The Datafile PD-CD 2

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/\ //\\ // \\ _ _ //____\\ _ _ _ ___ _ _ /\ /\ | |\ | |_ |_| \ //\ // |||| \\ |_ | ||_ | \ /\ //\ |_||_ / \/ \ | | \| |_ | \ \// \ \\ ==== // __||_|| | \/ \// \| \|_ \\ // Fax: 0392 421762 \\ // Tel: 0392 437756 \\// \/ Minerva House, Baring Crescent, Exeter, Devon, EX1 1TL, UK mkline@cix.compulink.co.uk Introductory notes for ProCAD and CADet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You may wish to try the software before reading these notes. This is probably constructive in SQA terms! Having tried the software, some of the following notes may help you try it further. These notes are intended to provide the maximum information in the minimum space. This means that they are not particularly readable! Unfortunately it is not possible to provide a full manual but these notes should allow most of the features of CADet to be explored (possibly after several readings!). This file was originally constructed as the software developed in order to keep our beta testers up to date with new features. The sections referring to ProCAD have been retained for interest. If you are interested in CADet after trying this evaluation copy, and would like to know more than these admittedly cryptic notes can tell you, please contact our office. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General operating notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CADet may be copied to a hard disc but you will need to be sure that your !System is at least as up to date as the one supplied with this demonstration. If you are not sure how to do this, run the demo from floppy disc. To do this, insert the disc in the floppy drive and open the directory viewer. Double-click SELECT on !System and then on !CADet. The CADet icon will appear on the iconbar. Watch the message bar (initially at the top of the screen) for instructions during multi-click operations. For further guidance, use Acorn's interactive help program, !Help (in the ROM on RISC OS 3, otherwise on the Apps1 disc). Most operations can be back-stepped using ADJ or cancelled by a double-click of ADJ or by selecting a new tool. After creating a new drawing (by clicking on the iconbar icon), click SELECT on the Current Tool and Current Snap icons (in the top left corner of the drawing window) to open the Toolbox and Snapbar. Note that this program is plotter oriented rather than printer oriented. This means that objects should not be drawn in such a way that large areas are covered or overlapped as the plotter will not render such objects correctly. For this reason, no control is provided over object order; ie there are no 'front' and 'back' options as in Draw. This demonstration version does not include a plotter driver due to space limitations. The plotter driver is supplied as a separate, multi-tasking application which operates in a similar way to a printer driver. Plots are carried out in the background allowing you to continue working. When entering angles, click writable with ADJ and SHIFT-ADJ to step thru (usually in 15 degree steps, depending on purpose). There is a preferences menu on the iconbar which allows much fine tuning. Object selections may be made using SEL/ADJ in the drawing window, like Draw. However, you must click on an actual drawn part of an object to select it, rather than anywhere in its bounding box. This helps when selecting from dense sections of drawings. Similarly, you can drag a rectangle to select objects but only those objects fully enclosed by the rectangle will be selected (unless CTRL is held down). Note other differences from Draw, eg when making a group you need to specify a reference point for the group (this is used to rotate/locate the group in future operations). (NB: preferences menu allows ref point for group to automatically be centre. Alternatively, when asked for ref. point, press ^O to choose the centre of th group) The reference point for all objects is shown as a small cross when selected. This is the point you will 'pick it up' by if you drag the selection. It is also the point around which the object will be rotated etc. Single selected objects may be dragged using SEL to move them. Drag using ADJ to copy an object and position the copy. Enter edit mode by clicking ADJ on object or using F6 (or ^E) on selection, as per Draw. Cancel by hitting F6 again, clicking OK in the associated tool dialogue, closing the tool dialogue, pressing ESC etc. Except with lines and curves, the OK icon on the tool box is the only method which preserves changes. Object editing (except line and curve, which are like Draw) is done through the tool dialogues for the relevant object types. Edit mode is indicated by a # in the title bar of the tool dialogue. Non greyed icons may be edited and the change effected by a click of OK. Edit lines and curves by dragging the control points (as Draw but you may use SEL as well as ADJ). Drag a point between control points to insert a new control point anywhere on a line/curve. Holding down SHIFT allows the mouse to control the zoom ratio. SHIFT-drag a rectangle to select a zoom ratio which fits that rectangle to the current window size. SHIFT-double-click SEL to select 1:1 or, if already selected, to fit the whole drawing to the window. SHIFT-double-click ADJ to step the zoom ratio out. The drawing window can have a status bar at the top (the first view of each drawing has one by default). This shows the current tool, the current snap, the current pen, the current line/text type and the current layer. Any of these may be adjusted by clicking MENU on them