How to quick select objects on multiple layers. Previously, I was using Qselect, I was trying to select all the objects on more than 9 layers, and for each layer I had to run through the command and just add it to selection set. FILTER also gets the job done, after all these practice, I thought there could be an easier way to get this done.
Please visit the ZWCAD Forum for solutions: http://www.zwsoft.com/forum/thread-3693-1-1.html
See also:
Using QSelect in ZWCAD to Filter Selection Sets
How to convert an ellipse to a polyline
CAD users might encounter the following situation while they are using ZWCAD: They need to edit the ellipse object like polyline, but the properties of ellipse are not like the properties of polyline. So how can we do this if we want to join an ellipse arc, line and other objects into polyline? In the following content, we will give you a brief introduction on how to change an ellipse to a polyline.
Approach 1: Open ZWCAD, and then set PELLIPSE to 1 (or ON)
The PELLIPSE System Variable is used to controls whether the entity drawn with the ELLIPSE command is a true ellipse or an ellipse made up of polylines.
0 Draws a true ellipse.
1 Creates an ellipse made up of polylines.
PELLIPSE =0
PELLIPSE =value 1
Approach 2: offset the ellipse object
After an elliptical arc is created, we can use Offset command to change it to polyline. Offset the elliptical arc to a certain distance, and then delete the original elliptical object, after that run offset command again to offset the elliptical arc back to original position, by this way, the elliptical arc is changed to SPline object.
Then we can use command Flatten to change the SPline to Polyline, and use command Pedit to join the polylines.
Both two approach are quite easy to convert the ellipse to a polyline.
Related Questions
How to Draw a Cone with Round Top and Square Bottom
Many CAD users may be very familiar with the object—cone with round top and square bottom. Here I would like to explain to some of CAD beginners what this is and how to draw it. First of all, this special cone is often used as a transition part to join together square and circle pipeline. Next I will use ZWCAD and ZW3D to draw this object.
A:ZWCAD
1. Draw the following graph and adopt the isometric view to finish the rest of operation.
2. Lift the circle inside the square for certain height in the direction of Z axis
3. Use the command Loft and the following graph will be generated.
4. Solid edit the graph and then color it
Execute the command of Solidedit and choose the 3d oject. When there’s reminder that the 3 surfaces are found, hit on the ENTER button and type in “a”, choose the outside surface you would like to keep as noted below.
With the above steps, we have finished the drawing of a cone with round top and square bottom in ZWCAD.
B: ZW3D is very cost-effective CAD/CAM software. In ZW3D, we can use the same steps as above (sketch—loft—solidedit). But it is somewhat difficult to unfold this model through above drawing steps as generally speaking sheet metal will always be unfolded for measurement. When outside contour only has one surface we can use Unfold Surface in Curved Surface to achieve it, while when there are 8 surfaces in the outside contour, regardless of the thickness, we will not be able to find the way to unfold the object.
Users can choose either ZWCAD or ZW3D to draw this object. The two CAD software will both meet your needs.
Related Questions:
How to Create Custom Linetype
One of the commonly encountered problems is that the linetypes provided by CAD software can’t satisfy various demands in CAD Design. In order to make the design work easier, I will talk about how to create custom linetype in ZWCAD in today’sCAD topic,
To create the custom linetype, let’s start with the rules in customization.
In the ZWCAD, we can find a zwcad.lin file in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\ZWSoft\ZWCAD\2012\en-US\Support . Open the file by Notepad, and the linetypes provided by CAD have been listed.
*BORDER,Border __ __ . __ __ . __ __ . __ __ . __ __ .
A, 12.700, -6.350, 12.700, -6.350, 0, -6.350
The linetype definition is composed of two parts. The first part is name and description for the particular line. Start the definition with “*”, then we could name the line. Leave a simple description after the comma. Specify the codes of lines in the second part. “A “ stands for alignment. The first parameter value should be equal to or more than “0”. The second parameter value should be less than “0”. Positive value means drawing a straight line with certain length. “0” means draw a point. Negative value means space. The punctuation after codes should be input with half-width.
