Subject: baidarka tile printing large drawings from Cad (long)
From: Paul Raymond (kayaker37@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Dec 27 2000 - 14:21:51 EST
Here are instructions for printing out
"1830 paddle longer than original.dxf" from Intellicad or Autocad. If anyone
wants the modified file with saved views let me know. Then all you have to
do is print out the saved views and tape together.
Here is how to manually tile print a large drawing in Intellicad or Autocad.
Keep in mind I only had an introductory course, and am mostly self taught,
so there are probably different ways of doing this, but I could not find any
examples on the internet.
I could not open the .dwg file in Intellicad and zoom in very close without
getting a warning message, so I had to open up the .dxf file which works
fine.
Start Intellicad. Select File,Open and a dialogue box will open. In "Files
of Type" select dxf by clicking on the down arrow button and highlighting
dxf In the display window will be listed your directories. Go to the
directory you have "1830 paddle longer than original.dxf" highlight it and
open it.
If at any point you make a mistake press escape to exit any commands you
might be in and type "u" to undo the last command. You can keep pressing "u"
all the way back to when you first started the editing session.
Type "zoom", then "e" for extents and the Intellicad will zoom out to show
the entire drawing.
Lets create a new layer to draw our view grid on. Type "layer". Then type
"m" to make and set the current layer to the name you will enter next. Type
"grid". Then press enter to end the command. To see what you just did press
the spacebar to repeat the last command. The layer prompt will return to the
command bar. Type "?" folowed by "*" and it will display the layers, and
show you with an "*" that grid is now the current layer. Minimize the
command history and exit the command.
Notice there are two lines around the edge. Type "measure" and it will
prompt you with "select entity to measure". Select the outer line on the
left side towards the bottom. It will prompt you with
"Block/<Segment length>" . Enter 7. This places points at 7 inch intervals
starting from the bottom.
If you can't see these points type "setvar" followed by "pdmode". Enter "3".
You can experiment with the values 0 to 3. You can change the size by
"setvar", "pdsize" and any number. The default "0" worked well here.
Next measure the bottom line, starting with the left side. This time measure
with "10". I assume you are printing with 8.5 x 11 in paper, and dividing up
by 7 x 10 should work o.k. If you are printing to a different size paper
change you measurements to match accordingly. It helps if you sketch out the
limits of the drawing, and mentally figure out how you want to lay out your
sheets. This drawing is about 44 units wide, and 28 units high. Laying out
the sheets in landscape mode, gives us 5 columns and 4 rows.
To find out the size of the drawing type "zoom" then "e". Type "dist", then
"mid". Select the outer left vertical line.Then type "mid" again and select
the outer right vertical line. It will return a value of 43.454.
Doing the same for the outermost horizontal lines returns a value of
27.7725.
Next, type rectangle. We want to select the first corner of the rectangle.
Type "nod" for nearest point entity. Select the lowest measured point on the
left vertical line. Type "nod" again. and select the leftmost point on the
lower horizontal line. At this stage you should have a 7 x 10 rectangle in
the lower left corner.
Next we want to array the rectangle. In other words, we will superimpose a
series of rectangles on the drawing to help select viewpoints from which to
print from. Type "array". You will be prompted with "select entities to
array:". Select the top line of the rectangle you just created. Press enter.
Type "r" for a rectangular array. You will be prompted for the number of
rows. Enter "4". For the number of columns press "5". Vertical spacing
between rows is 7. Horizontal spacing between columns is 10. If at any point
you do not see the results of a drawing command type "regen" to regenerate
the drawing.
Type "zoom" followed by "0.9x". The drawing will zoom out slightly. Type
"view", then "s", followed by a name, lets say the numeral "0". This just
saved the current view as "0". We will now start naming each view as we want
it to appear on paper.
Type "layer", followed by "off" and enter "layer-0". Do the same for
"layer-1". This will shut off the detailed drawing so we can concentrate on
just the grid.
Type layer, then "m" for make. Type "text".
Type "text", then "m" for middle. Left click with your pointer in the middle
of your lower left rectangle. Type "3" for height. Press enter at the
rotation angle prompt. Type "1" for the text. We are labeling the rectangles
so when we name the view we don't get confused. Next type array. Array the
text, just like the rectangles so we place the text "1" in each rectangle.
Counting from the lower left to the upper right rectangle from left to right
the bottom rectangle is 1. The one to the right is 2, then 3, 4, 5. The one
above the first one is 6.
Type "change". Select the "1" text in each box in order from the second box.
You don't have to select the first one since it is labeled correctly, so
start with the second one. When you are done selecting press enter. It will
prompt you for each of the texts attributes, keep pressing enter and will
eventually get to new text prompt. Enter 2. Keep pressing enter untill you
have labelled the rectangles form 1 to 20.
Type "zoom" followed by "w" for window. Type "end" and select the outer
lower left vertical line towards the corner. This will be the start of our
zoom window. Type "end" again. Select the opposite corner of this lowest
left rectangle. And it will zoom in to this rectangle. Type "view", then "s"
for save. Type "1". You have just saved this view of the lower left
rectangle as view 1. Type "zoom" then "p" for previous, and the view will
change back to the overall view. You can also type "view" , "r" and then
"0". Continue in such fashion. Alternately, instead of using zoom, just use
view. From view 0, type view. Then "w" for window. Type the name of the
view. Then select the window using "end" as before.
Try restoring each view from 1 to 20, and make sure that it is labeled
correctly. If you restore view 1 for instance, you should see a big "1" in
the middle of your screen. When you are sure everything is correct, turn the
text layer off. Leave the grid layer on, to help tape the sheets together.
All we have to do now is print out the sections. Restore view 1. Type layer,
and turn on "layer-0" and "layer-1". Type "print". This brings up the print
dialogue box. Print area should be set to Saved View 1. Select user defined
scale should be 1 to 1. Select print setup. Set to landscape, select o.k.
Continue printing out the saved views. You may want to write on the back of
the sheet what view number you printed, especially when you have a lot of
sheets like this. Use a straight edge to trim off any non print areas that
may overlap a sheet with print on it. Place on a makeshift light table, or
tape to a large window in your house, and begin taping. Use a straightedge
to make sure long straight lines are straight. Alternately, you can also
place your own reference marks on the drawing before you print it out.
Good luck.
Paul
>Jay,
>Call printing services, architectural and engineering firms. Ask if they
>can print AutoCad files. Generally these firms can print E size drawings.
>Ask if they would print out a couple of copies for you shouldn't be very
>costly.
>
>I have not down loaded the cadopia software to investigate their print
>procedures - sorry. There is a serious gap in the CAD software world,
>there
>doesn't seem to be a low overhead simple drawing viewer and print software
>package available. I am constantly running into this problem with other
>projects I am involved with.
>
>Regards, Lew
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: ivy@teleport.com [mailto:ivy@teleport.com]
>Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 12:16 PM
>To: Jayhawk@sos.net
>Subject: aleut paddle & cadopia
>
>Hi Jay,
>
>Thanks for posting the plans for the paddle. I'd like to try my hand at
>making it. I'd like to
>ask you if there's an easy way to tell Cadopia (I'm a CAD newbie) to print
>the layout to
>full scale using a series of 8.5x11 sheets that I can paste up for a
>template. Any tips
>appreciated.
>
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