Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Scale Drawing Suggestion


Recommended Posts

I would like to make a suggestion of something I would find useful and others may too.  I realize that designer is geared to creating pictures and art but often I am making an actual 'design' of a item where I need dimensions added.   So I was wondering if any though was or could be given to adding a dimension tool that scales so I can make a 1 inch square and set the scale to 1 inch = 1 ft - take a dimension tool and pick two nodes and the drafting lines would be drawn and text showing the length using the scale would appear.

 

Just a thought.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Serif DrawPlus X8 did exactly that, and was really useful for doing garden plans and such. It also had an extra line type of "Dimension" which allowed you to draw lines which had arrows at either end plus showed the length of the line on the line itself. This made it easy to hand over sketches to builders

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

I agree this would be a great feature and would help my work a lot and I don't think it would actually be a hard thing to implement.

One can actually draw in scale using a simple equation:

F = VAL * A / B

where A and B are actually the scale (A:B, and usually either is 1 thus you'd only need to either multiply or divide), and VAL is the actual value we want to represent in scale. The result (F) is the size to use to draw in the given scale.

An implementation would add a field called "Scale" in the top toolbar (it would always be visible no matter what panes you're using) with a default value of 1:1. Any values like X, Y, width, height, length (for lines), etc. would just use this simple formula to convert values displayed and input so we don't have to be wasting so much time doing the math ourselves. thus, for example, I may draw a line of 11 cm using the "1:1" scale and if I set the scale field to "1:50" only the UI would change tell me it is a 550 cm line; on paper it would remain an 11 cm line. Also, changing the length of the line to 100 cm in the same "1:50" scale would still reflect the value of 100 cm but on paper the line would change to 2 cm (math would be automatically done for us). The idea is not to have the object retain the scale it was build with but provide a simple helper for scaled drawings and illustrations.

I'd also love to have those "Dimension" lines @Francispmc mentioned. Those would actually need to retain the scale (in order to provide lenght automatically) but I'd go for having the actual text fully editable.

 

UPDATE: There is a feature in AD that I just got to know that the input fields of the "Transform" pane can to a bit of math. You can, for example, type "550/50" to have a line drawn with 550 cm in a scale of 1:50. It can also add (+), subtract (-) and multiply (*) thus you can also achieve scales like "5:1". We'd still have to do the math back to find out the unscaled size but it may already be a little bit of a help.

architect student (5/10) · designer · developer · geek
Affinity Publisher 2.1.1 / Affinity Designer 2.1.1 / Affinity Photo 2.1.1
Windows 11 Pro #22H2 / Dell G15 AMD Ryzen 5 32GB RAM

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
  • 9 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.