug Report or Feature Request ..... I’m not sure!

If I use the mouse-pointer in the Scale tool I’m not able to do an inversely proportional scale.
x - y locked or unlocked doesn’t matter in combine with the mouse pointer ...

To add a new ‘Match’ properties tool.

For example, I have a large drawing with lots and lots of entities on various layers and I want to select some entities (say 500 or more) which are all on different layers and change all these selected entities to match the properties of one other particular entity - but, but I want the ‘Matched’ entities to remain on their own layers.

OK, of course I can use the property editor for this and this is fine in most instances but I would first need to determine the the layer data for the properties of the entity I would like to match to (Color, Line weight and Line type) in the first place and then I need to remember these attributes in order to change things in the property editor in order to change all of my selection to match!

As I say mostly the above procedure would be fine to use but for convenience it would be great to have a new tool to do all this for me and cut out a few steps in the process.

A new ‘Match’ properties tool procedure could be something like this:

1. Select Match properties tool.

2. Select all entities to be matched.

3. Select entity to match to.

4. Tick or leave un-ticked - move to same layer.

5. Complete process.

* Actually, while writing this I`ve just thought of another useful addition which could be added to the Info tool set, ‘Entity’ properties info!
Example - click on Info > Entity Properties and click on the entity in question and then the properties are displayed without going to the layer data for this!
Just an idea ;)

Modify the “purge layer” tool to preserve empty layers with a locked status.
see: http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2386

It would be a nice feature to be able to define your own toolbar.

See: http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=2393

This is how I would implement this:

This would be a modification tool. Parts are selected, a toolpath is generated, and a dialog pops up to allow putting the tool path into an existing layer, a new layer, or replace all drawings in an existing layer.

This is how the toolpath is generated:

We iterate through all elements and explode everything but text into line segments. Then we connect the line segments into chains wherever the line endpoints are less than some tolerance away from each other. The chains can be very chaotic, but at least we have separate entities for now.

For every chain, we need to find the largest complete loop. A good drawing would only contain non-overlapping loops, but we can’t expect that. Everything that is not on this loop can not be defined as a part or as a hole, so we will merely create a tool path segment that is equivalent to the line segment. Every segment that *IS* on a loop is either an outside edge (part outline), or an inside edge (hole outline), (or overlapping, in which case it is neither, and we have an operator problem).

In a perfect world, we need to find exactly which shape is inside which other shape, and then create alternating tool offsets from the outmost loop (part edge) to the second outmost (hole), to the next (part) etc. .

In a simplified world, we can used the bounding box of the loop instead. This works OK for rectangular shapes, but a circle next to an “L” shape could be seen as inside the L’s bounding box, hence inside the L, wrongly accused of being a hole, not a part.

Now all that is left to do is to create a new loop, offset by the tool radius. Oh, and since we have the connections from line segment to line segment in the correct order already, we can use the opportunity to order all cutting loops from inner to outer, or from small to large, and order non-loop edges by travel distance.

The new drawing in the new layer can now be exported without further hassle to create a nice laser cut file.

PS: of course, a user could create multiple layers for marking, cutting, enraging, etc. . Additional Layer attributes for cutting speed and laser power (and a few more) would be needed.

It would be nice to have an additional Coordinate tool for isometric constructions.

If I’m working on an isometric drawing I have to design my things with x, y, z coordinates.
Y is, of course not a problem but for x and z I have most off the time to work with construction lines for move, copy, locate etc.
With an isometric coordinate snap tool what will follow the 30° angles for x and z we could save a lot of construction lines

As we all know - from time to time - it is a lot of work to prepare a part of a drawing for a hatch.
To get rid of one of the basic task (cutting lines along the desired hatch boundary) it would be nice to have an add-on - or what ever - what would cut ALL intersection in a drawing (or just on one layer, or just based on a selection etc.) with just a mouse click. Then it would be much faster and easier to do the selection for the hatch boundaries.
The user could decide to make it directly in his drawing or he like to duplicate the drawing to an extra layer where this function will be used ....

Clive mentioned on this:
Maybe a tool like this could be an additional ‘Snap’ selection option - select all snap intersections or select snap intersections within a boundary! then as you suggest ‘cut’ at the intersection points.

