The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Discussions about the development of the TechDraw workbench
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Pauvres_honteux
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by Pauvres_honteux »

ikua wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 6:04 am ...work a lot with annotations..
Seconding what ikua is typing, I'd like to add a proposal to be able to read out, from an assembly drawing, the partnumbers typed in the drawing.
Super simple example; two pieces of sheet metal held together with two pairs of screws and nuts. In the drawing one creates one "magic" text notation pointing to each part containing one part number. This would then be readable from outside the file via a database which then can be processed as one whishes.

This is how it's done in big companies today since they need that information processed in a lot of other databases for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is for the assembly plant, another for you as a customer when you want to "build your own car" on the web. But the main reason is data security. One dataset shall only be typed once and once only. For the rest of the processing it shall be copied. I think you would be surprised how many databases there are where the same data is manually typed in these different databases.

Another proposal; This is a long shot, but here it goes: adding to the above whish I'd like to add an automatic "change notification symbol" besides the "magic" text notations and couple it with the change notification field/area in/on top of the drawing header.
herrdeh
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by herrdeh »

I put the changes into the 3D model (guess that is what you mean by "feature").

Well - I'd very much appreciate a "re-render" or "update" feature in TechDraw. Obviously you fellows can create a project in your mind, put it into 3D, manufacture it and everything's fine. I cannot. My projects always have lots and lots of changes, prototyping, experiments, testing etc. And maybe out there is anybody else with the same problem... (-;

W
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NormandC
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by NormandC »

herrdeh wrote: Fri Aug 10, 2018 10:53 am I put the changes into the 3D model (guess that is what you mean by "feature").

Well - I'd very much appreciate a "re-render" or "update" feature in TechDraw. Obviously you fellows can create a project in your mind, put it into 3D, manufacture it and everything's fine. I cannot. My projects always have lots and lots of changes, prototyping, experiments, testing etc. And maybe out there is anybody else with the same problem... (-;

W
wandererfan split your question into a separate topic here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=30242
user1234
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by user1234 »

Hello!
wandererfan wrote: Fri Jul 13, 2018 12:31 pm
There are two Properties that affect this behaviour. In ProjectionGroup there is "AutoDistribute" which is causing your issue. If AutoDistribute is True, the ProjectionGroup will arrange the secondary views based on their size and the values of spacingX and spacingY.
DPGAutoDistribute.png

In individual views, there is "LockPosition" which @chrisb already mentioned.
Sorry for spamming this old thread but i have still this problem. LockPosition == true and AutoDistribute == false. But everytime when i reload a file, the views are not on the position where i saved them. Maybe i got something wrong.

version:

Code: Select all

OS: Debian GNU/Linux buster/sid
Word size of OS: 64-bit
Word size of FreeCAD: 64-bit
Version: 0.18.15654 (Git)
Build type: Release
Branch: master
Hash: 42d7c7afd3985911fc85e132379cc1f80ba482e8
Python version: 3.7.2
Qt version: 5.11.3
Coin version: 4.0.0a
OCC version: 7.3.0
Locale: English/UnitedStates (en_US)
01.webm
(1010.59 KiB) Downloaded 70 times
Sorry for bad english.

Greetings
user

edit: how i embed the video? with the video tags? the preview said: no.
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wandererfan
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by wandererfan »

user1234 wrote: Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:28 pm Sorry for spamming this old thread but i have still this problem. LockPosition == true and AutoDistribute == false. But everytime when i reload a file, the views are not on the position where i saved them. Maybe i got something wrong.
Continued in separate thread: ProjectionGroup, LockPosition, AutoDistribute and Restore.
reox
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by reox »

I would like to add a shaded view of my part into the techdraw drawing, like this: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=14120
I found this comment here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 90#p143287 suggesting the solid.svg.
But as wrote there, it is very tedious.

I wonder if there is a better method than taking a screenshot or using the hatching?
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by wandererfan »

reox wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 11:30 am I would like to add a shaded view of my part into the techdraw drawing, like this: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?t=14120
I found this comment here: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 90#p143287 suggesting the solid.svg.
I wonder if there is a better method than taking a screenshot or using the hatching?
I don't think there is a better method in v0.18. There is some stuff in the devel lab that allows assigning individual colours to faces that might help down the road.

This seems hard to do in a 2D drawing environment. You'd have to calculate the shading in 3d, remember the colour results for each face, then apply them to the 2D drawing.
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NormandC
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by NormandC »

As it's been mentioned in the first topic you linked, you can take a screenshot of your model and insert it in the page as a bitmap image. If you use the Tools --> Save picture utility, you can save the image with a white or transparent background (provided the image format supports it).

The result is pretty good, as can be shown in the post from the French forum: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=33868
reox
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by reox »

Yep, but that requires me to update the image all the time I change something in the model.
So something like a 3D shaded view would be appreciated 8-)

Is it possible to generate a 3D view with a given camera perspective?I would guess the biggest problem is to export it as vector graphic but maybe for the beginning a pixel buffer would be fine as well?
The idea would be to have something like the screenshot tool embedded into TD and be able to update the view.
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NormandC
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Re: The Big TechDraw Comments Thread

Post by NormandC »

wandererfan wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 1:23 pm This seems hard to do in a 2D drawing environment. You'd have to calculate the shading in 3d, remember the colour results for each face, then apply them to the 2D drawing.
As I mentioned last year in a long forgotten topic (can't be bothered to look for it :D ), the way it works in the CAD program I use at work, it creates a bitmap image from the 3D model in shaded draw style (no apparent edges), and applies the bitmap underneath the vector view. Obviously there is some computing done to match the view orientation, the scale and the position on the page. This is done transparently for the end user, the view has a properties dialog where you can enable the bitmap display and refine it between 150dpi, 200 and 300 as well as other options. When you zoom in on the page, you can see the jagged edges of the bitmap image on the borders.

I'd think that this is a much simpler process than actually applying colours on the vector view, what with considering the topological naming stuff.

Would you like for me to post a screenshot of such a view? I could do that tomorrow during my lunch break (if I don't forget about it).
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