Thursday, January 19, 2012

My favorite discovery in the last 48 hours is the use of layers.

Previously, I spoke of thousands of clicks, shooting off into mesmerization. Layers would have robbed me of the insight, and I suppose now I will have to pursue some other automaton type task when I feel the need to hit the reset button of my mind (MIDI sequencing in step edit does fill in nicely). It boils down to this: I can build a framework of grid lines (depicted here in cyan) upon which to reference the drawing, and when I'm done: *poof*! Deleted. Instead of whittled away over hours.

This triangulated grid was deployed due to the fact that the part has no parallel straight lines. It's easiest to find center this way anyway.

Just the click of a button. Delightful!

2 comments:

krivx said...

Don't delete them, just designate certain layers for hidden lines and toggle their visibility buttons as needed.

Are you drafting something for a project or is this just a way of relaxing?

crochambeau said...

Yeah, I was toggling visibility. But, after drafting the actual part I save as another name, DO delete everything not affiliated with the part, so I'll have pure dxf to work from (eventually) and also all my work in case I need to adjust something.

It's a project. I'm drafting a tool that will turn a very common waste item into a part that is required for another project I have in mind.

Apologies on being so cryptic, my hopes are to turn the effort into a saleable structure for the DIY crowd, even though I don't expect it to be incredibly lucrative, but I'm slow and would be bummed if it became a duplicate effort.

Frankly, I'll be happy if it pays for the tooling, so there's probably no point in the secrecy. For now, all I can say is "please stand by"