View groups in TechDraw

[ulrich1a]

I recently stumbled across a problem, where I wanted to show two different items in one view and give them at the same time a different appearance.
My example is an unfolded sheet metal, where I had calculated bend lines and labels for the bends as Draft Text objects. I wanted to show all objects in one view and give the bend lines another appearance, color or line style.

The Draft Text objects are only available from the "Inserts a Draft Object". But they do not observe the same placement on the TechDraw Page, so I had to manually align them to the other views.
Selecting two objects in TechDraw works great, but I could not give them individual line styles.
Selecting two objects for "Inserts a Draft object" works too and they can have individual line styles, but I could not add any dimensions.

I am thinking of a feature request, to have something like view groups in TechDraw. All views in the view group should have a common placement, so that they are aligned on the TechDraw page as in the FreeCAD document. But the items in the view group can have different styles.

Ulrich

[wandererfan]

The Draft Text objects are only available from the "Inserts a Draft Object". But they do not observe the same placement on the TechDraw Page, so I had to manually align them to the other views.

Views are positioned in paper space, not world space. Items within views are positioned relative to each other in world space.
I don't understane "do not observe the same placement". A picture maybe?

Selecting two objects in TechDraw works great, but I could not give them individual line styles.
Selecting two objects for "Inserts a Draft object" works too and they can have individual line styles, but I could not add any dimensions.

The whole cosmetic aspect of TechDraw is under review, so you might get your individual lines styles eventually.
The TD/Draft/Arch relationship is under review also, so you might get dimensions on your Draft object eventually too.

I am thinking of a feature request, to have something like view groups in TechDraw. All views in the view group should have a common placement, so that they are aligned on the TechDraw page as in the FreeCAD document. But the items in the view group can have different styles.

if the Source objects are separated by 10m, how are they going to be aligned on an A4 sheet?

[ulrich1a]

Views are positioned in paper space, not world space. Items within views are positioned relative to each other in world space.
I don't understane "do not observe the same placement". A picture maybe?

I created the profiles of a sheet metal part with the macro from here: https://github.com/ulrich1a/sheet_ufo
Here is a picture of the profiles together with the Draft Text objects.They are all located in Visgroups, in order to be able to export a DXF-file with different layers.

Sheet_metal_profiles.png (3.2 KiB) Viewed 2543 times

I selected all the Visgroups and called "Insert a Draft View". The following picture shows the corresponding Techdraw views. They are not aligned in World space anymore.

Sheet_metal_profiles_pageView.png (1.9 KiB) Viewed 2543 times

The whole cosmetic aspect of TechDraw is under review, so you might get your individual lines styles eventually.
The TD/Draft/Arch relationship is under review also, so you might get dimensions on your Draft object eventually too.

This may solve the problem of different drawing styles.

if the Source objects are separated by 10m, how are they going to be aligned on an A4 sheet?

A source object of 10 m dimensional length does also not fit on a A4 sheet. I do expect that always a scale can be applied.

Ulrich

[wandererfan]

I selected all the Visgroups and called "Insert a Draft View". The following picture shows the corresponding Techdraw views. They are not aligned in World space anymore.Sheet_metal_profiles_pageView.png

No. They are aligned in $%^&**!!! Qt graphics coords, or have an SVG transform clause, I expect.

[ulrich1a]

No. They are aligned in $%^&**!!! Qt graphics coords, or have an SVG transform clause, I expect.

Sounds like a difficult problem. So again, would be view groups, something that could be considered?

Ulrich

[wandererfan]

Sounds like a difficult problem. So again, would be view groups, something that could be considered?

I'm expecting the TD/Draft/Arch revisions to be fairly extensive, so this, or something similar, will probably fit in.

Sorry, no forecast for delivery yet.

[NormandC]

I wanted to show all objects in one view

Since color management is not yet implemented in TechDraw, rather than create an exclusive TechDraw object for which it would be difficult to reconcile its content's placement from world to paper space, why not use an existing object that actually exists in the 3D space? Seems to me like Std Part would be suited for this. Or create a new container based on Std Part? All it would need is for TechDraw to support color management for Part containers (and other stuff), and maybe dealing with annotations and ShapeStrings... And since we're asking, line types (hidden, center, phantom) would be nice...

With a Part container, the advantage is that you can use the regular TechDraw View tool, and dimension the view.

[wandererfan]

All it would need is for TechDraw to support color management for Part containers (and other stuff), and maybe dealing with annotations and ShapeStrings... And since we're asking, line types (hidden, center, phantom) would be nice...

That's all??

Color/texture management for faces is active in the lab. Probably won't make the v0.18 cutoff, but v0.19 seems likely.

Where are @ulrich1a's large numbers?

[ulrich1a]

Sorry, no forecast for delivery yet.

<Its done, when its done. So this is ok.

With a Part container, the advantage is that you can use the regular TechDraw View tool, and dimension the view.

You do not even need a Part container, to get this view. It is enough to select all items in the tree and create then a TechDraw View.
The point is, I want at least different line styles for the different items, if colors are not available. This is possible when using "insert a Draftview". Also it looks like they are not practical, because of unusable spacing.

It seems I have to use and fix the Drawing workbench, in order to get what I want.

Ulrich

[NormandC]

That's all??

Eh, no biggie, right?

Where are @ulrich1a's large numbers?

View does not support Draft Text, probably because it's not considered to be a shape? Which is why I wrote "dealing with annotations and ShapeStrings..."

You do not even need a Part container, to get this view. It is enough to select all items in the tree and create then a TechDraw View.

You're right.

The point is, I want at least different line styles for the different items, if colors are not available.

And my point was for TechDraw Views to support different colours as well as line styles in the same object or set of objects used in the View. This may very well end up being desirable anyway, so why create a new special TechDraw object to deal with this. But contrary to you both I can't code therefore I can't comprehend everything my suggestion entails.

I do think is that stacking multiple views one over the other on the page, and trying to better implement such functionality, is not a good idea. For the end user it adds complexity.