TurboCAD for Mac - questions and queries

[andrewb]

A requirement to have some new spacers etched for a project prompted me to buy my first ever CAD software package, and I plumped for TurboCAD v10 Deluxe For Mac. Despite the best efforts of whoever it was who wrote the so-called ‘instructions’, and some initial challenges from a somewhat unintuitive methodology, I’ve found I’m now getting quite fluent with it - at least in 2D.

One thing is, however, eluding me. My etchers require solid or ‘block’ hatching, whereas TurboCAD only seems to allow lines. When exporting to dwg these areas of hatch become individual lines, each one of which needs to be removed before being replaced with solid at the etchers. The ‘Fill’ option uses bitmap, so can’t be used - at least not how I and my somewhat ancient laptop want to work!

So here are my questions:

Is there a way of hatching (nb not ‘filling’) that I’ve yet to find?

If not, does exporting to dxf, rather than dwg, maintain the integrity of the hatch, such that blocks of it can be highlighted and replaced at the etchers?

I can reduce the spacing of the lines within hatch to a notional 1/1000th of a mm, although it really slows things up on larger drawings. But could this be a workaround or do phototools require absolute opacity?

Any advice gratefully received!

 

[richard carr]

Andrew

I have never used the Mac version of turbocad but in the windows version it is all reasonably simple.

There is a hatch toolbar, there are 3 tools on it. Pick path hatching, Hatch and Pick point hatching.

If you go to VIEW TOOLBARS you can tick the Hatch toolbar to get that on screen

In theory Pick point hatching is the most useful as you just click inside a closed shape and it should hatch everything leaving holes where there is a hole drawn etc. However it is very temperamental, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, if you click in the right place it works other places it doesn't work or you get completely the wrong result. Try it first and see what you can do with it as it is the fastest method if it works.

Then use HATCH next, here you need to select all the objects that want hatched then choose the tool. It works well but is slower and you need to make sure you have chosen everything you need.

Finally if there is still anything to hatch pick path hatching should work, here you trace a path around the area you want hatched.

Remember with hatching the it only really works for objects that are closed so it is best to draw rectangles and polygons rather than individual lines

All these hatching transfer to to a DXF file and are the only things that the etchers need, they are not interested in the lines you have drawn at all. So make sure that the hatching is on a two different layers to the drawing, one for the top hatch and one for the bottom hatch.

Another thing that I find very useful for drawing the tabs is to use the double line feature, you can set the width in the properties dialogue box (right click on the double line tool) I tend to use 1mm. If you draw a boundary around the whole drawing you can then simply draw a double line through the boundary and the part of the drawing (hold down the shift key to get a straight line). Pick point hatch should then fill this with one click.

I hope this works as I know the MAC version isn't as well advanced as the windows one.

Richard

 

[Dan Randall]

Hi Andrew

You should certainly have the ability to select a solid hatch - I use TurboCAD V14 Professional on my Windows laptop, but unfortunately, it's at home and I'm at work at the moment, so am unable to fire it up and look at the hatch options. I did find this on You tube though, which might help....

Good luck!

Edit: Richard beat me to it!


Regards

Dan

 

[simond]

Andrew,

There is a tool that enables you to chain all the boundary elements in a shape, it if finished by clicking a chequered flag, and this will then allow you to do a fill with the hatch pattern of your choice. I’m sorry that I don’t have access to the computer at the moment so this is a bit vague - I think it’s in the lines menu.

If the shape is not one chained series of lines, the fill won’t work. The solid fill is the solid black square at the upper left of the lower menu on Dan’s screendump in the post above. It’s simply another hatch pattern, as I understand.

That said, I’m not sure this is the answer you’re looking for, but I believe it will work. Saving your design as a DXF should not change this, but there are different “eras” of DXF, and that may pose compatibility problems.

Do please let us know how you get on

Best
Simon

 

[Dan Randall]

There is a tool that enables you to chain all the boundary elements in a shape, it if finished by clicking a chequered flag, and this will then allow you to do a fill with the hatch pattern of your choice. I’m sorry that I don’t have access to the computer at the moment so this is a bit vague - I think it’s in the lines menu.

