Hey y'all!
In this video I'm going to take a couple of steps back...
...thanks to a sharp-eyed viewer by the name of Dirk...
...who reminded me that I have gotten into creating rectangles, circles, and a few other types of geometry...
...but I've never discussed drawing a line or a polyline...
...starting in a specific place or drawing a line of a specific length.
And, going back over my videos, he's absolutely right.
So let me take care of that right now.
I'm using VCarve Pro version 9.5.
Vectric added a few features starting in version 9.0...
...that are not available in 8.5 and prior.
It would be impossible to talk about the Draw a Line or Polyline tool...
...without talking about those features first.
And those features are Smart Snapping and the various Snapping Options.
To illustrate what I'm talking about we'll get into our Snap Options now.
We'll do that by going up here into the Edit menu, then come down here to Snap Options.
Click that and this window opens up here.
For purposes of this video I'm going to make sure that all of these boxes are checked...
...to include Snap to Grid.
I'll get into this a little bit further in a minute....
...but I want all of these boxes checked.
A couple of things to watch for are, on our Snap to Grid option here...
...we have a Grid Spacing.
Mine is currently set to ½ inch.
This is in reference to all of these dots arranged in a grid on my material...
...and further out over here on my screen.
Right now they're spaced to ½ inch apart.
I can change that if I'd like. Let's make that 1/4 inch.
When I click the OK button down here...
...these dots will suddenly be aligned 1/4 inch apart.
The majority of what we're going to be talking about has to do with this over here.
This is Geometry Snapping, and I will explain what this is a little bit later...
...and Smart Snapping.
This is what we're going to be using for the most part.
The other one to pay attention to here is the Snap Angle Increments.
The default setting is 15 degrees.
I go ahead and I leave it at 15 degrees.
You may decide to change that to suit your needs; be it 5 degrees, 10 degrees, 20 degrees, whatever.
You can go ahead and change it if you choose to do so, but I'm going to leave it at 15 degrees.
And I'll go ahead and click OK.
We immediately see that my grid has changed to dots spaced ¼ inch apart out here.
In addition to using the Snapping Options over here under the Edit menu...
...if we look up here at the top of the screen, right above, in my case 0 0, we have these three icons up here.
These three icons control some of the snapping features down here.
From the left, we have Toggle Geometry Snapping.
I'll get into that a little bit further pretty quick.
Then here we have Smart Snapping.
Over here we have the Grid Snapping.
Now if you notice, all three of these are highlighted in blue.
That means that they're, all three, currently turned on.
I can tell my grid snapping is turned on because I have the grid out here.
Now I don't normally use this.
I will on occasion, but I don't normally use grid snapping, so I leave it turned off.
And all I'll do is come up here to Grid Snapping and click that icon.
And you see my grid has disappeared, and that icon is no longer highlighted in blue.
I can turn it back on and then turn it off as I choose to do so so.
That's a brief overview of some of the Snap Options that are available to us.
But let's get into drawing a polyline.
Dirk specifically asked, "How do I draw a line of a specific size and put it in a specific place?"
With the advent of Smart Snapping, Vectric has really made this easy.
In older versions, 8.5 and prior, it was a bit like text messaging on a flip phone.
You could do it, but it was pretty cumbersome.
So to demonstrate, let's go ahead and get into it.
We'll come over here under Create Vectors to Draw Line/Polyline.
...and we'll click that icon, and immediately this form opens up.
In earlier versions, you had to know where your start point was going to be...
...where your end point was going to be, the angle you wanted the line...
...or the length you wanted the line, and use this form here to fill all this out.
With Smart Snapping you no longer have to do that.
For this demonstration, let's say I want a six inch line...
...that starts three inches to the left of my X zero line here...
...and three inches above my Y zero line here.
I can move my cursor over here...
...and if you look underneath the pointer, and off to the right slightly, you'll see I have an X Y display.
I also have an X Y display down here at the bottom of the screen.
I can come up here and kind of place this, and get it pretty close...
...but that's a lot of fiddling.
It's much easier to come up here and use these two blanks in the form.
What it's asking right now is, where do I want to put my next point?
Well, in this case it'll be the first point.
I want it 3 inches to the left here...
...3 inches up here.
This is my X zero line, and we're going to the left of zero, which means we're going into negative territory.
So my start point in X will be negative 3 (-3).
We're going above my Y zero line, so as you can see by my Y display below my cursor crosshairs...
...we're in positive territory, so Y will be positive 3 (3).
Then I'll come over here and I'll click the Add button.
At first it doesn't look like much of anything has really happened...
...until I get my cursor back out here onto my drawing area...
...and we see I now have a line attached.
The start point of this line is right here at -3 in X, +3 in Y.
We also can see, as I move my cursor away a little bit...
...because Smart Snapping is active...
...it has given me a blue line that's projecting in the direction I moved my cursor.
...which is on the same plane in Y but a different plane in X.
Now if you look down below my cursor pointer the display is changed to L and A.
L meaning Length, and A meaning Angle.
I'm running at 0 degrees angle from my start point...
...but the length is changing.
