RealCADD and iPocket Draw

Eric,
Is it possible to draw a line tangent to a circle? Connecting two circles on tangents?
Thanks!

Mikerosen wrote:Is it possible to draw a line tangent to a circle?

In RealCADD, it is possible, so I know how do.
But the question for iPocket Draw is how choose between the perpendicular and the tangent when the user draws a line near an ellipse?
I don't want to have an attraction pallet in iPocket Draw as in RealCADD

Mikerosen wrote:Connecting two circles on tangents?

In RealCADD, it is not possible.
But if I can resolve the first point, I can search to add this feature in my 2 softwares.

OK, thanks!

It would be nice (but it's not at all essential) to be able to join two circles or arcs with a tangent in RealCADD too!

It would also be very nice (more important than tangent to two circles) if the tangent was subject to constraint by the shift key – so one could draw a vertical or horizontal (or 45º etc, as set by the constraints preferences) tangent from a circle or arc. That would make it a very much more useful tool.

Cheers – George

I was thinking more along the lines of a chain, connecting the two sprockets of a bicycle, for example.

DrawingBoard did this easily. And what's more, it was then possible to delete the arcs of the circles within that figure, something which RC and iPD can't do, as far as I can tell.

You mean by cutting the circles and retracting the arcs to the end points of the tangents? ClarisCad had that capability too and it was useful...

You can achieve the same circle-cutting result in RC by drawing an arc over the circle, using centre attraction as the start and end point as the radius and start and finish – then delete the circle. That works pretty well.

I do much the same as the bicycle chain, drawing things like marine blocks (pulleys). Using a small circle at the top and a larger one at the bottom, then joining the two with tangents (except at the moment RC can't join to the second one – which does make life difficult!). Then converting the circles into arcs.

I find the Attraction pallet in RC very convenient to use and very easy to turn particular attractions on and off with a simple keystroke – and the particular pallet I use most of the time spells EPIC so it's pretty easy to remember! Maybe it would clutter the screen too much in PD?

ClarisCad didn't have a separate pallet, hitting the appropriate key (E for End etc) turned the attraction on – to get more than one attraction (like P & E) you had to hold the shift key and hit P and E. Or you could set preferences so that modifiers (attractions) were always on, but I found that to be a pain most of the time because they were either all on or all off, so you got unwanted attractions, specially when working at small magnification.

Personally I like the RC pallet better. Be nice to have a means of doing a Perpendicular from either the End or Centre of a line – though it doesn't take a lot of time to draw a perpendicular, then another and then another back to the end or centre of the first line – sounds time consuming, but after a while you don't even think about it!

I like the attractions palette, although, to be honest, I just leave everything turned on. DB had all the attraction points on as default, so I'm used to having the attractions showing up.

That trimming operation was much easier in DB. Just select the two lines connecting the circles, and use the Trim tool to click on the internal arcs. The tool would delete the arcs between the two selected lines.

The only reason I have for not having all the attractions turned on all the time is that on a complicated drawing, with a lot of intersecting lines and lines close to each other, you get too many attractions and the one you want doesn't happen! For example in RC, P seems to predominate over I, so sometimes to get an intersection I have to turn P off – or magnify a lot to see which is which. I find the ability to turn it off with a simple keystroke very convenient

I guess that is the strength of the program – it can suit the working habits of a big variety of users.

Absolutely. I'm a simple guy, I do simple drawings!

BTW, if you are considering an iPad, I would say go for it! I've found it indispensable, for work and play.