to get straight to the relevant menu or dialogue box. If there is a selection, changing these settings will affect the selection (where appropriate). If there is no selection, changing these settings will affect the next object created. You can click SEL or ADJ on the icons in the status bar. This will step through their values if appropriate. For the Tool and Snap icons, SEL opens the window while ADJ sets the default mode (Select mode, no snap). You can step through pens, line start markers, line types, line end markers and layers using SEL to step forward and ADJ to step back. Click on tool icons with ADJ to adjust the way they behave. Note the 'push pins' next to the OK icons in these and other dialogue boxes. These may be clicked to pin the windows to the desktop. Pinned windows will only close if explicity commanded to by clicking the ☓ icon. This means commonly used tool dialogues etc can be pinned down for quick access. Normally, these would be pinned around the edges of the screen with the drawing in the middle. Note that most windows (other than drawing windows) can be moved by dragging almost any point on them, rather than just the title bar. This allows pinned windows to be pushed off screen temporarily without danger of total loss! It also allows easy access to windows having their title bars covered. Changes to tool dialogues are only effected on clicking the OK icon. Some changes can be made 'mid-create' and take immediate effect, others will necessarily force a re-start of the tool. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on individual features ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * Some snaps may be selected in combinations using the ADJ button over their icons. When snaps are on, the cross-hair will try to snap to the nearest sensible point on the drawing as the mouse is moved. If this is successful, a sound and a change of pointer colour will indicate the snap and the snap icon on the status bar will be highlighted, the icon indicating what has been snapped to (useful when multiple snaps are engaged). To learn the types of snaps available (and associate them with the icons), use the snap menu. Some snaps are only appropriate at certain times (eg tangent snap cannot do anything useful for the first point of a line, only for subsequent ones). As well as snapping, a value may be typed into the co-ordinate report window on the snap box and this will be used for the next point. This value may be absolute, relative to the last point on the object, or polar (always relative to last point) depending on the setting for the report window at the time. Note that holding the CTRL key down temporarily disable snaps. ProCAD: Holding down the left or right ALT keys will individually project X or Y snaps. If X or Y snap is projected, the area of sensitivity for snaps extends along the corresponding crosshair. Thus, holding down LEFT-ALT to project the X snap will cause the horizontal crosshair to snap onto ANY suitable point anywhere on its length (even if this is not visible in the same window or any other window). This makes the construction of projections lots easier. These modes may be more permanently enabled using the X Project/Y Project options in the snap menu. See also the key bindings file. After a temporary change of snap, use ^S to return to previous snap mode. NB: Bend snap snaps to control points on curves. End snap also gets the ends of fillet arcs. ProCAD has a reference point snap. This snaps to the reference points of objects including groups. It takes precedence over other snaps. ProCAD also has an intercept snap which attempts to snap to the intersection between two different objects (not two parts of the same object; use break if necessary). This uses a simplified technique for performance reasons and may not always work as expected. Zoom in to improve and approach from different angles if necessary. Snaps are what really make this package - no other offers this type of on-the-fly snap. Try this: Run CADet; start a new drawing; SEL on the tool icon in the status bar; SEL on the (hexagonal) polygon tool; draw a conveniently visible hexagon; SEL on the snap icon in the status window; SEL on the centre snap icon (circle with a dot in centre) and ADJ on the mid-point snap (line with a tick-mark in the middle); SEL on the circle tool; move near centre of hexagon on drawing until snaps; SEL to set centre of circle; move near mid point of one edge of hexagon on drawing until snaps; SEL to create circle; move near centre of hexagon until snaps; SEL to set centre of circle; move to approx half way along radius of previous circle; SEL to create circle of approx half radius; ADJ on circular arc tool; SEL 'Cen. 2 Pts' mode; SEL OK; move near centre of hexagon on drawing until snaps; SEL to set centre of arc; move to point just outside circumference of smaller circle; SEL to set start of arc; move approx ten degrees CLOCKWISE; SEL to set end of ARC. This creates an *accurate* engineer's drawing of a nut. Use the zoom facility to see that the straight faces are genuinely tangent to the circular top face marking. * The break tool requires you to click on a single point on an object and then introduces a break in the object at that point. This may not have any visible effect, eg the first break made in a circle. Break again to separate out a chunk which can then be removed. After each break (except in cases as mentioned above), there will be two selected objects. One of these needs to be de-selected (using ADJ) before the next break can be made. * 'Convert group to symbol' is the best way to create symbols (in the Select menu). This allows a new symbol to be added to the end of the list or inserted before the current symbol or the currently selected symbol to be replaced. In the latter case, all occurrences in the drawing are updated appropriately, allowing global changes to symbols. Note that any nested groups within the group will be broken (ie you cannot have groups inside symbols). * Specialist data may be imported by dropping a CSV file (or text file containing CSV type data) into a drawing. The file should contain co-ordinate pairs, separated by commas, in the current drawing units. There should be one pair on each line. A point will be created at each given co-ordinate. A third column may contain 'C' to start a new curve at that point and continue the curve through subsequent points, 'L' to start a new line at that point and continue the line through subsequent points, or 'P' to revert to putting a point at each co-ordinate. Typically such a file would be obtained from a spreadsheet used to calculate eg the profile of a cam or lens etc. * Drawings can be inserted into other drawings by dragging them to the drawing window. The new drawing will be inserted at the bottom left corner and will be created as a group so that it can be moved/scaled easily. Any symbols in the inserted drawing which also appear in the original drawing will be changed in the inserted drawing. In this case, a warning message will be displayed. * Fills are used by setting up the desired fill in the fill toolbox then selecting the objects to fill and choosing Area fill (^F) from the Select menu. Note that individual objects (lines, trees etc) can be removed from the fill afterwards by selecting the fill (it is a separate entity from the filled object), remembering to un-group it and then selecting Break (^B) from the select menu. You can now remove a single object by clicking on it. Note that fills are intended solely for 'decoration' so there are not many snaps which recognise them, for example. The objects chosen to fill must form unambiguous closed shapes (objects within objects will be taken as holes; objects within these as further filled area; etc). Think about this when drawing shapes to be filled as it may affect the technique you use to construct the shape. If problems with construction arise, use any technique and then trace afterwards (using appropriate snaps) to get a fillable object. Note that all the plotter fonts (except Plain) are carefully designed so that each letter is an unambiguous closed shape (ie you can fill text objects OK). Do not expect fills to completely fill the chosen shapes. Line (ie hatch) fills have a small standoff to prevent scalloping at the edges due to plotter over-run. Object (eg trees) fills are based on the object centres and a guess at whether ther object will fit in the area - complex outlines may have overhangs. Note that the fill generated is a separate object and can be moved away from the outline afterwards (or the outline removed or edited etc). Fills may be renamed by typing in the fill toolbox. * The line extension tool (select menu with a line selected) allows bits to be added (or subtracted, enter -ve value) from lines. You will need to click at the end of the line to extend. * Auto save will save after indicated delay (see Auto Save menu). If prompts are selected, a dialogue will appear for each drawing giving the opportunity to save or to delay the auto Save for another period. If any drawing has no path name (ie has never been saved), the dialogue appears regardless of the prompt setting. In this case, click on save to get the normal Save dialogue. * The Join facility in the select menu joins two objects of the same type at their nearest ends. Select both objects and invoke. The objects must be of the same type (line or curve), thickness, colour, fillet radius etc for this to work. Use on a single object to join the two ends together. * Starting a new drawing actually loads a drawing called Default from inside the application. This allows you to store your favourite settings, standard drawing frame etc. If you don't want this default for a particular drawing, hold down SHIFT when you click the iconbar icon. * CADet has a circular copy tool. The example to copy is assumed to be upright (ie at the top of the circle). The reference point is placed on the defined circle and the copy is rotated to the correct angle about its reference point. You will be prompted for the centre and point of the circumference. A circle and radius will be shown in grey to assist in alignment. The chosen circumference point will be taken as the start point. The resultant copies will be grouped. * ProCAD has a multiple-copy tool. This can do various things. Start by selecting the item to be copied (this will be assumed to be in an upright position). You can then do a linear, circular or follow copy. Linear allows a certain number of items to be copied at a certain spacing and angle. You can omit the distance/angle and use the mouse. Circular can also fit a certain number in or space them at a set distance or angle. Following an item allows similar permutations, with objects being copied along a line or curve (selected with the mouse). Keep Upright can be selected so copies are never rotated (when following a line/curve, copies are rotated to be perpendicular to the line/curve at all times unless this is selected). Break Text can be selected if the object to be copied is a text item. In this case, the object will not be copied but broken into individual letters which are then distributed appropriately. The CW icon is for clockwise and