how to add color to a drawing

[JimBrown]

I think that the lack of a fill method for filling in a shape made of discrete objects is a serious lack in DC- even MS Paint allows that. In Paint you can just empty the paint can into a closed shape and there you go.... provided of course the shape really is closed!!

[Sparky]

(04-07-2009, 10:54 PM)JimBrown Wrote: I think that the lack of a fill method for filling in a shape made of discrete objects is a serious lack in DC- even MS Paint allows that. In Paint you can just empty the paint can into a closed shape and there you go.... provided of course the shape really is closed!!

Jim, I don't understand what you're saying. In DC, shapes can be filled upon drawing them, which is better than dumping a paint can into a shape.




Maybe I missed your point.

[Admin 1]

Oh boy, don't get me started on the MS Paint vs DeltaCad thing. I did that on another site, and needless to say, it got pretty ugly. They are completely different animals, as it were. And, well, MS Paint is sooooo old... It was created in the days of MS DOS and it hasn't improved much since, other than being made Windows compatible. I digress.

Anyway, I don't think there is any CAD program that includes a 'paint can' function - or a 'spray paint' function, for that matter - And why can't MS Paint 'measure' an object or draw anything to scale? Because it's not intended to be used as a CAD program, just as a CAD program can't edit individual pixels, as can be done in MS Paint, since it isn't intended to be a 'graphics editor'.

As pointed out in this thread, any closed object can be filled, in DeltaCad, either when it's originally created or it can be selected and it's properties edited afterwords to apply the 'fill' option. In MS Paint, if the object isn't completely closed, the 'paint' will leak-out all over the place. That can't happen in DeltaCad because it simply won't let you do that.

[JimBrown]

Sparky I mean if you have a closed space made up from more than one DC element- eg draw a circle (outline only, no fill or hatch) then draw a line through it to split it into 2 slices- how do I hatch only one of the slices. The slice isn't a DC element, although it's a closed space.

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Boss, I agree Paint's old and ugly and not a CAD system, but as I said "even Paint" can do the paint can fill thing. I'm surprised if no CAD systems do that, but then I have no experience of such things.

Here's a real example- look at the sample DC drawing ENGINE, where the cross section of the block, head and the conrod are hatched. Each hatch line is an indivudual line, which must have taken hours to do. If DC could have "seen" the conrod- whose outline is lines and circle segments- as a closed shape, the hatching would have been simple.

I had kind of expected (ok, hoped?) that if one grouped a bunch of DC elements, which together constituted a closed space, that DC would have been able to fill or hatch it.

[JimBrown]

Not sure if this will help answer the question about the 45 degree lines, which I must confess I didn't understand fully without a drawing... but if you choose Edit and click a line, its angle on the screen is given in the bottom left of the popup. Not that you can edit it, but knowing that value might help in drawing the next line.... hth

[Admin 1]

JimBrown Wrote:Here's a real example- look at the sample DC drawing ENGINE, where the cross section of the block, head and the conrod are hatched. Each hatch line is an indivudual line, which must have taken hours to do. If DC could have "seen" the conrod- whose outline is lines and circle segments- as a closed shape, the hatching would have been simple.

I see what you mean, but keep in mind that that sample drawing is a file created with a very early, if not first, version of DeltaCad (before the fill & crosshatching features were available). I have actually done that myself. Yes, it was a real PIA. Although, you just draw one line at 45 degrees, then use the Draw Parallel Line feature and duplicate as needed. Then you have to adjust (snap) the ends of each line to the shape's lines.

The fill feature has only been available in the most recent versions (v6 & up, I believe), which now virtually eliminates that whole process. Granted, one should "think ahead" so that the fill option can be applied to the shape later, if desired. Otherwise it must be over-drawn using the Polygon Shape or the the Continuous Spline option.

Alternately, those could be selected and converted, also a fairly new feature, but the original hash-lines would have to be removed first or it will convert those too, which could make them very messy and almost impossible to deal with after conversion. Of course our friend, the "Undo" feature, is always there to rescue us from such a 'messy' situation.