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Any Adobe Illustrator whizzes? Need a little help please
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: London, UK
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Hi all,
I'm trying to draw a scale drawing of something and having some trouble. I've tried some of the demo cad packages, but they're not very easy to use. I have illustrator, but I'm a complete novice at it. Here's what I'm trying to do:
I'm designing a temporary geodesic dome shelter and am trying to plan sizes and layout of the interior. For example, I know what size the dome will be, either as a radius or as the length of the 10 sides at ground level. I would like to place objects within it, such as bed, table etc where I know the sizes of the objects.
What I want to do is being able to draw polygons and squares etc, specifying their actual size, and then place them onto the base outline of the dome. I can do all this in illustrator fairly easily, but not by specifying a size, you only get the option of pixels, cm or inches, where I would like to work in meters. I couldn't find a way to specify the sides of a polygon in meters so that I could scale it properly.
Does anyone with more knowlege know how I might be able to do this.
Many thanks,
Justin.
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By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out - Richard Dawkins
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Brush Prairie, WA
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Originally Posted by Freeflyer
Hi all,
I'm trying to draw a scale drawing of something and having some trouble. I've tried some of the demo cad packages, but they're not very easy to use. I have illustrator, but I'm a complete novice at it. Here's what I'm trying to do:
I'm designing a temporary geodesic dome shelter and am trying to plan sizes and layout of the interior. For example, I know what size the dome will be, either as a radius or as the length of the 10 sides at ground level. I would like to place objects within it, such as bed, table etc where I know the sizes of the objects.
What I want to do is being able to draw polygons and squares etc, specifying their actual size, and then place them onto the base outline of the dome. I can do all this in illustrator fairly easily, but not by specifying a size, you only get the option of pixels, cm or inches, where I would like to work in meters. I couldn't find a way to specify the sides of a polygon in meters so that I could scale it properly.
Does anyone with more knowlege know how I might be able to do this.
Many thanks,
Justin.
Well you can't add measurement options to Illustrator so your going to have to convert all your measurements to inches as far as I know. This is why they make CAD programs, for specific tasks such as this.
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Baninated
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Illinois might be cold and flat, but at least it's ugly.
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coreldraw is best for scaled drawings. Get a copy of CorelDraw 11 for mac. should work.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: NYC
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Or just multiply all of your measurements by 100 and use centimeters.
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"I start fires!"
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: London, UK
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Can't do that, won't accept anything that big.
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By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out - Richard Dawkins
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: London, UK
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"This is why they make CAD programs, for specific tasks such as this."
yes, but they make cad programs very user unfriendly. I've tried a couple and they have a very steep learning curve. Once you know how to use them, I'm sure they're very capable, but to just draw a simple scale drawing shoudn't need something like that.
To enter the correct dimensions throws illustrator into a wobble, as it's off the size of the paper.
I'll keep trying to figure out one of the cad packages I guess.
Cheers,
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By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out - Richard Dawkins
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Moderator  Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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Another vote for CAD programs. They really aren't so difficult. A friend of mine, a physicist, learnt it in a week (he had to construct some small parts and a mask for a microchip). CAD programs are not user unfriendly, users work differently with them.
I used to do small things with AutoCAD 12 (yes, that was a long, long, long time ago  ), but it wasn't really difficult.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: London, UK
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OK, guess I'm just going to have to try and figure out either cadintosh or powercadd. Thanks, I'll try and stick with it.
J.
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By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out - Richard Dawkins
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Moderator Join Date: May 2001
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I think the standard app on the Mac should be VectorWorks (AFAIK from my architect friend, AutoCAD (which is currently not available for the Mac) and VectorWorks are the standards apps). For more info on architecture on the Mac, check out architosh.
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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
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Junior Member
Join Date: Jul 2005
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There is a CAD Tools plugin for Illustrator. Not sure if it would help.
http://www.hotdoor.com/
Though, I would think there must be a manual measurement conversion solution to your problem. Not sure.
TG
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