If the shape is not one chained series of lines, the fill won’t work. The solid fill is the solid black square at the upper left of the lower menu on Dan’s screendump in the post above. It’s simply another hatch pattern, as I understand.

Good point Simon - If the area to be hatched is drawn by the user (rather than originating via say the Square, Rectangle or Arc commands), the lines, curves or whatever must ultimately become a Polyline in order to hatch. I think the command is something like Modify, Join Polyline, then each line or curve is selected in turn (in any order I believe). As they are selected, they change to a Magenta sort of colour, so you can follow your progress (don't do your drawings in the same colour!), then, having selected the last one, click on the chequered flag to complete the Polyline.

Edit 1: To hatch text*, the text needs to be "Exploded" - if you type some text, then try to select just one letter, the whole block will be highlighted regardless. I think it's Format, Explode (twice, as I recall), after which, individual letters or the whole block can be selected and hatched.

*I think I use "Scaleable" text, which gives just the outline of the characters. The other options are Standard and Flexible, though I don't know if these would work for etch artwork - I just found something that worked for me and stuck with it!

CAD can be very frustrating to start with, but as you start to find your way around, it becomes addictive!

Edit 2: I seem to recall hatch patterns/solid hatches appear by default on layer 0, so if layer 0 is not visible, your hatch won't be either! You should be able to specify which layer you want the hatch to appear on, or you can go with the layer 0 default, then select the hatch and move it to the layer of your choice afterwards.


Regards

Dan

 

[andrewb]

Thanks guys - there are some real nuggets in your replies that I’ll dig into this afternoon.

Trouble is, there seems to be a lot that the Windows version does that is called something very different in the Mac version, so half my task is - I think - simply one of translation! But if I’m getting the gist of things as I think I am, I’ll try and find equivalents. One thing I haven’t found I’ve needed to do is closing the shapes into Polylines, and perhaps that’s limiting what I’ve ultimately been able to achieve.

I’ll report back...

 

[andrewb]

Slight change of Topic Title to include ‘for Mac’.

 

[andrewb]

Slight additional change to title - didn’t like the way ‘...CAD for Mac Queries’ read!

 

[Scale7JB]

Hi Andrew,

I too am using Mac 10 deluxe, and sadly the long and short of it is that despite the £200 price tag it appears to be a completely different program when compared to the PC version of the same generation, it's horrendous.

There are a number of features that certainly don't seem to work for me, and accurate hatching is one of those things. I'm going to complete the line drawings for the D16 ideally over Christmas, then do the hatching on a friends PC version.

JB.

 

[andrewb]

@Scale7JB - do you think your friend would do mine too?

 

[JimG]

Have you tried running a PC CAD program like Draftsight on your Mac using one of the interface programs that allows PC programs to do so? Draftsight is free so if you've got an interface program then it won't cost to try.

Jim.

 

[Arun]

Andrew - If you do go over to the free version of DraftSight, you will find that any resultant etch from that program is pretty much 100% compatible with AutoCad dwg files and makes life for the etchers much easier. The important thing to remember when drafting is that lines in a drawing are irrelevant to etchers. They are only interested in the colour and shape of fills. To that end, uniform colour density in a fill is seriously important.

Arun

 

[Ian Smith]

On my Mac I use QCAD now, but I have also used Inkscape - QCAD in my opinion is probably easier for etch artwork.

QCAD is a free open source program, but because I'm using the free version some of the functionality turns off after a time period/number of operations (not sure which). To regain this "lost" functionality it is necessary to close QCAD down and restart it (not necessarily a major problem as it does force you to save the changes regularly!) However, there is a limit on the number of times it can be restarted before it wants you to buy the "Pro" version - I get around this by editing the INI file resetting one of the parameters therein (a counter) which allows me to use the software without having to go for the Pro version - as an ex-software developer I struggle with my conscience sometimes as this is certainly not ethically correct, but I have found a couple of what I consider major bugs in the software that I'm not sure the Pro version would fix - Occasionally whole sections of the drawing disappear (or move to layer zero and lose their colour attributes so have to be re-drawn). I decided that I'm not prepared to pay good money for something that may not in my opinion work properly! Having said that, it does what I need it to although sometimes I have to re-draw something (or copy it from a previously saved version - I keep many versions of the same drawing eg the last artwork I had etched had 56 versions, each major save having a new version number).