Let’s take the center line as an example. The source code for which is A,1.250,-0.25,0.25,-0.25，According to the definition rules stated above, it means drawing a line with length of 1.25, ‘-0.25’ means a space with length of 0.25, ‘0.25’ means a line with length of 0.25.
If you are still not so clear about how to customize the linetype, you could draw the line first. Here is an example for double dot dash line. Let’s see how it’s defined.
Open the file zwcad.lin in ZWCAD installation path. And enter the name of this linetype as “double dots”. The source code for the line should be
*DOUBLE_DOT,double_dot ______..______..______
A,1.0,-0.1,0,-0.1,0,-0.1
Save the file after we add the source code.
With the same method, we could customize the linetype in design.
You may like more about “linetype” on CAD forum:
CAD Insight:getting a product from screen to store
You have been playing about on ZW3D and have come up with an incredible product. How has no-one thought of this before? It’s going to be huge? But what next? It is a long, tough journey to get from this stage to the shelves of Wal-Mart, but these tips will be able to guide you on your way.
Prototyping
To be taken seriously by any investor, manufacturer or buyer you will need a physical representation of your product. Ideally this would be a fully functioning model but if not, something that you can use to help explain your vision.
The first step would be to construct a basic version of your product with cheap materials or things lying around the house. The aim of this would be to get a better idea of your product, and allow you to make small changes before you invest fully in pre-production prototyping. Moldable plastics, such as Instamorph, can be used to design and test any plastic products, and can be remolded over and over again until you have perfected the design.
The pre-production prototype will be a more professional version of your product and will be used to attract investors and buyers to your product before you enter in to manufacturing. If the product is based on plastics, you can use a 3D printer to cheaply and easily make a one off version. If you do not own a 3D printer, makexyz.com offers a directory of printers available to hire in your area. For metallic products, you may need to enlist the help of a prototype engineer, find-able through a Google search, however this could considerably increase costs. If you are aiming to keep costs low, you could enlist the help of a local tradesman.
Patenting
After working so hard on the design of your product, the last thing you want is for someone to come along and steal the idea. Patenting can stop this; however it can be a long and costly process.
Patenting laws are different for every country so you should research closely in to your own local laws. Generally, however, you can receive a provisional patent or a non-provisional patent. A provisional patent will be far cheaper but will only last one year, giving you time to decide whether your idea is worthy of your investment.
The patent application can be done individually or through a patent lawyer. Undertaking this task individually will involve submitting sketches of your idea and a brief description. Once this is done, you will be able to label your product as “patent pending’ and will spend the next year or so convincing the patent office that your idea is truly new and non-obvious.
Employing a patent lawyer to undertake this task for you will undoubtedly cost a significant amount more, however they will be able to create a much broader patent, making it harder for other firms to design around your product.
Having successfully gained a patent for your product, it will then be up to you to identify if any competitors are violating that patent. A tough task for a small company.
Licensing or Manufacturing
Once you have covered points one and two, it moves to the hardest but most rewarding stage, but first you must make the choice between manufacturing and selling the product yourself, or licensing your idea out to another company.
This choice is largely up to you. If you have the passion for your product, as well as the financial backing and business know-how to enter the market on your own, it could be one of the most rewarding things you could do. This, however, comes at a high risk and could result in major financial losses so is certainly not a decision that should be taken lightly.
Licensing is also hard to achieve. Large companies have a long waiting list of products to produce and will only accept products with great potential. They also lack the passion that you would have having followed the product from idea conception to this stage. Having said this, the financial risk is vastly reduced and if your product is taken on, the distribution channels and marketing budgets of larger businesses can result in royalties greater than any income you could have received on your own.
Within these stages, you will also have to construct business plans, conduct market research and locate financing along with a variety of other tasks. Bringing your product to market is certainly not an easy option, but it could be both financially and personally rewarding if it is done successfully.
How to set up layout to make plotting easier
Aren’t
you a little curious about Layout
in CAD? Layout is a basic but powerful tool in design. With Layout, CAD
users can better control
their drawing scale and represent the drawing with several viewports,
showing different area of the model. Also, layout has made plot setting up
easier than ever.
