QCAD.org Forum

Good Morning,

A feature that I would use regularly if it existed is the ability to 'sample' a measurement from a different part of a drawing and use it as a radius, line length, etc.

I can think of two ways that this might be achieved.

One would be to have the ability to have a 'distance to clipboard' button, where two points could be clicked, and the distance between them is stored to the clipboard, where it could then be pasted into a text field for line length, radius, etc.

Another way might be to have a 'pick' button next to such text fields, where so that while drawing a circle, line of a specific length, etc, you could click on the button, click two points, and the distance is entered into the field.

Think of this as a similar tool as the eyedropper tool in imagine/drawing software to sample a colour value.

I have looked at the Distance Point to Point tool, but it either shows the distance on screen or draws a ruler and adds text to the screen. It doesn't seem to store the value anywhere. Maybe there's a different tool I haven't come across yet.

Cheers,
Derek

You can proceed as follows:

- Start the tool that requires the distance
- In the options toolbar right-click into the field where you want to use the measured value
- Choose Insert Measurement and what you want to measure (e.g. Distance Point to Point)
- Measure the distance as you usually would
- QCAD enters a variable into the field (e.g. d1). This variable holds the measured value.

You can also enter multiple measured values and calculate the desired value with them, for example (d1+d2)/2, etc.

Here, we are using a measured distance for the distance of the parallel tool:

Thanks Andrew, that's great.
Pretty much exactly what I was hoping for. It never occurred to me to right click in the field box.

One other thing.. I'm also often drawing an arc from a specific point, with a specific radius.
The 'Center, Radius' (CR) tool does this for circles, but I can't see an equivalent for arcs.

The Center, Point, Angles (AR) tool lets me pick the centre, which is perfect, but I cannot enter a radius.
The 2 Points and Radius tool lets me enter a radius, but only select the end points, not the centre.

Is this maybe another tool I'm overlooking, or something worth adding?

Regards.

You can enter the radius in the command line at the bottom when it asks you for "Point on arc or Radius".
Please post new, unrelated questions to a new forum topic, thanks.