TurboCAD Question: Accurate Printing?

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

Nigel, layers are often used for different items in an assembly in model space so that you can switch off layers as required in paper space and just print a single item or a selection of items if required. You can have a layer for dimensions and one for notes as well so they can be selected, or not, as required. What about a layer for all fasteners so they can be left off a print if the print is for manufacturing and the fasteners will only make the print cluttered.

In AutoCad it is usual to have a part drawn in model space then use a viewport in paper space to print it. If you do the dimensions in paper space then the dimension’s arrow heads and digits are set to the correct dimensions regardless of the scale used for the part. If you want to put dimensions on the part in model space for some reason then by having them on their own layer that layer can be either a non-printing layer or can be turned off in the paper space view port. The same can be done for centre lines and hidden lines. Having parts on separate layers also allows some layers to be locked so they are not selected when you are trying to just select one or a few parts on an assembly.

Martin C

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Can’t give detailed advice Nigel, as you’ve walked a different path away from TC than I did.

I’ve been successfully moving my TC work over to Solid Edge for a little while now. I do so by simply taking the whole TC (2D) file over using .DXF as the transfer mechanism.  I don’t know your TC drawing practices but I used ‘levels’ extensively to draw individual components and also to make life easier when working on parts that overlapped others (by hiding layers to avoid ‘snap’ confusion). I never used ‘blocks’ that I recall but frequently ‘grouped’ things. I was very happy to find all of this information came over to Solid Edge and that everything could be edited, saved and printed as easily from within SE, as they could be from within TC. In fact SE finds errors with drawings that were hard to find in TC. I just save the imported TC DXF as an SE ‘Draft’ document and then (as far as I’m concerned) that’s it. I don’t need to go back to TC for anything – all further work in conducted in Solid Edge.

This wagon drawing was originally drawn in TC 2D and then moved over to SE. I’ve dropped down the ‘layers’ so you can see that everything has moved over and can still be used in the same way. Instead of model & paper space, SE uses ‘sheet views’ – background, working and 2D model – which you can select/deselct as required. I assume Alibre has similar capability.

Of course, I only used TC (Deluxe) in 2D mode and I beleive that you use (endure? 🙂 ) TC in both 2D & 3D modes, so this may not be as simple for you. However, my advice in general would be to move your TC work over to Alibre and then just stay there. Don’t flip-flop between the two CAD systems, you probably don’t need to and it will ony confuse.

Just let go of TurboCAD!  I have and I don’t regret it!

Regards,

 

IanT

 

 

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Nick –

I’m not sure where you think that I’m trying to use one system as the output for another. I know I am not.

My original query was how to set the printer so it gives accurate TurboCAD drawings. I knew it would print accurately from Alibre so I guessed I was doing something wrongly, or not at all, in TurboCAD, and so it proved.

I also knew you can transfer drawing files between CAD makes, provided you use a shared file-type and a lot of editing. It was that editing I do not understand properly.

…….

To explain why….

I started with TurboCAD when that was the only serious CAD package available to amateurs. It was advertised in our magazines by its UK agent Paul Tracey, from whom I bought it at an exhibition.

Products like AutoCad and SolidWorks seemed made for industrial and academic-institution buyers only.  Nevertheless it was seeing SolidWorks used at my work that showed me the potential.

So I bought TurboCAD….

The IMSI software CD was packed with a primer in .pdf format, written by Paul, on a second CD. There seemed no IMSI-published tutorial materials for TurboCAD. One of its professional users, Don Cheke, published many 3D-model exercises that rightly attracted much praise, but at advanced level.

I found it fiendishly hard generally and some areas impossible to learn, especially in 3D mode, but slowly built a sizeable library of mainly-orthographic drawings. With a very few exceptions including some geological diagrams, my 3D ones never advanced beyond basic exercises, e.g putting round holes through cubes.

Gradually, I started to use TC in orthographic mode for real things. These included my steam-lorry project already under way, and my workshop’s travelling-hoist. Yet I knew I could not learn TurboCAD beyond rough GA and simple parts level.

 

So I searched for alternatives hopefully easier to learn:

– Fusion 360 deterred me by its overblown presentation, no tutorial material I could find or use; and a much-discussed concern that it would move from a free “hobby/student” version to a subscription form. I don’t think it did, in the end.

– Solid Edge Community Edition looked more promising and had good “reviews” on this forum.  Its training manuals I could find on the Siemens website, were well-written and in .pdf form, which was encouraging; but they were weirdly hidden, discontinuous and seemed for experienced users who already knew the ‘Solid-series’ specific concepts.

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– Alibre?