In ZWCAD+,
users can view and display the drawings with one or several models by setting up viewports in
Layout. By default, there will be 2 layouts for 1 graphic, layout 1 and
layout 2. Users can set up multiple layouts as they want. Each layout is with
different plot setting up and paper size.
Let us
show you how Layout works in the following steps.
l In the model space, draw object with 1:1 scale, the same size as actual.
You can
draw in full scale regardless of different scales in one sheet.
l Switch to
Layout 1 space, input the PAGESETUP command and Enter to the page set up dialog
box, click on the Modify button. Complete the setting up for the printer, paper
size, plot scale and drawing orientation, etc. And click on OK to complete set
up.
l Switch to
layout space and this is the plotting area, make sure
that all the graphics are within the printable range.
l Insert the title
block, you can copy or draw a title block in the Layout 1. Please be sure that
the dimension of the title
block should match with the paper size. The plotting area of the title
block should be moved in the area of the dotted lines.
l Input VPORTS
and enter to the viewport
dialog box, choose to create a single viewport. In the viewport, you can see
the graphics in the models. Double click on the inside part of viewport and enter
the model space. In the model space, you can edit and set up the viewport
showing area of the graphics. Double click on the outside part of viewport to
go back to the Layout.
l Select
viewport and input the command PROPERTIES, enter to open the property bar, set
up a suitable Standard Scale and make the object present appropriately within the viewport.
l Annotate
drawing with 1:1 annotation scale in the Layout.
l Create a new
viewport, set the viewport scale as two times to the last viewport scale. Dimensioning
the objects in this viewport using the same dimension style. The dimension
value will not change regardless of the viewport scale.
l Select
viewport, change its layer to Defpoints.
This way, the line boundary of the
viewport will not be plotted as you plot out the drawing.
l Now, the page
setup is finished. If you plot drawing in this layout, the printer, paper size
and other settings will be the same to the page setup, no need to setup the
layout in model space again by manually, it will save you a lot of time to plot
drawing.
You might be
interested:
How to Make the Most of Polar Tracking and Object Snap to Boost Design Accuracy
Designers often need to move the cursor coordinates
to define a specific point when drawing a line, a circle or any other graphics. Without an Auto
tracking tool, you would have a lot of trouble doing even the simplest
dimension accurately. In ZWCAD+, the polar tracking and the object snap command can help pinpoint a
specific point.
Polar tracking
Polar Tracking will guide the movement of
your pointer along specified angles. When polar tracking is turned on, guides will
display on the screen automatically at the polar angle increment that you
specify. For example, if you draw a line with polar tracking turned on and the
angle increment set at 45 degrees, the rubber-banding line displays at 45
degree increments.
l Enabling polar tracking
To toggle polar tracking on and off at any
time, simply make sure the Polar
Tracking button on the status line is activated, or you can press F10.
Right click on the Polar Tracking radio button, and select Settings to display
the settings dialog box.
l Polar tracking setting
CAD users can choose among different
increment angles. To track using all angles, click the Track using all polar angle settings button. Click
the OK button when finished.
Object Snap
Object Snap enables you to quickly select
exact geometric points on existing entities without having to know the exact
coordinates of those points. With Object Snap, you can select the endpoint of a
line or arc, the center point of a circle, the intersection of any two
entities, or any other geometrically significant position. You can also use
object snaps to draw entities that are tangential or perpendicular to an
existing entity.
l Object snap setting
To turn on Object Snap, you can press F3
or activate the Object Snap radio button on the status line. Right click on the
OSNAP button on the ribbon to prompt the setting dialog box.
Taking Midpoint as an example, when the
Midpoint is selected, the cursor will move to the center of a circle or an arc.
Please take note that to use OSNAP
effectively, you must know what points an object has that you are able to snap
to. A line for example has 3 points that you can snap to: a midpoint and two
endpoints. A circle has 5 points: a center and 4 quadrants.
Guess you may be
interested:
How to Use Distance Query Processor in Autocad?
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