Drawing a rectangle
A rectangle is being drawn by defining two of its corner points. The rectangle defines a solid object that can be filled with a material or boundary later on (eg. a wall, floor slab,…). Like within the other drawing functions you can either use the mouse (and snapping tools) or keyboard entries to draw the polyline. Type in the commands decribed below into the command line displayed on the bottom side of the screen. Most entries will have to be confirmed using the return key.
To draw a rectangle you will have to following functions and features available:
Mouse | Freely draw the corners of the rectangle with the mouse clicking the left mouse button. However you should make use of snapping tools whenever it is possible to make sure your objects are aligned perfectly.The second corner will finish the rectangle. |
[x;y] | Enter coordinates for the corners, e.g. enter 0;0 to place a corner in the origin, or type 5;4 to set a cornerst 5 units left and 4 units top of the origin. (you can also add units to the values, if you do not type in a unit the defaut unit, whicht can be set in the preferences dialog will be assumed). |
[R x;y] | Relative coordinates. Type R before the coordinates to define them as relative coordinates. The coordinates will always be measured from the reference point then. The reference point is displayed with green concentric circles, and be set to any position using the right mouse button. |
[W] | Enter the width of the rectangle, e.g. W10 to draw a rectangle with a width of 10 units. (use the default unit or specify a certain unit) |
[H] | Enter the height, e.g. H20 for a height of 20 units, using the default unit (or specify another unit after the value, e.g. H20in) |
[P d;α] | Enter relative coordinates in polar form. Specify distance and angle realtive to the currently set reference point. e.g. P 10; 45 will set the corner at a distance of 10 and an angle of 45 relative to the reference point. |
[X] | Vertical guide line. Pressing the x key while bring up a vertical guide line at the current position of the mouse cursor (“fix the current x-coordinate”). Guide lines are very useful to perfectly align objects. |
[Y] | Horizontal guide line. Pressing the y key on a certain mouse position will bring up a horizontal guide line (“fix the current y-coodinate”). |
[U] | Undo; pressing the U key will let you set the first corner of the rectangle again. |