I missed much of the original MEW serial. That promotion must have hit Paul Tracey hard, and he stopped advertising TurboCAD in both magazines. Did he withdraw his advertisements or did Alibre’s makers force the then-publishers to close his account as the price of the promotion? He also stopped taking his sales stand to the exhibitions – but so have many other of our suppliers.

I had bought the first Alibre-promotion edition of MEW in W.H. Smiths, tried the first instalment, drawing that scribing-block, liked it; and bought a year’s subscription for the magazine (I was already buying, and still buy, ME). Unfortunately the office failed to read my wanted starting edition, so I missed the next two. That ended my dalliance with Alibre Atom, though at least I had some idea about it.

Importantly, it looked as if I might be able to learn it!

[Smiths now seem to have stopped selling both magazines.]

I continued with TurboCAD for a while but eventually, seeing as Alibre and its SE rival are a bit simpler and obviously popular with model-engineers, bought Alibre Atom and am making some, slow and irregular progress with it.

 

So I now have two separate, very different CAD systems: TurboCAD for orthographic use only, and Alibre Atom with its 3D-model approach. (You are meant to use TurboCAD in 3D-mode, but it gives you the option!).

Most of my various drawings are TC ones, so either I transfer component ones to Alibre, or leave all the TC ones on TC. You can’t transfer assembly-drawings from TC to Atom. Well, probably not mine.

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It’s clear from this thread and my attempt that migrating TC drawings to Alibre is difficult if the original is multi-level or hides line “off-cuts” and other faults.

Many of my TC drawings are on at least three layers: outline, centre-lines and dimensions; but I was never sure if that’s the right use for ‘Layers’. The more complex ones from which I might want to extract parts, have more still.  They also warn of strange ‘work-plane’ errors, probably from trying to use TurboCAD’s single-plane orthographic option. It expects full 3D modelling, with the Viewport system to derive the elevations from the model.

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To sum up: I am probably best keeping the existing TC drawings where they are, finishing and printing them as needed all within TurboCAD; but making and printing new drawings in Alibre.

 

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Legal paper size is another interesting one:

https://pdf.wondershare.com/business/legal-paper-size.html

MichaelG.

And if you read it carefully, you will realise that they didn’t get it right – they refer to A4 as 216 x297mm i.e. the same width as A4.
Whereas A4 is actually 210 x 297…… read far enough down the page and they have a comparison sizes picture that clearly gives the correct dimensions….

So US Legal has NO common dimensions with ISO – unless you work with a significant tolerance!

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Well, I’ll be blowed! This is where it’s meant to land, having typed it after a lot of arguments with the logging-on procedure! Read on and you’ll see what I mean…

@@@@@@@

 

This is meant to be after Michael’s comment on the width of American Legal paper, differing from ISO by 6mm.

It might though be anywhere in the thread, because the site’s Log In routine is still not working properly. So it could appear after Nick’s rather unkind remark about using one program to manipulate the output of another- rather like the ‘One Song To The Tune Of Another’ game in I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

What happens is that whether I reach the site from the e-post notification or from my bookmarks index, it lets me log-in, and lets me find this thread. It then shows the reply panel at the foot of Page 1. That may differ according to what you are reading it on, but here it’s directly below Nick’s post of the 14th November.

If I switch to Page 2 to write this in the correct place, by using the little number-box or ‘Next’ arrow, the site automatically logs me out.

This is on the 5th or 6th attempt.

…….

Regarding that paper size not matching anything standard, printers or at least Hewlett-Packard ones, are made with a generous width tolerance so can take that A4 / Legal difference. They would certainly be made to take whichever is the wider size anyway. I think its adjustable fence that will go a couple of mm or so over width.

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Ironically the USA is a fully-paid-up member of the ISO, as is the UK.

Perhaps US lawyers still think it’s 1923… though like our own solicitors and barristers, I expect they carefully adjust their invoices for inflation.

Now, I am going to submit this, close the site and browser; re-open them and see where it has landed. If at all.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

So I now have two separate, very different CAD systems: TurboCAD for orthographic use only, and Alibre Atom with its 3D-model approach. (You are meant to use TurboCAD in 3D-mode, but it gives you the option!).

Most of my various drawings are TC ones, so either I transfer component ones to Alibre, or leave all the TC ones on TC. You can’t transfer assembly-drawings from TC to Atom (why not?). Well, probably not mine.

