[SOLVED] Selecting the correct line weight etc for printing

[Nenagh52]

Versions
QCAD version: 3.27.6.0
Date: May 17 2022
Qt version: 5.15.2
Compiler version: Clang 13.0.0
Build date: May 17 2022
Revision: 39d0e9fbce3f2bde22b12437b60bc7fb7fef1bc8
Architecture: arm6<
Device pixel ratio: 1
Configuration file: /Users/Xasuser/.config/QCAD/QCAD3.ini
OS: macOS
OS version: 15.3

The attached prints okay but is very light and not accepted by planners.
Thanks as always

[CVH]

Hi,

All but one line entity use the Layer defined Lineweight with 'By Layer' what is common practice.

Several Layers use Lineweight 'Default'.
That is an application wide preference and may be set different at my side.
See menu Edit .. Application Preferences .. Graphics View .. Appearance .. Linetype and Lineweights.

One or some layers use Lineweight 0.00mm what may not print very well depending your printing device.
Even when printed it will be very faint what is logical.
Use at least a weight of about 1/10mm.

The lineweight is the exact size on paper, regardless of the print scale or whatever.

Regards,
CVH

[Nenagh52]

Thank you as always.
So I changed it to 0.13 at the later level, as it's all on one layer and while it shows as very thick lines on the screen, the print out is good.
Is this what I should expect?

[CVH]

A Lineweight of 0.13mm (ISO) may look very thick on screen when not using Screen-based Linetypes (and weights) (NL) and when zoomed in far.
It may even span your drawing area in full when zooming in even further.
For a dashed or dotted line you may zoom in on the void between them and see nothing of the line on screen.

On screen we typically use Screen-based Linetypes (NL) to avoid such situations.
That is a hybrid system based on pixels.
It will then always look somewhat thick/thin and continuous or somewhat dashed/dotted in any zoom state.

To see the actual size in scale 1:1 then deactivate NL.

Paper scale may have an influence.
Object sizes are scaled but Lineweights don't scale.

But here we have a situation that you are designing in scale.
The door is 2.2 drawing units high and that is set to mm.
Drawing unit 'meter' would be more appropriate.
Not using Sreen-based and for a common used Lineweight 0.25mm (ISO) that may indeed look weird as that is over 10% of the door height.

Common practice is to design 1:1 in the chosen drawing unit.
How that is represented on paper is handled by a print or paper scale in a final stage.
The paper scale can thus vary for A4, A3 or even larger page sizes but the design remains the same in real world measurements.

Drawing in scale also requires you to scale down real world measurements and vice versa from drawing to real world.
Not that this is a big issue for metric drawings but this can be avoided by drawing everything at scale 1:1.

QCAD stores the last used paper settings but that doesn't seem right.
See menu Edit .. Drawing Preferences .. Page .. Scale and Position

• Scale 0.005 would make everthing 200 times smaller on paper.
  At (-378.515, -298.224) there is no content at all.

I would advice to revert to another way of designing.
- Set drawing unit to meters.
- Convert your drawing from meters to mm or cm, whatever you prefer.
-> See menu Edit .. Convert Drawing Units (CU)
Now your door will be 2200mm or 220cm high.

This doesn't affect Lineweights because that are historical sizes of physical pens with ink.

As said above: How that is represented on paper depends on a paper scale.
Converted to mm and at scale 0.0164 it would span an A4 in landscape but scale 1:100 would be more appropriate.

Regards,
CVH

[Nenagh52]

Thanks again, a lot to (in)digest here
Anyway am making progress.
printed it off at 1:100 scale on A4
Will mark it solved for now