I forgot to add that I have only used PPD, and provide them with a front and back view of the artwork in two PDF files rather than layered dwg/dxf's.
Ian

 

[andrewb]

Currently using just two-sided mirror image presentation (à la PPD method 1) so just need a nice clean solid hatch. The guys there are being brilliant and I’m getting back really good quality stuff even just using lined hatching. But I don’t want to just ‘get by’, or provide them with any more editing burden than absolutely necessary. Frustrating!

 

[Chris Veitch]

Hi Andrew,

I too am using Mac 10 deluxe, and sadly the long and short of it is that despite the £200 price tag it appears to be a completely different program when compared to the PC version of the same generation, it's horrendous.

There are a number of features that certainly don't seem to work for me, and accurate hatching is one of those things. I'm going to complete the line drawings for the D16 ideally over Christmas, then do the hatching on a friends PC version.

JB.

I've also tried TCAD for Mac (although a couple of versions ago) having come from the PC version and found it a grave disappointment as I'd expected a port of the Windows product to MacOS. The functionality is a bit weird, the documentation is hopeless and more importantly it's completely different to the PC version which isn't immediately apparent in the publicity material.

My current setup is a MacBook Pro with TCAD 20 for Windows running on Windows 7 under VMWare - this seems to work well although it's very processor hungry. To be honest I've given up on TCAD for Mac and would advise this route for any Mac users - if I can provide any help or advice n this, please ask.

 

[Scale7JB]

I've also tried TCAD for Mac (although a couple of versions ago) having come from the PC version and found it a grave disappointment as I'd expected a port of the Windows product to MacOS. The functionality is a bit weird, the documentation is hopeless and more importantly it's completely different to the PC version which isn't immediately apparent in the publicity material.

My current setup is a MacBook Pro with TCAD 20 for Windows running on Windows 7 under VMWare - this seems to work well although it's very processor hungry. To be honest I've given up on TCAD for Mac and would advise this route for any Mac users - if I can provide any help or advice n this, please ask.

Totally with you Chris,

Avoid TCad Mac at all costs..!!

JB.

 

[simond]

Extraordinary - you’d think they’d realise.

Best
Simon

 

[andrewb]

I’m with you Simon - I’m sure our requirement for solid hatch is not a unique one and, while conceding that Mac programming is different from Windows, it must be possible to provide it on either platform.

I’ve been in contact with their help desk. Good point: they were open over Christmas so I was able to make some progress. Bad point: I don’t think he quite understood what I was asking for, and finally confirmed this with today’s answer “Yes Fill is the only option in MAC to achieve solid hatching.” Hmm!

But are we all mistaken assuming that what the Mac variant does allow, because it differs from the Windows version, is not suitable? I’ve experimented with Fill and it really doesn’t ‘behave’ like bitmap. Even at full zoom, there are no signs of jaggies. I suspect it wouldn’t stand scaling and certainly not reshaping the original, but as I work at 1:1 and wouldn’t fill until the shape is correct and complete, it certainly looks like it’d work. Anyone got any thoughts on this?

Edit 1 - having looked at QCAD actually calling its solid hatch... you’ve guessed it... ‘Fill’, I’m now even more confused. Is any solid hatch anything other than a bitmap fill?

 

[adrian]

Edit 1 - having looked at QCAD actually calling its solid hatch... you’ve guessed it... ‘Fill’, I’m now even more confused. Is any solid hatch anything other than a bitmap fill?

Do you mean this setting on QCAD? This is on the OSX version. I never really investigated whether it was bitmap fill, all I can tell you is that PPD were quite happy to accept drawings in this format and produced the etches I required.

 

[andrewb]

Many thanks Adrian - the key thing is the PPD can produce one’s etches, whatever it’s actually called! Yes, that is the dialogue box I referred to, and it seems I may have been creating a false distinction between Fill and Hatch. I’ve used Fill in my latest drawings and it is handled by the software exactly as a polygon, even being called one. I am now strongly suspecting it was the ‘translation’ issue I touched in my 18 Dec post! I’ll send it up to PPD and see if they can use it