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5. Size

This processing section will attach your lines to different scales to help you with your technical drawing. A total of seven modes are supported in the drop-down list.

The next section explains how to use each tool.

Most of these rulers have parameters, and keyboard Shortcuts can be specified from the Settings/Edit Shortcuts menu in the Ruler Shortcuts TAB

If you hold down the Ctrl key, a visual handle (or control point) will appear, which will also allow you to quickly interact with these parameters.

Note that you should not draw while holding down the CTRL key or any other ruler keyboard shortcut, as this may interfere with your art application

You’ll also notice that all ruler modes have a common parameter for Accuracy.

When set to 1, the line you draw is fully projected onto the selected ruler. The closer this value gets to zero, the more raw input is mixed in, allowing you to add imperfections and make the line look more natural.

Ellipse

This mode will help you draw ellipses and circles. It takes the following parameters:

  • Angle – The degree of an ellipse (horizontal is the major axis) and 90 degrees is a circle.

  • Rotate – Rotate the ellipse.

  • Connect endpoints – When accuracy is below 1, checking this option will ensure that your original input does not mix into the beginning and end of the ellipses, effectively and neatly helping you connect endpoints.

  • Radial line – it makes the radial ruler connected to the center. When enabled, you can toggle between ellipses and radial lines by pressing the Shift key before drawing (this can be changed in shortcut Settings by selecting the Line shortcut). When drawing, you can switch lines by pressing Ctrl.

  • Box mode – When radial lines are enabled and this mode is selected, if you switch lines while drawing, your pen will be fixed to the box truncated by the ellipse/circle defined by the Angle and radial length of the first line. If set to x-symmetric or y-symmetric, the ending Angle will be determined when you start drawing, depending on your direction along the ellipse/circle.

The Auto Fit button can be used to automatically set center, Angle, and rotation parameters based on the sketch.

The center of the ellipse can be moved by dragging its center point. The size of the ellipse is determined by where your pen is placed. It is currently impossible to lock the ellipse to a certain size. If you look at the short axis and the long axis, some of them are orange. This represents the size of the ellipse that was drawn last time. Use this guidance if you need to draw multiple ellipses of the same size in different locations, or disconnected parts of the same ellipse.

Holding down the Ctrl key also displays interactive control points. You’ll notice that the center has turned yellow. In this mode, it slides along the short or long axis. Hold Shift while using the rotating handle and truncate the increment to 5°.

  • Dn: Normalized distance of circle/ellipse. This can be used to synchronize patterns that need to be repeated multiple times.

  • Ew: Width of the current ellipse. This can be used to size the pattern according to the size of the ellipse being drawn. The width is always greater than or equal to the height.

  • Eh: Height of the current ellipse.

  • Er: Current elliptical rotation.

  • Eca: The Angle of the pen’s current position.

  • RCX, rcy: the x and y coordinates of the center point

For examples of how to use them, see script Patterns for Circular Patterns and Isometric Circle Patterns. Other – Gears (Misc — Gears) presets use circular square wave mode to create perfect gear shapes.