CAD Program (Autocad Lite)

[ceaser]

Hi Everybody

I am attaching a small CAD program, which should be very similar to the Autocad Lite program. Things that the program can do:

1. Open and Save a drawing. At the moment the drawings are in a "CEASER" format, but I should have the option of opening and saving drawings in a "DXF" format ready by this weekend.
2. Under the editing you can "Undo", "Redo", "Trim Lines" and "Extend Lines"
3. Under the lines, one can draw "Points", "Freehand", "Lines", "Polygons", "Lock Vertical", "Lock Horizontal", "Draw Parallel" and "Draw Boxes"
4. There are a couple of circle options. With the help of Klaus
5. There are lock options. Lock to "End Line", "Middle Line", "Lock to Close Point", "Lock Perpendicular", "Center of Circle".
6. Drawing entities can be placed on different layers.

I need help with the following:

1. Scale the drawing to world coordinates
2. Be able to scale, move, copy and rotate a drawing.
3. All the zoom options...i.e. zoom in, zoom out, reset, etc
4. Be able to plot dimensions to the drawing objects.

What I am busying with:

1. DXF import and export
2. Enter coordinates to draw lines, circles, etc. instead of drawing them with the stylus on the screen. To draw a line one would enter the following : 120,100,20,200,300,21 (X,Y,Z,X1,Y1,Z1)
3. A manual!!!!

Thanks
Michael

Hi

I am attaching an update (with Klaus's help) on my CAD program.

Thanks
Michael

Hi

Another update on my attempt at a mobile CAD program

Thanks
Michael

[Ariel_Z]

Looks good!
As a beginner, I found myself asking myself "what should I do now?". Maybe a quick example (something simple under help menu, like "my first job" or so) will be good.

As I opened a new site using menu command file - new site, named the site and clicked OK (on the desktop), an error "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" occured.

Waiting to check further...

[ceaser]

Hi Ariel

Forget about the "New Site". This is used when the total program is available. Go straight to the "CAD" icon. It's the one that has a drawing board with a ruler and pen across.

Regards
Michael

[ceaser]

Hi

I forgot to disable certain functions when the rest of the survey modules are not available.

I am posting a new zip file.

Sorry

Regards
Michael

[Ariel_Z]

Hi,
This time I got better. I started as you described and the editing form looks good.
I did encounter a failure when I created a new job and then pressed the Field icon in the main menu (which looks great by the way). "Object reference not set to an instance of an object", line 1445


Anyhow, there are few things I did want to suggest:
1. Tooltips for the menus in editing mode. As there are no descriptions (and this is good in UI manner) there should be somthing saying what a menu option does.
2. Add layer - you might want to exit automatically after adding one layer?
3. Does the layer feature work?
4. Does the erase layer feature work? I did not get it to work.

Could you give me a short description of the "normal" procedure of working with the program including purpose, scenario, work flow and results? I'm afraid I'm still trying to figure out what are the entire abilities and if I get you right it is an excellent idea.

Ariel

[ceaser]

Hi Eziel

Forget about opening a "Job". Like I said before, go straight to "CAD" . The other modules are only available in the total surveying program.

Something I forget to mention, the "Erase" layers does not work yet, as I am not sure how I should handle it. When erasing a layer then all drawing entities on that layer should be deleted. This is a bit dangerous and other options should be looked at.

Eziel, go to the "CAD" module and start drawing lines and then save them. I will have the chapter that explains everything ready soon.

Regards
Michael

[klaus]

Hello Michael,

I had also a look at your program and have following comments:
- it would be interesting to see on the toolbox buttons what function or option is active, not only as text on the bottom of the screen.
- horizontal / vertical lines, the end point red cross should be the line's end point but it is the cursor's position.
- parallel lines, doesn't work with vertical lines.
- it seems that the last snap function has a strange behaviour, perhaps I am missing something
- how to display only the objects of a given layer ?
- would it be possible to select an object and modify the point coordinates ?
- what are the red crosses for ? when loading a drawing they are not displayed.
- in your code you have a lot of buttons named Button100, Button101, Button102 ... it would be easyer with self explaining names like btnFileFunc, btnEditFunc, btnZoomFunc ...

For the scaling you must introduce scaling variables to convert the pixels into world coordinates (including the zoom factor).

For the zoom it depends if you want to draw
- onto a bitmap and zoom and scroll this one, but eventually with memory problems
- directly onto the form, but even for scrolling you need to redraw the whole drawing.

Best regards.

[ceaser]

Hi Klaus

I will add the suggestions that you mentioned and also have a look at vertical parallel lines.

To show only entities on certain layers, you need to click on the layer icon, which will then show you all the layers in your drawing. By clicking in the small box next to the layer name, a "X" will appear, which will hide the layer from your drawing. This was one of the routines that you send me some time ago.

The last "Snap" option is to snap perpendicular to an existing line. A little square box will appear once you are close to the perpendicular point.

Regards
Michael

[ceaser]

Ok, I fixed up the parallel lines to vertical lines.

Thanks
Michael

[klaus]

Hi Michael,

I tested the program a bit more and found some other points:
- arc functions, after having drawn a first arc the next one picks up the last point from the previous arc ?
- 4th snap function: this function looks for a point on a nearby line, it shows also points on the virtual line outsides the end points ?

For the layers I got it. I missed the first column because when you click onto a layer name the first column is hidden, I suggest you to shorten the width of the layer column to fit within the table width.

Best regards.