I think I’ve always struggled with your use of the word ‘Orthographic’ Nigel. Being a numpty, all it means to me is a way of describing a 3D object in a 2D plane (be it 1st or 3rd angle projection). As you will see from my example ‘wagon’ I don’t worry too much about projections as it’s usually just for my personal use. Poor practice maybe but there you are.  However, ‘orthogonic’ (or not) it is still a 2D drawing and can be exported as a DXF file.

I also don’t really understand ‘component’ or ‘assembly’ in this context either. My ‘wagon’ consists of different components (albeit on seperate levels) to illustrate the GA (e.g. an assembly). But it’s all still 2D. If your “assembly drawings” are actually 3D objects (similar to an ‘Assembly’ in Solid Edge) then they are not (2D) “drawings” (although objects can be drawn of course) and cannot be exported as DXFs.

I’ll leave it there as I’m supposed to be minimising my screen time for a few days.

Again – I just import my TC (2D) files into SE (using DXFs) and then can immediately save that file as a Solid Edge ‘Draft’ file. No messing around, no conversion work or anything else. Now I may then need to ‘improve’ the file because it has some issues but they were already there in the TC original (and I probably put them there too) – it was just harder to see them in TC.

So, assuming Alibre can handle ‘levels’ – just move everything across, save it in an Alibre native file format and do everything you want to do with that file using Alibre. You will of course have to spend time learning how to do this. I didn’t immediately realise how capable Solid Edge CE was in 2D because everything (help, documents, UTubes etc) assumes that you are working in 3D. It may take effort but in my experience, it will save you time in the long run by using just the one CAD.

Just get rid of your Legacy CAD System – you don’t need it if you transfer your data over…

Regards,

 

IanT

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Well Nigel probably does need the old system as he will likely not have all the design in suitable DWG or DXF format to be imported.

As Ian says Alibre will import a drawing of a single item or a drawing of your whole assembled wagon. It does not know what is on the file but it will know that it’s a DWG or DXF file so will open that. You can then do a sI showed and pick the pieces off of that.

It won’t convert that assembly into a 3D assembly as the 2D does not contain the information needed without further input from you.

As I said earlier given your abilities with CAD I would suggest you redraw it in Alibre component by component and then assemble them in Alibre too. It is not as though you have a mass of components drawn up at least from what I have seen.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

[Interesting – I came straight here without logging-in, on a PC that had been switched off completely overnight.]

 

Ian –

I use TurboCAD in its orthographic-only mode, only because I can’t learn its 3D mode sufficiently well. Even some aspects of it in 2D mode are too difficult.

If I could master it, I would have stayed with it. I would not have needed find a simpler system!

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I looked at transferring drawings and I have tried a few, but I have so many in TurboCAD, and so many of them contain hidden peculiarities that stop easy translation, that it’s far better to leave them as they are.

I don’t think Alibre can handle TurboCAD levels. It recognises they exist but that’s all. It’s better to make a copy of the original, put all its part outlines on one level and clear out all the oddities, before saving that copy as the .dxf file. Those oddities on mine include trimmed line fragments hiding under others. They can create havoc!

SolidEdge may act differently, but Alibre does not translate imported outlines directly into its own Sketch versions. Its manual, using an electric guitar body as an example, shows this.

It opens the .dxf file as a 2D Drawing you need break into its elements before copying each element to a New Part sketch – and in the right order. Get the order wrong and the subsequent extrusions to create the 3D model won’t work as you want.

Alibre builds 3D models by individual extrusions added or subtracted from the previous one. So if the extrusion tool is presented with a sketch holding two or more closed outlines it has not seen previously, it obligingly acts the same way on all those new outlines.

Those are for single Parts. Even the manual’s guitar body example is a single Part, a curvy slab with a lot of oddly-shaped recesses extrude-cut into one surface.

A TC assembly in 2D will transfer to Alibre but would have to stay as a single elevation drawing. I doubt a 3D drawing would move at all, but it too would need stay as it is.

 

So transferring drawings is not as easy as it seems. Even Alibre’s own operating manual advises that it’s often better to draw the part anew than try to convert it.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Alibre will handle layers from imported DXF and DWG files.

Using the same example as I did earlier this is as it appears when first opened which includes the part, ctr lines, dimensions, etc. Ticked on the list to the left.

 

If I then remove the tick from the items I don’t want and click apply I now get a much less cluttered image to select and subsequently paste into my new 2D sketch. If I also unticked layer 04 that would remove the hidden detail as well which is shown in a dark green

 

What is likely to be a problem in your case is that the levels are all over the place making removing one a problem as you may have a mix of wanted and unwanted items on that same level.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I tried 3D drawing using TC (DL) Nigel, as it seemed the logical way to go, especially given my long use of TC 2D. I found it very hard to know ‘where I was’ – in practice often being on the wrong plane altogether (although that could have just been my ignorance of course). But then Paul “The CAD” advised that I needed the ‘Pro’ version to make 3D viable and I gave up on the idea.