allows clockwise copies in circular copy mode. * ProCAD key bindings can be altered (ie you can change what keys do what). For more info, see the KeyDefs file inside the application for more details. It is not recommended that you do this unless you are sure as it will make the software differ from the documentation. Remove the KeyDefs file completely to return to default setup if you get in a mess! * ProCAD's text tool has an enumerate facility. To use this, place a row of question marks in the string of text and these will be replaced by the 'from' value. Each subsequent placing of the text will add the 'step' value to the number. Use the Qty entry to place several copies at once; place the first two and the rest are placed at the same spacing along a line projected from the first two. This is useful for putting part numbers etc on drawings. There is also an Offset icon; this will cause the text to be offset above the indicated baseline by the amount set in the preferences. This is useful for dimensioning etc. When entering text, use the left apostrophe (`) symbol in the top left corner of the keyboard to get a plus/minus symbol and the marker symbol (¤) above the pound sign to get a diameter symbol. Text enclosed in ^ symbols will be superscripted (eg: Angle is 42^o^) (nb there is now (v0.70) a proper degree symbol so previous example not nec.). ProCAD can also place automatic text on the drawing. Click MENU over the Use icon (or SEL/ADJ to step thru) and choose an entry (eg revision date). The text will now be fixed as the selected item and the entered text ignored. The text will update itself when necessary (eg when the revision date changes). * Convert text to group (ProCAD) changes text into line objects. These can then be processed (eg dotted line type) or exported by DXF to eg an engraving tool which does not support the same fonts. * ProCAD allows symbols to be positioned between two points using the mouse and applying automatic X or X/Y scaling to fit. Try using the X-Only scaling version to position the { symbol in the BS308 set. Use top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top order depending on whether you need a left or right bracket. * ProCAD has a find facility in the fill/layer/textclass/symbol dialogues. Click select on this and enter some text. The next entry in the list containing that text will be selected. Click adjust to move to the next matching entry without re-entering the text. * ProCAD has a tangent tool. Click on two circular arcs, as near as you can judge to the actual tangent points, and a straight line will be constructed which really is tangent to both arcs. * ProCAD has a chamfer tool. Click on two straight line type objects (not in groups) with the same line type. A chamfer is constructed. The chamfer is set back from the mitre point by the amounts indicated in the tool dialogue. If only one amount is turned on, this is used for both sides. * ProCAD has a fillet tool. Set the radius and click on two arc or line objects as near as you can judge to the fillet contact points. If possible, a suitable fillet is inserted. No breaks are made in chosen objects (use end point snap with the break tool if you need to discard bits). * ProCAD has a parallel tool. Click on a line or arc (inc. elliptical) and then position the parallel copy. Set a fixed perpendicular distance from the click point in the dialogue box if desired; still needs a click to indicate which side. * ProCAD has an Item information window in the prompts menu (^I). Stats such as perimeter and area do not account for fillets and are measured using the centre line of thick/parallel line styles. Available info depends on object type. * ProCAD has an Item Information window available in the prompt menu. This displays info on the current selection. Exact info varies according to nature of selection. * ProCAD has a perpendicular tool. Click on a line or arc (inc. elliptical) and then position the perpendicular line. Set a fixed length in the dialogue box if desired; still needs a click to indicate which side and position. NB: Perpendicular to elliptical arc is defined as being a line through the centre. * ProCAD has Freehand modes for line and curve tools. Select this and then drag mouse around drawing for continuous lines/curve. * ProCAD has an expression handler. Whenever entering numbers you can put in an expression (eg 12*25.4) and this will be evaluated to get the number. Erratic expressions will have unpredictable results. Handler understands + - * / % () and []. The % performs a 'mod' as in 'C'. If co-ordinates are being entered, they can be prefixed by A, R or P to force absolute, relative or polar mode regardless of switch on snap bar. Angles may be entered as fractions or as d°m's". * ProCAD allows the Drawing Scale and User Units to be set along with the Grid Origin. The Misc menu allows the scale factor to be set and an abbreviation for the unit name to be entered, eg enter 304.8 for the scale factor and ft for the units name to draw in real feet. The grid origin is set from the grid menu by either choosing the (0,0) position with the mouse or entering it as a co-ordinate on the paper. The user units may be referred to when entering values by either suffixing the abreviation specified or using uu. * ProCAD has a sophisticated reporting facility. This works by analysing the drawing on the basis of the contents of groups of objects which include some text of a certain text class. Thus you can report, eg, "the total length of all objects grouped with text of class 'pipe'" or "the total area of all objects grouped with text of class 