Guides
and Snapping
Graph Paper
Grids:
Two
graph paper grids, major and minor, provide
visual and automatic snapping of graphics to the
defined grid. The grid spacing may be defined
as needed with the Grid and Guide palette, or they
may be automatically linked to the drawing's ruler.
If defined by the user, the across grid spacing may
be defined independently from the vertical spacing.
Soft Snapping:
Snapping to the graphing grid may be very time
efficient for many drawing activities. But
there always arises the situation where one
particular point needs to be visually positioned
"off the grid". With soft-snapping you may
leave the point snapped to the grid, or override
this position by pulling the point away from the
snap spot to the desired location. This
setting is frequently used when drawing with grid
snapping.
Align To Grid Palette:
This palette allows one to specify the point,
relative to the graphic, that is snapped to the
grid. This is especially important for symbols
constructed as a group of several elements, such as
an electronic symbol such as a transistor, NAND
gate, or network router. This capability
allows one draw the symbol then assign the snapping
point so that the symbol places smartly on the grid
and connects precisely to other symbols and drawing
elements.
Print
Grid - if you wish:
The graphing grid may be printed or displayed on the
screen - this is fully under user control. The grid may be
positioned above or below (behind) the graphics. You
even get to pick colors for the grids (major and minor may
be different colors). And, of course, transparency is
supported for the grid colors.
Snap to Vertices
and Intersections:
This allows precise connecting of graphic elements
in an end-to-end fashion. For example the end of line
will position at the corner of a rectangle or the end of a
Bezier curve. Intersections of lines, curves, -- any
graphic -- are solved on the fly to allow precise
interactive snapping to these important points on the
drawing. Visual clues appear on the screen when
snapping occurs and a snapping sound may be enabled to
provide feedback to indicate snap positioning.
Guidelines:
Form columns and rows of graphics or text easily
with Guidelines enabled. The guidelines show on the screen
when interactively positioning graphic elements. And
invisible lines, other than horizontal and vertical, are
discovered and presented as you move elements on the
drawing. For example a line drawn at 30 degrees will
automatically become a guide for positioning corners of
rectangles along the extension of the line.
Parallel
and Perpendicular:
Orientation snapping comes with the guideline
capability. Any graphic with a well defined
orientation or axis (lines, rotated rectangles, a sine wave,
ect) will snap at parallel or perpendicular orientation to
any other graphic with an axis. This is all live -
interactive. EazyDraw is highly optimized in these
computations so that this capability is fully responsive
even with modest CPU capability.
Cloaking
- very useful:
Guides and guidelines are a very useful drawing aid,
but a rich drawing can become "cluttered" and produce too
many unwanted guide positions. EazyDraw solves this
problem by allowing Cloak a single graphic, or an entire
layer. Cloaking means the cloaked graphics do not
present their position, vertices, or orientations for
position or orientation referencing. This feature
means that EazyDraw's guide and snapping capability is not
just a cool trick that works on simple drawing situations,
but it is actually a very useful productivity enhancing
capability.
