Re: More CAF...

Ian wrote:
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 10:39:36 +0100
From: "Ian W. Wright" <ian@...>
Subject: Re: More CAF...

Hi Arne,

Almost all CAD programs use the same set
of commands and have various options to make life easier, thus, you can
draw a circle by specifying either its centre and radius or diameter,
the two ends of its diameter, or just three points on its circumference
where you want it to touch other parts. This kind of function is useful
in design as you can draw things to fit and then measure them
afterwards. Actually drawing this way is much quicker than importing
'standard' objects and the altering them to suit and fits in easier with
the 'text' method of drawing which is normal - i.e. you specify most
dimensions as 'command line' entries and only use the mouse for
selecting menu items or snap points. These snap points are also a very
useful feature of CAD programs and enable you to join sections of
objects to others exactly or specify the size of objects by exact
reference to others. There is little to choose between Autocad and Rhino
( except in cost!!! ) and both have their good and bad points - Rhino
had better rendering capabilities than Autocad but suffers from the need
to type commands such as 'line' and 'circe' in full where Autocad simply
understands 'l' and 'c' for these.

[Actually, in Rhino, if you type in the first few characters of a command
and hit "tab" it will complete the typing-in for you. This comes in handy
for some of the longer ones, like "shrinktrimmedsrf": type in "shr", hit
the tab key, and press "enter". Of course, if these first letters are
shared by other commands, you have to type in more characters. Rhino has
many more commands than Autocad, (there are 22 of them starting with "L",
for instance) so you generally need to type at least 3 characters. You can
also click icons or drag down menus, if you don't remember the command
name. Similarly, you can either click on points with the mouse, or specify
them by typing in coordinates, like 0,0,2.35]

Andrew Werby
http://www.computersculpture.com

Andrew Werby - United Artworks
Sculpture, Jewelry, and Other Art Stuff
http://unitedartworks.com