If I drop it down below that Smart Snap projection, we can see...
...that the angle is changing along with the length...
...until I get to 15 degrees. It snaps to 15 degrees...
...then I have that 15 degree projection line.
So if I wanted to run it at 15 degrees, I could come out here...
...and adjust my length to whatever I wanted.
Or 30 degrees, or 45, or 75, or 90, etc... all the way around.
So Smart Snapping is really a huge aid in placing the line, and making sure that it's going in the right direction.
Now, again, we're after a 6 inch long line starting right here...
...so all I need to do is pull the line in the direction I want that line to run...
...then I can use my keyboard to enter the length.
If you look down here, right in this space here...
...when I start typing, you'll see the word Value pop up, along with a number.
We want a 6 inch line, so I come over here and I type the number 6...
...and you'll see the word Value and 6 has popped up.
If I don't do anything further, it'll timeout and just kind of go away.
You'll also see I've moved off of that plane and it went away.
I want it along this plane, I'll type the number 6, then I'll hit ENTER.
And it has drawn us a 6 inch line starting here and ending here.
You'll notice I still have a line connected to that point.
What I've done is, I've added another point along this vector here.
And these points are 6 inches apart.
If I'm finished and I want to get out of this...
...if we look right over here it says, "Press the space bar to finish the current line and start a new one."
So if I've got my 6 inch line drawn...
I'll just hit the space bar, it breaks that connection, and I can start drawing new lines.
But if I exit this form...
...select this line...
...come over here under Transform Objects to Set Selected Object Size...
...we see that the width of my line is 6 inches.
The height in Y is 0 because it's a single vector.
But I've drawn a 6 inch line starting here, and ending here.
So let me do that one more time without that lengthy explanation...
...so that you can get the gist of it.
I'll go into Draw Line/Polyline...
I want my line to start at -3, +3...
I'll add my first point...
...come over here and set it on the correct plane...
...type 6 then hit ENTER...
...bring my cursor away...
...hit the space bar.
There's my six-inch line, placed exactly where I want it.
There are occasions where you know you want a line of a specific length...
...but you're not sure of exactly where you want it...
...or it doesn't have a have to have a precise starting point.
That's simple as well. It's prompting us right now: it wants us to add our start point.
So I'll just click anywhere on the screen here.
Left-click and drag my line...
...again I want to go horizontal, and I want to make this one 6 inches long as well...
Type 6... hit ENTER...
...bring it down... Space Bar.
So I have a line of a specific length...
...but not necessarily placed in a specific location.
Those are the easiest ways to draw a single line in VCarve.
Let me CTRL Z to get rid of that, and CTRL Z to get rid of that.
The reason it's called a polyline is because, as you've noticed when I started...
...you don't necessarily have to draw just one line.
We can keep it going to draw geometry.
I'll demonstrate that right now.
I've already got my next point figured out here of -3, +3...
I'll go ahead and make that my starting point.
I'll come back over here and we'll draw another 6-inch line, so we'll type 6, ENTER.
If I want to continue that line downwards 90 degrees...
...I just need to start pulling the line in that direction...
...and type 6, ENTER...
...come over here...
...6, ENTER...
...come over here...
...6, ENTER...
...and I've created a rectangle.
We'll select that rectangle to make sure it's a closed vector...
...which I'm sure it is...
...and it is a closed vector.
I'll show you another neat little feature that Vectric has added to drawing with polylines...
...by coming back over here to Draw Line...
And this time I want to start on my X zero...
...but I want to be 3 inches up in Y.
So I'll come over here to my Next Point; I want it to be 0 in X...
...3 in Y. We'll click Add...
...and my vector starts here.
I'm going to go ahead and draw part of a rectangle...
...so let's go over 3... ENTER...
...and I've drawn a 3 inch line...
...down in this direction I want to go 6, ENTER...
...this direction I want to go 6, ENTER...
...up here I only want to go 3.5, ENTER.
Now I want to close this vector.
All I have to do is press the TAB button on my keyboard...
...and that vector is closed.
It automatically drew the line from here to here, and closed that vector.
I can confirm that by selecting the geometry...
...come over here under Edit Objects to Join Open Vectors...
...and we look up here; the selected vector is already closed.
That's just a neat little aid when it comes to...
...closing a vector that you are in the process of drawing.
Let me delete this and show you a caveat here.
You do have to make sure that you still have that same vector active.
I'll do it again to show you what I'm talking about here.
We'll start at X 0, Y 3...
...at our start point, come over here and type 3, ENTER...
...come down here; 6, ENTER...
...6, ENTER...
...3.5, ENTER...
...and then Space Bar.
So I've ended my vector.
Now if I were to come over here to this top point...
...click to start a line, drag it up...
...and hit the TAB button; I can hit the TAB button all day long and it's not going to join that for me.
The reason for that is...
...I have already stopped drawing the polyline...
...the minute I hit the Space Bar at this point right here.
Now all I can do is go ahead and draw my line and connect those two...
...hit the Space Bar to end the line...
...close this...
...but now if I select...
...we have 2 open vectors. It's not a closed vector.