Siemens used to describe Solid Edge as a “Hybrid” 2D/3D CAD system, although they seem to have moved away from that description now but they do still offer a 2D Drafting CAD. This appears to have broadly the same functionality as that embedded in SE-CE.

I don’t know how this compares with other 3D CADs but Jason has shown that Alibre can use ‘levels’ and that may be more than enough for you. However, I don’t completely understand how you have used TC in the past and what issues that may present now.

But if you just use TC “when required” (and not for any new work) then I suspect that you will find yourself using TC less and less anyway. This may be an easier transition route for you.

Regards,

 

IanT

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thankyou Jason –

Yes, I did find and experiment with Alibre’s Layers table. It is slightly similar to TurboCAD’s though with several pre-arranged settings.

TC instead has you build your own Layers menu on a blank form, other than its own Layer 0 it dedicates to construction lines, equivalent to those in manual drawing, and nearly so to Alibre’s ‘Reference Lines’.

I didn’t know if the Layers would translate from TC to Alibre, at least not without a lot of editing; but did find it seems easy to create a layer, and to change an element’s layer, in Alibre. That suggested to me a safe way to help ensure the translation would work; moving all the outline elements to a new layer.

You are right though that the Layers in many of my TurboCAD drawings are a mess. I could create the Layers in their menu in TC – that’s the easy bit – but not make them stick consistently. Plus I often forgot to change the layers anyway.

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Ian –

Yes, of course a drawing on paper or a screen is a 2D representation of a 3D object, be it a wagon’s design drawings or a landscape painting. Just as are maps, though constructing a realistic map of the spherical Eartt is a geometrical speciality of its own!

However, you can model the concept of orthographic projection with, say, a coffee mug. Side-on it is a rectangle with a loop sticking out of one side; end-on, a circle. Neither view shows what happens beyond the immediately visible; so need be read together.

So I use the term ‘Orthographic’ in its standard meaning, irrespective of manual or CAD: elevations which are images of the object seen squarely on each face. Therefore two-dimensional by default: a cube shows as squares.

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The purpose of an orthographic drawing has always been to show true proportions and dimensions, to scale, in all three axes.

It has always been normal practice to issue the workshop or building-site drawing in orthographic form, but CAD readily allows adding a small “3D” image on the same sheet to help clarify it. The Hemingway Kits drawings, for example, use this convention.

[It was seeing combined prints like that, though at work, that originally showed me the possibilities of CAD for helping me design my projects I’d previously, but rather haphazardly, drawn manually.]

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CAD uses ‘2D’ and ‘3D’ for brevity but also because there are different 3D-projections to represent three-dimensions. ‘Isometric’ is the common engineering one, ‘Perspective’ is more life-like for very large objects, and used for those architects’ disingenuous “public consultation” pictures. There are one or two others.

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‘Component’ is my choice to separate it from ‘Part’ in Alibre. Yes, they mean the same really, but I use the former generically.

By ‘Assembly’ I mean in any form of drawing, showing two or more components fitted together. It is CAD’s direct analogue to the physical lumps; but I try to let the context show whether a CAD image in any package, or the real thing.

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My TurboCAD versions are 2019 Deluxe (still on a spare computer) and now 2021 – x64. ‘Deluxe’ seems IMSI-speak for “Basic”, meaning not having all the tools and features of the “Professional” editions. I tried one exercise that went well until it asked for some tool that proved not in my edition! Nevertheless these two variants are still extremely powerful and comprehensive. This is not unique. I don’t suppose Alibre Atom and SolidEdge (CE) have all the facilities of their fully-professional equivalents; but are still fine for almost all of our hobby needs.

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Yes, I understand how you ‘visulise’ things Nigel but your CAD system just sees data in a particular file format.

I was suggesting that your computer/CAD system doesn’t care if it’s 1st angle or 3rd angle, isometric or whatever. It just sees data points without ever understanding what they represent.

Perhaps one way to differentiate (in our discussions) whether a TC file is simply a 2D one or has 3D elements within it, would be to ask if anything has been ‘extruded’ ? It’s a long time but I’m pretty sure TC used extrusions to create 3D objects/parts as do other 3D CAD systems. To me, this is the point where the data starts describing three dimensional information rather than two.

So I’m suggesting that any of your TC ‘work’ which has no extruded elements could (in theory) be translated across to Alibra as DXFs. Maybe anything with extrusions will just have to stay in TC.

