Is there a way to rotate the crosshair? Rotate Coordinate System?

[zilmosantos]

Friends, I need a little help.

If I'm working on a piece that is rotated, like an inclined conveyor belt, sometimes I need to work in a rotated plane (or rotated coordinate system) for a little time to make studies or alterations in the project.

Is there a way to do this in QCAD?

[ryancousins]

There is not a "UCS" or any way to reorient the coordinate system currently in QCAD.

Perhaps there is some kind of workaround but I can't really think of anything.

[bambuko]

'If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain'
What's wrong with rotating the "piece you are working on"? in relation to coordinate system... and than back to horizontal when you are done?
The fact that your piece is rotated while coordinate system remains horizontal doesn't matter one little bit to either the piece or coordinate system The only thing that matters is relative position/angle of the two.

[zilmosantos]

'If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain'
What's wrong with rotating the "piece you are working on"? in relation to coordinate system... and than back to horizontal when you are done?
The fact that your piece is rotated while coordinate system remains horizontal doesn't matter one little bit to either the piece or coordinate system The only thing that matters is relative position/angle of the two.

The point here is workflow productivity.

Just to give you an example, please see the following images.

Note that the inclined dimension is not aligned with a particular point to point on any line, so I can't use a simple aligned dimension. The dimension is parallel with them, or "horizontal". The goal is to obtain the total length of the beam.

On my job I deal with tons of this kind of dimensioning. This is just a simple example, but it is recurrent in bigger cases.

What would be the fastest way to do this? (Like in AutoCAD):

Invoque UCS command
Take two points of the desired angle on one of that lines
The UCS is now inclined
Make an horizontal dimension
Invoque UCS command
Hit enter key two times
UCS is now in the default angle again

Boom, 2 seconds.

Currently, in QCAD, I can find two ways for doing this:

First way:
Create a block, copy, rotate it on every necessary angle and make dimensions.

Second way:
Select the line of the desired angle, find its angle in properties, select the entire field, CTRL+C, invoque rotated dimension, place the angle in the field, make the dimension.

Both ways work, but are more time consuming than a simple rotate UCS.

The rotated UCS is also great when working on non orthogonal/complex drawings.

Best Regards,

Zilmo

[CVH]

Hi,
Have you searched for the term 'UCS' on the forum ...
There is a pseudo USC tool.

Select the line of the desired angle, find its angle in properties, select the entire field, CTRL+C

Remark that property values are rounded.

Regards,
CVH

[Matfie]

if you worked on your part which was angled in a block, you could have it aligned with the grid.. then insert the block in the main drawing at an angle. To edit the part, just edit it in the block..?

[bambuko]

Do you mean something like this:

Screenshot from 2021-10-19 19.19.42.png (7.82 KiB) Viewed 6818 times

Where the dimension is aligned to the line, but two measured points are not?

It is easy to do using Rotated (Linear) dimension.
You simply need to specify line angle (you can find it and copy from line properties)

Hope I didn't misunderstand you

[zilmosantos]

Do you mean something like this:

Screenshot from 2021-10-19 19.19.42.png

Where the dimension is aligned to the line, but two measured points are not?

It is easy to do using Rotated (Linear) dimension.
You simply need to specify line angle (you can find it and copy from line properties)

Hope I didn't misunderstand you

Yes, that's one of the 2 current solutions in QCAD that I found, but it's just more time consuming than a hipotetical UCS command.

A third one would be make an horizontal dimension in the first point, of any dimension, then rotate with reference angle and place the end point of the dimension. I haven't tried because I just use QCAD on my home or lunch time, but I guess it's faster than CTRL+C CTRL+V of angles from line properties to dimensions.

[zilmosantos]

if you worked on your part which was angled in a block, you could have it aligned with the grid.. then insert the block in the main drawing at an angle. To edit the part, just edit it in the block..?

It's a workaround, for sure.

But with greater projects can be not fast as a UCS command.

[zilmosantos]

Hi,
Have you searched for the term 'UCS' on the forum ...
There is a pseudo USC tool.

Select the line of the desired angle, find its angle in properties, select the entire field, CTRL+C

Remark that property values are rounded.

Regards,
CVH

I searched and found that 3yr topic, just didn't notice that it had a recent interaction. I'll try later.

I'm not with qcad in front of me now, but the 4 to 6 decimal cases for line angles are enough for the precision I need.

[Husky]

Currently, in QCAD, I can find two ways for doing this:

First way:
Create a block, copy, rotate it on every necessary angle and make dimensions.

Second way:
Select the line of the desired angle, find its angle in properties, select the entire field, CTRL+C, invoque rotated dimension, place the angle in the field, make the dimension.

Both ways work, but are more time consuming than a simple rotate UCS.

I have to disagree! Think out of the box. Rotate the whole drawing and you have the same result like using a rotated UCS. Why not just using a rotated UCS? Because QCAD doesn't offers currently a tool which can do that what means we have to use a similar working workaround ...

With other words: I agree with this statement!

'If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain'

Rotate for dim.gif (2.55 MiB) Viewed 6767 times

[zilmosantos]

Currently, in QCAD, I can find two ways for doing this:

First way:
Create a block, copy, rotate it on every necessary angle and make dimensions.

Second way:
Select the line of the desired angle, find its angle in properties, select the entire field, CTRL+C, invoque rotated dimension, place the angle in the field, make the dimension.

Both ways work, but are more time consuming than a simple rotate UCS.

I have to disagree! Think out of the box. Rotate the whole drawing and you have the same result like using a rotated UCS. Why not just using a rotated UCS? Because QCAD doesn't offers currently a tool which can do that what means we have to use a similar working workaround ...

With other words: I agree with this statement!

'If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain'

Rotate for dim.gif

Yes, you described the something similar to what I meant as the "first way". But, how long did it take to do this? My point here is productivity. In a 90 meter conveyor belt, it would be a time consuming.

And find a workaround is also my way to go.

In my opinion, we, as users, have to push up the software to it shine even more, and bring particular necessities that we find and maybe get new features in future releases is very healthy.