Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

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Mikerosen
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Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by Mikerosen »

Help me out here, guys. I'm really trying to understand.

I have my Layer 0 set to 1/12, and I'm ready to draw.

I draw a square, and size it in the Edit window to 48 x 48, scale 1/12. I draw a dimension line, and sure enough, it's 48.

I select all, and Actions>Scale... X=.5, Y=.5, and the drawing shrinks by half. Fine. But if I select it, the Edit menu now shows that it's 24 x 24, at 1/12. And if I draw a new dimension line, it shows 24. I printed it out, and it came out at exactly 2 inches. So, depending on my scale, it's either 24 or 48. And my dimensions say both.

BUT IT'S NOT, DAMMIT. It's 48 inches long, and no matter what the scale that I assign to the drawing, when I dimension the line, it needs to be 48 inches. I didn't resize the object, I just changed which scale rule you would use to measure it.

AHA, I thought. Maybe it's in the LAYER scale. So I went back to the Layers, and set the scale to 1/24. Visibly, nothing changed. A new dimension line shows as 48, and in the Edit window, is 1/24.

But the square is still 24 x 24, at 1/12.

My point is that there HAS to be some connection between all of this. The on-screen view means nothing, but the document has to maintain dimensioning relationships, even when rescaled to fit on the paper.

What am I missing, here? And please don't say WYSIWYG, because it isn't.
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
debenriver
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by debenriver »

Um ... I've had a few glasses of red wine after a hard day splitting logs in readiness for the winter – so I may not be getting the point perfectly.

But if you scale a drawing to a new scale and then wish to continue drawing at the new scale, you need to set the scale of that layer to the new scale (Window >> Layers/Pages) as you are doing.

AND you need to select all the objects that were on the old scale and change their scale in the EDIT menu to the new scale – else they will continue to function at their original scale. RC can have objects at different scales on the same layer (not a good idea – but then shit happens). So if you dimension an original object it will show the scaled dimension (so a 48" thing will be 24" if you have scaled the drawing by 0.5). But if you draw a parallel from it for example, the parallel will move the original scale distance, not the new scale distance. So if you wanted a parallel of 2", it would actually produce a parallel of 4" and so on.

So – after scaling, you need to Select All and in the Edit menu change the scale of those objects to the new scale. But beware, that this doesn't always work perfectly - grouped objects don't seem to pick up the new scale reliably – so you need to ungroup them.

Cheers -- George
Mikerosen
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by Mikerosen »

George,

Thats my point, I think. If I change the scale of the drawing, nothing should change except the size of the drawing.

If I draw a 48” line, it should be 48” regardless of whether the scale is 1/1, 1/10, or 1/100. If I move that parallel by 24”, that's how far it should go.
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
Eric Pousse
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by Eric Pousse »

Mike,

With your questions, I realize that some things are not very clear in RealCADD.
As George says, when you call the command "Scale" on objects, this command only changes the dimensions of the selected objects, not their scale and not the scale of the layer.
So, perhaps I have to rename this command.
There is not a command to do directly what you want. not yet?
You have to do as George says. (Thanks George)

In iPocket Draw, the scale of the objects can't be different of the layer's scale.
Eric Pousse
debenriver
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by debenriver »

Hi Mike

I think the problem is partly one of semantics. The Drawing Scale is getting confused with the Scale command.

I really think that the Scale command is just as it should be – it scales an object – makes it smaller or bigger – but doesn't change the actual drawing scale of the object, the drawing or the layer.

And it can stretch or shrink an object in one direction and not the other, which can be extremely useful. It would be absurd if it then applied two drawing scales to the distorted object.

If I am drawing say, a (pulley) block to go on a sail and rig plan, I can draw one size (say 4") and then copy it and scale it to get a 3" or a 5". I do this a lot with all sorts of objects and I wouldn't want the actual drawing scale of the object to change – I want it to stay the same.

If I want to change the drawing scale of an object I select it and do it in the Edit menu.

And if I want to change the drawing scale of a layer I do it in the Layers menu.

The RC Scale function works exactly as ClarisCad, so it seems very familiar and satisfactory to me of course. ClarisCad had two further options when scaling, you could select to Scale Pens and Scale Arrows (as well as Scale Text). This would be a useful addition so that arrows and dashed lines scaled if you wanted them to.

The Drawing Scale was called Rulers on ClarisCad – which I always found to be a confusing name as there were also Rulers on the top and left side of the drawing, which you could hide or show.

I think that it might save confusion in RC if Eric changed the name of the Scale function to "Resize" or similar. Then Scale would relate only to the actual Drawing Scale on the Edit and Layers menus.

The Scale function on the Edit menu does have the odd glitch – I think it is when objects are in multiple nested groups, but I haven't really checked that out.

George
Mikerosen
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by Mikerosen »

Eric and George,

Thanks for helping. I guess my problem was not understanding how the commands work, and expecting something different. I'll wait to see if Eric can figure out how to give me what I want.

Meanwhile, I think it's the 2 drawing solution for me: one to work with, and one to "Fit to Page."

When you draw that 4 inch pulley, and resize it to 5", will your dimension now show 5"? If you move it 6" down the mast, will it move 6"?
Mike Rosen
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Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
debenriver
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by debenriver »

Yes Mike – my resized 5" pulley will dimension at 5" and if I move it 6" down the mast, it moves 6". Because it's still at the same scale (the Drawing Scale) – just bigger.

I really think if Eric changed the "Action >> Scale" function to read "Action >> Resize" that would make things clearer – because that is exactly what it does: resizes the objects without affecting its Drawing Scale – the scale that it is drawn at.

George
Mikerosen
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by Mikerosen »

Agreed. Should the resize be by dimension, i.e. 2", or by percentage?

Best, of course, would be both options.
Mike Rosen
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debenriver
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by debenriver »

Oh – I think just as it is now – by a multiple. We are only suggesting renaming an existing function really.

Then if you want to resize something from 3¼" to 5½" say, you just do the sum 5.5/3.25 = 1.692 and use that as the resizing factor.

If something is made up of lots of lines, curves, circles etc all grouped together I think just enlarging/shrinking it by a fixed number of inches or mm might have very odd results – unless you converted everything in the group to lines and then to polygons – which isn't always desirable. Even then I don't know if that would work – what would you actually be increasing by 2¼" (in my example)?

It would be nice if you could do the maths directly in the resize box (like you can with many of the menus). Then you wouldn't have to do the sum separately – just enter 5.5/3.25 directly in the x and y boxes. I Tried entering the math directly and it had very odd results!

I don't fancy percentages at all! The straight multiple is much easier to understand.

George
Mikerosen
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Re: Scaling and Dimensions-a new thread

Post by Mikerosen »

No objections!
Mike Rosen
Seattle, WA, USA

Mac OS Ventura 13.1, iOS 11.4.1 on iPad Pro
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