Feature request - to have an option to underline text.

In order to be more easily editable after creation Freehand Line should produce a Polyline and should be moved away from Line Tools to Polyline Tools

The Midpoint Handles should be used to move Polyline Segments and lines. This would add easy to access stretch functionality.
Combined with a shortcut(hold down shift or alt etc.) to fix the movement to be orthogonal to the line this would bring a lot of extra value.
It would also be possible to to have another shortcut to easily insert nodes to Polylines (again hold shift or alt etc.)

If there is no selection the Properties Editor could be used to predefine the properties of to be drawn elements.

The Info Tool Polygonal Area is a helpful tool ... but I like to ask for additional options

Yes, the polygonal area makes absolute sense but many times you have just to check a square or rectangle area!

It would be nice and time (click) saving if we could use a “Strg Key” to limit the polygonal area to just a rectangle area.
Two mouse clicks for a rectangle area and done

In addition to that it would be nice to have the possibility to count up or down a couple areas.
E.g. I measure area 1 plus area 2 or area 1 minus area 2 ...
Maybe just with an additional keystroke like + or -

When drawing or moving objects holding down CTRL should activate ortho snapping as long as CTRL is pressed.

If ortho mode has been active before holding down CTRL should deactivate it (for the time it is beeing pressed).

The Number of Copies (Delete Original, Keep Original, Multiple Copies) and whether to use the current layers attributes should be found in the Options toolbar of the active tool.

This way the option would be set before or during the operation (preview?)the popup window afterwards would be obsolete.

Merge Parallel Line(with distance), Concentric Arc(with distance), Concentric Circle(with distance) and Offset(Polyline) into one generic Offset with distance tool that if possible also works for ellipses and splines.

Do the same for the “through point” tools so that there also is just one Offset through point tool.

The Offset tools could be located with the Modification tools.

At our QCAD Drawing window, below right corner, we have the Info displayed what are the Grid / Meta Grid settings.
It would be nice to have additional the Info for the drawing unit ...

Provide configuration option to raise / lower maximum reference points that are shown for selected entities (currently fixed to 1000).

Original report:

Imported a spline-dxf from adobe illustrator. Converted the spline to polyline with explode command. Then no anchor points / vertex points / vertices were showing anymore. Simplified the polyline so that it had less than 1000 points. Vertices became visible.

I think some freeform objects need actually more than 1000 vertices. Also them need to be edited. Please increase the amount of vertices showing to biginteger

regards

Benjamin

If I move something and it went wrong I can easily undo the last move and start over without the need of a re-selection.
If I copy something and it went wrong I can undo the last copy but I have to re-select everything again.

It would be nice to keep the once chosen selection in both “undo” situation!

Same with similar functions like rotate etc. ....

It would be useful to have a persistent selection button added to the ‘selection’ tool set.

This would allow the user to set persistent selection as and when needed for the current drawing one is working on, rather than going the long route through the ‘Application’ preferences dialog.

Default Path for “Create Library item from selection” / “Save us” is C:\Programme\QCAD pro 3.1.6 ...
... regardless of the settings in the “Application Preferences / Library Browser / for Library Sources.
And QCAD doesn’t remember the last path choice ....

If I have to save 50 Library Items I have to navigate 50 times thru my system to find - the same place.

It would be nice if QCAD would point in first place to the Library Source or, at least, remember the last used path ...

Scenario:

Drawing 1: Blockname X is part of a selection, I copy this selection into the clipboard to use it in an other drawing.

Switch to Drawing 2, this drawing has also a Blockname X but with a different content.

Use the clipboard paste function - the clipboard content will be modified (only the Block) by the drawing 2 block content.

No warning pops up - it just happens!

An option to save to dwt (drawing template) would be so very useful.
Please see related topic:

http://www.qcad.org/rsforum/viewtopic.php?f=32&p=8237#p8237

In the comnmand line, I can sucessfully enter for example the radius of a circle to draw (Space 100 Enter) but the command line does not accept a value for the distance when drawing parallel lines (l p space 100 enter → error).