drawing size

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Mikerosen
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drawing size

Post by Mikerosen »

Eric (and George),

I am still having trouble dealing with scaling and the drawing size. Unless I misunderstood, you want me to do my drawing in the "paper area" so that the Zoom tool works correctly.

I do my drawings at 1/12 scaling, and dimension in inches. That puts the 8-1/2 x 11 or 11 x 8-1/2 paper area in the upper left corner. To do my drawing there, I have to shift the window almost to the center of my monitor, which feels odd. Or, if I draw something in that area, and then enlarge it to work on details, it's too big.

My method has always been to draw in the big open area, and then resize as needed to get it on the paper. But when I did that and used CMD-+ or CMD--, the drawing jumped all over the page.

Please straighten me out! I'm using 5.04, with Big Sur.

Merci!
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
debenriver
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Re: drawing size

Post by debenriver »

Hi Mike!

If you set your scale to 1/12 then everything you draw will be at 1/12 scale, regardless of zoom (or indeed re-sizing).

If you want a drawing to be contained in a single sheet of US Letter for example, then you would set the scale so that it will fit – not stick with 1/12 and then resize it to fit, because it will still be at 1/12 after resizing, just smaller (or larger) by the resize amount and the actual scaled dimensions will be incorrect.

So, for example, if the thing you are drawing is 10' x 12', at 1/12 scale it's not going to fit on an 8½" x 11" page come what may because at actual drawn size it's going to be 10" x 12". At 1/12 scale the biggest thing you can get on a single 8½" x 11" page is 8'6" x 11' – and that's without any border, margins etc.

So for your 10' x 12' object, to get it on a single 8½" x 11" page you would need to select a smaller scale – say 1/16 (¾" to the foot). At this scale your object is 7.5" x 9" actual drawn size (10' = 120"/16 = 7.5"; 12' = 144"/16 = 9") so will fit on your page.

This echos exactly how you would work on a drawing board where you have a fixed size sheet of paper and adjust the scale of your drawing so that the objects fit it. Which means that the drawing will always be accurately to scale, be it 1/12, 1/16, 1/24 or whatever

If you think of it that way – a sheet of paper on a drawing board – it becomes much easier to imagine. But with the advantage that however small the scale is, you can zoom in on the computer screen to draw the detail – which you can't do on a drawing board, except with a magnifying glass.

It's a lot easier with metric scales and dimensions of course .... but the principle is the same.

You only use Resize when you actually want to make an object bigger or smaller in real life – you've drawn something that you thought was 3' x 4', but in fact it was 6' x 8', so you'd double the size of your drawn object to reflect that. The scale wouldn't change – just the object got twice the size – and maybe no longer fitted on your sheet of paper. So at that point you'd either make your paper bigger (perhaps one of the US Architectural Paper Sizes like Arch B for example) -or you'd change the scale of the drawing so that the bigger object would fit the page.

To change the scale of the drawing it's best to open a new drawing and set the scale to what you want - then copy and paste the original object from the original drawing to the new one – RealCADD will ask you if you want to rescale the objects to the new scale – and you do - select Yes. You can also do it by making a new layer on you original drawing – the new layer being at the new scale – and then copy from the original layer to the new layer.

If you really want to have a drawing bigger than your sheet of paper, the easiest way is to have more sheets of paper – so on Edit >> Drawing size set the width and height to (say) 2 – this will give you four pages of paper. If you don't like to see the page borders, click the Page icon, bottom left. But honestly, the best way to draw (with RealCADD and most Mac CAD programs) is to decide on the paper size and then set the scale accordingly so that what you draw will fit – exactly like you would on a drawing board.

Cheers -- George
Mikerosen
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Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2011 6:16 pm
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Re: drawing size

Post by Mikerosen »

George, thanks for that explanation. I'm still thinking in terms of my old DrawingBoard program, where I drew my picture in the window, and then "Fit to Page." That isn't how RC works, I know.

My biggest problem is "where do I draw the damn thing?" You and Eric implied that, to avoid the image jumping around when I used CMD-+ or CMD-- to zoom in or out, that I should only draw within the paper size boundaries. OK, I can understand that. But when I launch the program, that paper box is in the upper left of my screen, only occupying about 25% of the area. I want to draw in the whole window. How do I get the "paper size" to be the whole thing?
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
Eric Pousse
Posts: 1064
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:31 pm
Location: Tours - France

Re: drawing size

Post by Eric Pousse »

Mike,

You are right.
It is strange to have a small drawing area especially with big screen HD.
And I have to take into consideration that some users can have others habits to draw.
I will try do that :
- Add a preference size drawing,
- Allow user to scroll outside the drawing area if objects are outside it.

And to change the drawing size, it is : "Edit" => "Drawing size..."
To change the paper size, "File" => "Page Setup..."

Thanks.
Eric Pousse
debenriver
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Re: drawing size

Post by debenriver »

Hi Mike

One of the basic problems is that computer screens aren't the same proportions as many paper sizes, specially if the paper size is set to portrait. And of course computer screens vary too in proportions, resolution and size.

International A and B size paper (A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 etc) are more logical than most US paper sizes in that each size is the one larger folded in half – so fold A3 in half and you get A4 etc. In the US, US Letter and US Tabloid are the same (8.5" x 11" and 11" x 17"), but others are not. This allows you to scale or resize a drawing and retain the same proportions.

I never use the opening RealCADD screen. I have a set of 'Templates' drawn using Save as >> RealCADD model (and all saved in a "Templates" folder). Then to start a drawing I simply open the most suitable template and save it with the name of my drawing. My most common paper size is A3 Landscape, so I have templates for this at scales 1:5, 1:10, 1:15, 1: 20 and 1:33.33 – all with a border, title box etc. I also have similar templates for other A-series and B-series paper sizes.

This speeds up getting started and all your drawings share the same layout.

Being able to save a paper size as a Preference, as Eric says, would be helpful. As would being able to scroll outside the drawing area if something extends over the paper size. At the moment I make my Edit >> Drawing size width *1.25 while I am drawing and change it to *1 once I am done, to achieve much the same thing.

Cheers -- George
Eric Pousse
Posts: 1064
Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2011 12:31 pm
Location: Tours - France

Re: drawing size

Post by Eric Pousse »

Mike,

The version 5.10 b6 is available.

This version allows the user to scroll outside the drawing area.
But I don't have added a preference for the drawing size.

Cordialement.
Eric Pousse
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