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Red cross and Status bar

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:50 pm
by Latch
Hi All,
I am a casual user of cad software and have owned Qcad 2.0.4.0-1 professional for Mac since 7/30/2008. It has served me very well for the purpose of creating drawings for many things including furniture, buildings, building modifications, RC hobby race tracks and even invention ideas. For the most part I find Qcad very intuitive and frankly because I use this software so infrequently that is very important.
Recently I have felt the desire to get a little more technical about using Qcad instead of just whipping out a quick drawing now and then for one of my little projects around the house and yard.
Its about time to upgrade to the latest version of Qcad Pro and since there are two great incentives (The Qcad Book and the Free transition from 2-3) I will be purchasing the current version sometime this week.
Since this is the Chat forum I will ask a couple of questions here that probably should have been asked a long time ago but just never seemed to get around to it. I have poked around some trying to locate answers but to no avail so here goes.
(Try not to laugh too hard.)
1. The Red Cross is the center of the world +up, +right, -left, -down. Ok I get that but does it matter into which quadrant the drawing is placed or for that matter even if the drawing overlaps all 4 quadrants?
Maybe someone would explain how/for what these quadrants are used.
2. In the Status Bar there are 4 sets of numbers. I kinda get what one or two of them are for but I would really like to see a clear definition of all 4 sets of numbers.
Thanks for a great cad program!

Re: Red cross and Status bar

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 8:53 pm
by andrew
Latch wrote:1. The Red Cross is the center of the world +up, +right, -left, -down. Ok I get that but does it matter into which quadrant the drawing is placed or for that matter even if the drawing overlaps all 4 quadrants?
Maybe someone would explain how/for what these quadrants are used.


That's the absolute zero point, shown for orientation only. Some people like to construct in the first quadrant (all coordinates positive), but that's entirely up to you.
Latch wrote:2. In the Status Bar there are 4 sets of numbers. I kinda get what one or two of them are for but I would really like to see a clear definition of all 4 sets of numbers.
Top left: absolute Cartesian coordinates
Bottom left: relative Cartesian coordinates
Top right: absolute polar coordinates in format [radius] < [angle]
Bottom right: relative polar coordinates in format [radius] < [angle]

Relative coordinates relate to the relative zero point, the small red encircled cross that usually positions itself at the last chosen reference point.

A tool tip with a brief explanation should appear if you hover the mouse cursor over one of those texts in the status bar.