Now, it's not a problem.
I can select both of those vectors, go over here to Join...
I have 2 open vectors...
I'll have 1 closed vector after joining.
So, I can fix it.
But the point is, once I finished drawing the vector here by hitting the Space Bar...
...using the TAB button will not automatically close that vector.
That was my point.
Let me go ahead and delete that, and I'm going to draw...
...I'm going to use the draw rectangle tool...
...just to demonstrate something else that's built into VCarve, as far as snapping is concerned...
...while we're on the subject.
I'm going to create a 4 inch square, with square corners...
...anchor the center of that square on X 0, Y 0.
We'll create it...
...then I'm going to create another one that is 6 inches by 6 inches on the same anchor point...
...create that...
...then we'll close my form.
There's another little tool in Smart Snapping...
...that is very useful.
Let's say, for purposes of discussion, I want to create a line here...
...in between this line and this line...
...but I want it to start...
...out here halfway between this point and this point...
...somewhere in here.
...and end halfway between this point and this point, out in this direction here.
Smart Snapping comes to our aid there as well.
I'll go up here into Draw Polyline...
I don't have my next point yet; I'm going to find it right now.
I'll come over here and I'll hover my cursor over this corner...
...just to kind of wake up this vector here...
...then hover my cursor over this corner...
..and then as I move back towards that corner, you see how my cursor changes.
Smart Snapping will kick in here, and when I reach the midpoint between those two corners...
...my cursor changes to that shape.
I can left-click to set my start point...
...then drag horizontally, this way...
...and again...
...put my cursor down here and don't click...
...bring my cursor back up here and don't click...
...then start dragging towards that corner, and you'll see that projection comes up...
...and there is my center point along that projection.
Left-click there...
...come down, hit the Space Bar...
...and I now have a line...
...that is halfway between this line and this line...
...but starts halfway between this corner and this corner...
...and ends halfway between this corner and this corner.
I can confirm this by drawing another polyline, starting here on this corner...
...and ending it here on this corner...
...Space Bar...
...drawing a polyline from here to here...
...Space Bar...
...and we see it starts here along this plane, and ends here along this plane.
So Smart Snapping can help you find areas between geometry...
...it can help you reference off of portions of geometry.
Let me demonstrate that a little bit further.
I'll delete these here just to keep from confusing things...
...and I'll select these vectors and we'll scoot them over a little bit...
...just to get them out of the way.
For this demonstration, let's say I want to draw a circle down here...
...but I want the center of the circle based off of this corner.
I want the center of the circle on the same same horizontal plane
...as this line right here.
So what I'll do is come up here to Draw Circle...
I want a one-inch diameter circle...
...and I want to reference it off of this corner.
So I bring it down here to this corner...
...kind of wake this vector up...
...then I start moving off in the direction I want to place that circle.
You'll see how I get that projection.
Let's go out here let's say I want to put it right...
...yeah that's good enough right there.
...and when I click...
...the center of my circle...
...is on the same plane as this line right here.
I can do the same with a rectangle.
If I want to draw a 1 inch rectangle up here...
...and I want the bottom left corner of that rectangle to be on the same plane as this corner here...
...I'll go up into Draw Rectangle...
...I want to anchor my rectangle by the lower left corner...
...and I want to make it 1 inch square.
I want square corners.
I'll come up over here...
...and hover over that corner...
...then go off in this direction here...
...and place it there.
This is Geometry Snapping.
Geometry Snapping is not restricted to placing vector objects.
...it can be used for single vectors as well.
I'll give you a demonstration of what I'm talking about.
We'll go over here to Draw Polyline...
I don't have a starting point coordinate figured out.
I want to reference it off of this rectangle here...
...specifically this top line right here.
So by hovering my cursor over this top corner...
I can then bring it out this way, and you see that Smart Snapping projection appear for us.
So I can come out here to wherever I want, and click.
Then I want to reference the bottom of this line off of this corner right here.
So, again, I hover my cursor over that corner...
...then follow the Smart Snapping projection until my angle reaches 90 degrees...
...then left-click.
That gives me my height there.
Now I want to come up here and angle this line...
Smart Snapping is going to take it over to 75 degrees, and that's what I want to do.
I want to run at an angle, but I also want to reference off of this corner here.
So I'll hold my cursor over that corner for a second...
...and project over until I have 75 degrees.
Then I can left-click.
Then come back down this direction and reference off of this corner...
...project over come back to 75 degrees...
...and there is that point. I'll left-click there...
...then I'll come straight up to 90 degrees...
...and again I want to reference...
...I want the top of this line to be the same height as this point here...
...and click there...
...move it off, hit the TAB key...
I now have a closed vector.
So that's just another aid to help you draw geometry...
...at the correct angle, of the correct length...
...and referencing off of specific points.
I hope you got something out of this video.
If you did, please give me a thumbs up down below.
If you'd like to continue to follow along with this series...
...or in some of my other CNC adventures...
...please consider subscribing to my channel.
But whether you subscribe to my channel or not...
I'd like to thank you very much for taking the time to watch this video...
...and y'all take care.
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