Hi John, (a bit late, the thread has evolved some)
?ann m?n 9.apr 2012 11:10, skrifa?i John Beardmore: > Because Scribus allows very precise placement and > dimensioning of objects, I've taken to using it as a basic > CAD tool. > > This would be greatly facilitated though, if it were > possible to move the origin of the coordinate system, and > introduce arbitrary scales for the drawing of lines and > polygons, e.g. 1:150. > > Is anybody else using it this way, and is anybody else > interested in these developments ? > > (I know there's an argument for doing this in CAD, and > that's something we've looked at, but haven't got to grips > with yet. We're still waiting for a package that will do for > CAD what Scribus has done for DTP.) > I'm sure Alexandre Prokoudine could give you more pointers. I'm often using Scribus for annotating and sketching details based on CAD drawings in PDF-format. What I like is the ability to load an A1 page into an image frame on an A4/A3 page, panning/zooming at will and putting my text and simple drawings on top. Sometimes this is for feedback to (external) designers, sometimes as a supplement for execution (carpenters/plumbers/etc). Of course, if the sketches become serious modifications, one has to work on the source DWGs. DXFs can also work, but hatches/fills and line thickness often mess up (as between any CAD software). What I always have to include, is a warning about not taking any measurements/calculations off the printed output; even if I'm able to show the drawing parts close to a certain scale, it is not verifiable. And the printer software/drivers (in my case Acrobat + CUPS+Gutenberg) are not calibrated or officially certified for this kind of work. So, even if it would be nice to have a sort of scale awareness for image frames in Scribus, it could be quite complicated to achieve something useful in the context I was describing. Meaning, that close to the scope of the certification biz... Best regards, Sveinn ? Felli