'flooring'" etc. This is done by creating a report description file as a text file (using eg Edit) and dropping this on the drawing. The resulting report can then be saved. See the description in the file in the Reports directory along with an example. * ProCAD can save the positions of all windows so that you can get to your favourite setup quickly and easily. Currently this is done by a save box hanging off the quit option in the iconbar menu (!) but this will change. It saves an obey file. Running this obey file will restart ProCAD with the same windows open at the same places. Open drawings are NOT remembered but subsequently opened drawing windows will appear in the same place as the top-most drawing at time of saving. For RO3 this works as part of the save desktop mechanism also. * The Cut facility in the ProCAD Select menu will create a break in any non-selected objects which are not members of groups or symbols and are on selectable layers, at all points where these objects intersect with selected objects. This allows a line or lines (or curves or whatever) to be drawn and used to trim existing stuff. * ProCAD supports text classes. The current text class is shown on the status bar and is used for freshly created text. Cycle through with SEL/ADJ, click MENU to open text class window, very similar to layers window. Text clasees can be made invisible or unselectable. Invisible text shows as a dotted rectangle if extension lines are turned on. In future versions, reporting facilities will allow comprehensive reporting on text of various classes to build bill of materials reports etc. * ProCAD has a comprehensive dimension tool. Click SEL/ADJ to cycle through the type/direction icons to select the type of dimension and the direction. Click MENU on either of these icons to select from a menu. follow message bar prompts to set up dimensions; use snaps for accuracy; default text is measured size in current units, edit as desired. Note setup for dimensions in preferences menu. NB: Many of the directions available are for isometric or orthographic projections. These will allow angles of 45 or 30 degrees only. Dimensions are placed on current layer with text in currently selected class unless otherwise specified in preferences menu. Default dimension method is auto horizontal/vertical, assuming measured distance longer than leaders. When using BS308 surface treatment etc types, leave spaces in the text where you want special symbols (add them later) and use vertical bar (|) where you want box divided. Note centre snap can be used to position symbols over spaces later, using LEFT-ALT to X-Extend the snap. Suitable symbols supplied in BS308 symbol set. When the last seven types of dimension are used, the text box will be shown on the rubber band but not positioned unless you double-click (like making a line). This allows multiple elbows in the arrows extending from the boxes. All but the last two dimensions will interpret a \ in the text as a split. Text after the \ is placed right justified on the line above. Use for tolerances etc. * ProCAD has a Desktop option in the iconbar menu. This creates an obey file which will restart ProCAD with all the same windows open in the same places. Use this to store your favourite setup. * ProCAD has a submenu under Select All. This allows selection of all objects of a particular colour or type (eg all lines or all green things). The selected objects are added to the current selection os use Clear Selection first if you want an exclusive selection. Combine to get, eg, all blue text by selecting all text, moving to a spare layer, setting the select flag for that layer only and then clearing the selection and selecting all blue things. * ProCAD has a submenu under New View. This allows the window to be split into two views horizontally or vertically (a la windows). It also allows the quick and easy creation of a quick overview or detail view (centred on the pointer position with a doubled magnification). In addition, a new view can be opened with any of the stored views in it. The first four options may have key bindings applied to them for quick access. * ProCAD allows sprites to be imported. These may have some operations applied to them (transform, move, delete etc) and they are never printed or plotted. The principle purpose is to allow scanned sprites (eg of maps) to be imported and traced over. Note that you can only see rotated sprites if you have RO3.10. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keyboard Shortcuts ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Key - Shift Ctrl Ctrl/Shift -------- -------------- ----------------- ---------------- ------------- F0(Print) Print box Print one copy Plot F1 Show Grid Lock Grid Tool box Snap box F2 Step Snap Step Tool Step Snap mode Tools to front F3 Save CAD File Save CAD Sel. Save Draw File Save Draw Sel. F4 Group Ungroup F5 Select All F6 Select (tool) Clear All Edit Area Fill F7 Copy Move Break Transform F8 Undo Delete Close View F9 Redo F10 F11 F12 ^A Select All ^B Break ^C Copy ^D Zoom 1:1 ^E Edit ^F Area fill ^G Group ^J Join ^K Cut ^L Layers dialogue ^N New View ^O Select centre of group as ref point ^P Redraw ^Q Zoom out ^R Previous view ^S Previous snap ^T Transform ^U Ungroup ^V Move ^W Zoom in ^X Delete ^Y Tools to front, windows on screen ^Z Clear All Insert may be used to terminate the creation of a line or curve instead of a double click. Delete may be used instead of ^X or ⇧F8. When editing a Line or Curve Insert insert a point Delete delete a point -----------------------------------------------------------------------------