Video Transcript
This QCAD tutorial provides an introduction to viewing and navigating drawings. We will learn how to use the most essential zooming and panning tools.
Example drawing: part.dxf
Let's have a look at this example drawing. It shows a side view of a mechanical part.
The part is 50 drawing units wide.
And 24 units high.
These are the measurements of the mechanical part in the real world. The part will have these measurements once it has been manufactured.
On our computer, the part will very likely be displayed at a completely different size if we would measure it with a ruler on our screen.
This is OK. QCAD can display our drawing at any scale we want.
The size of the drawing on our display at any given time has no effect on the absolute size of the drawing objects.
In this tutorial we will learn how to change the magnification and position of the drawing display on the screen.
Nothing we do in this tutorial changes the absolute size or position of the objects in the drawing.
We only change which part of the drawing we are looking at and how close up we are looking at it.
Please keep this in mind for the rest of this tutorial.
First, let's zoom in, to view a detail of the drawing close up.
We can increase the factor at which the drawing is displayed using the tool button with the magnifying glass and the plus sign at the top.
With each click of that button, the drawing scale on the screen increases.
Alternatively, we can hit the Plus or Equal key on the keyboard.
The tool to zoom out, decreases the drawing display accordingly.
We can also press the Minus key on our keyboard to zoom out.
If your mouse has a mouse-wheel, it is usually more convenient to use the mouse-wheel to quickly zoom in on a drawing detail.
Simply rotate the mouse-wheel away from you, to zoom in.
Note that with the mouse-wheel, we're zooming in toward the position of the mouse cursor. Here, we zoomed in toward the top center of the cylinder.
To zoom out, rotate the mouse-wheel toward you.
Here, we zoom out from the same point.
Notice how the center of the cylinder stays where it is while the part around it is displayed smaller and smaller.
In the same way, we can quickly zoom in on any other part of the drawing.
If you find that your mouse-wheel zooms in and out too quickly, you can adjust the speed in the application preferences.
Depending on the sensitivity of the mouse-wheel, you might have to set the mouse wheel zoom factor to a lower value, for example 1.02 instead of the default value 1.2.
If we have zoomed in on a detail like this, we might want to move around in the drawing, in the same way as we might move a large paper around on our desk. This is called "panning".
In QCAD, we can pan using the middle mouse button. Depending on your mouse, the middle mouse button might be the mouse wheel that can be pressed down like a button.
We press and hold the middle mouse button to start panning.
Then we move the mouse cursor to move the drawing around on the display.
We can repeat this to further move the drawing until the desired part is visible.
We can return to the complete view of the whole drawing anytime using the so-called "auto zoom".
The auto zoom adjusts the scale of the display to ensure that all parts of the drawing are visible.
Another way to zoom in on a detail of a drawing is the window zoom.
This tool magnifies an area specified by a rectangular window.
We click the two opposite corners of the rectangular area we want to magnify to zoom in on that detail.
Instead of clicking the two corners, we can also press the left mouse button at one corner and release it at the other to drag a rectangle.
As soon as we let go of the mouse button, QCAD zooms in on the chosen area.
Just like other interactive tools in QCAD, the window zoom tool stays active until we cancel it with a click on the right mouse button or by pressing the Escape key.
You should now have an idea how you can navigate your drawing using basic zooming and panning techniques.
Be sure to practice this with your own QCAD installation.
Thank you for watching this QCAD tutorial.