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New Drawing Start Location

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 12:22 pm
by jthornton
How do I get a new drawing to start with 0,0 in the upper left corner so the coordinates match my machine when using the cam export?

And how do I set the scale of a new drawing?

JT

Re: New Drawing Start Location

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 1:24 pm
by andrew
jthornton wrote:How do I get a new drawing to start with 0,0 in the upper left corner so the coordinates match my machine when using the cam export?
If the Y axis of your machine points south, you can adjust your machine configuration to flip entities along the horizontal (X) axis before exporting. I will post an example configuration in the other thread at:
viewtopic.php?f=74&t=2625
jthornton wrote:And how do I set the scale of a new drawing?
Drawings in QCAD have generally a scale of 1:1 (real size). You can adjust your machine configuration to scale output if desired if that is what you had in mind. Otherwise, please elaborate.

Re: New Drawing Start Location

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:00 pm
by jthornton
Hmm, I can't figure out how to attach an image to show perhaps but I'll try and explain. When you select File > New the drawing area is 6' x 4' and the red cross hair for 0,0 is in the left lower corner. If I can change that to be some other size like 2' x 1.5' and the red cross hair is in the upper left corner then when I start a drawing I'm drawing in the quadrant that make sense for a mill from a CNC point of view.

Thanks for the example for swapping the Y I think that can be useful for a lathe machine configuration to be able to swap that out.

Thanks
JT

Re: New Drawing Start Location

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:12 pm
by andrew
I see. The start view area is generally not configurable.

The next best thing I can think of is to start with a drawing template. This is a normal drawing that contains the layers and blocks you usually use and that is stored in libraries/templates/imperial/...

You can then start a new drawing through menu 'File - New from Template...'

To get the viewing area right, you could place a rectangle in your template which represents your work piece or the available working area. Put it on a separate layer to make sure you can switch it off easily when exporting to G-Code.

Another way would be to store your preferred view of the drawing area in the template:
- Adjust the zoom, pan according to your preference.
- Make sure the list of stored views is visible (View - View List)
- Menu 'View' - 'Add View'
- Enter a name for your stored view
- OK

After staring a new drawing from your template, you can then adjust the view to your saved view with one click on the name of your stored view in the view list.

Re: New Drawing Start Location

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:21 pm
by jthornton
Thanks again, the first option works for me well.

JT