Anyway, we may be talking at odds. Going back to my previous post, over time I think you may find yourself using TC less and less – and this may be the best route for you.

Regards,

 

IanT

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Ah – I see what you mean!

TurboCAD generates “solids” by linear and swept Extrusions as in any CAD make; or via a very useful “Primitives” library of stock 3D forms you edit to size. (A third, by “Thickness”, is probably a direct Extrusion.)

Which would be fine if TurboCAD did not have two or three different, internal mathematical systems for describing 3D “solid” objects, of any shape and by whichever tool.

A standard “solid” is “solid”, apparently. The “TC Surface” seems a shell with infinitesimally thin walls. To use the coffee-mug analogy, the difference between the glazed ceramic and the glaze only.

There are also “ACIS Solids”. Whatever they are, they might not be in the basic TC editions anyway.

There is worse. These different methods give the objects unexpectedly different reactions to standard  editing. For example, trying to change a 3D object’s size often moves it instead. Or may break it into independent facets that cannot be re-joined.

 

This is just one of TurboCAD’s many peculiarities I could never grasp. I could find no pattern to it nor how to ensure using the correct tool for the specific task.

 

The ‘Help’ document won’t help. The TurboCAD 2021 Manual does not start on 3D drawing until about Page 1180, in a poorly-designed .pdf document that gives only very brief notes, and lacks a proper text index or full digital search facility. More frustration and disillusionment.

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Yes, I agree. I am better abandoning TurboCAD for all new drawings if I want 3D models as well as orthographic workshop drawings.

However, TurboCAD might still have a limited place even if I use only a tiny fraction of it. After all, I do not use ‘Word’ and ‘Excel’ to anything like their full potential.

Apart from all those drawings I have made, if I keep it simple, its direct 2D mode may be still useful sometimes; including for plotting 2D geometrical constructions which Alibre Atom might not really be designed for.

It’s a bit ‘horses-for-courses’, rather as I might choose between my Harrison or Myford lathe for a given task.

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Never used TurboCad just AutoCad but the same would apply I should think.  I would place a frame around the area to print that is the same as a printable area on whatever paper size you can print to, remember to make it smaller to allow for the non printable border.  Then selecting this area limits, print at 1:1 and measure the printed image, adjust your print scale to suit and reprint.  You can then reuse the border limits you used with the print scale to print any other image to fill size.  Always remember to make sure you are printing to scale in the printer control.  I used to do this in the early days of AutoCad, before paperspace became useable, but was printing on an A0 pen printer.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

…
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Yes, I agree. I am better abandoning TurboCAD for all new drawings if I want 3D models as well as orthographic workshop drawings.

However, TurboCAD might still have a limited place even if I use only a tiny fraction of it. After all, I do not use ‘Word’ and ‘Excel’ to anything like their full potential.

Apart from all those drawings I have made, if I keep it simple, its direct 2D mode may be still useful sometimes; including for plotting 2D geometrical constructions which Alibre Atom might not really be designed for.

It’s a bit ‘horses-for-courses’, rather as I might choose between my Harrison or Myford lathe for a given task.

I think the disadvantages keeping both outweigh the advantages, and perhaps doing so is a bad mistake.

TurboCAD is feature rich and it does things in its own way.  It’s a significant learning challenge, requiring the user to understand how to apply a large number of context sensitive tools.   There’s a full-blown 2D drawing tool, with an extensive 3D capability tacked on top.

TurboCAD was one of the first CAD programs.  My feeling is it was developed before the best way of interfacing with the user was understood, and that makes it complicated.  In the same package 2D is not the same as 3D, and 3D has two major variants.  Users have to understand the difference between 2D and 3d and surfaces and solids, and when it matters.

In comparison, Alibre benefits from lessons learned by others.  Though well-established, it’s not a pioneer, and its tools and organisation are friendlier.   Still a lot to learn though, and it is 3D first and foremost.  Like other later CAD software, it does a better job than TC of keeping Surface 3D and Solid 3D in their place.  In consequence Alibre is very different to TC.

I suggest the worst thing a struggling learner can do is to operate two markedly different CAD packages in parallel!  There’s severe danger of subconsciously driving TC as if it were Alibre and vice-versa; basically resulting in creeping havoc due to using tools in the wrong context, or the right tools in the wrong order.   Mixing different ways of doing things in the same space is asking for trouble.  Confusion is likely, results will be mysteriously mangled, and where a model went wrong hard to diagnose.  Too many rules broken inadvertently cause the model’s internal geometry to come apart at the seams for no obvious reason.

Personally, I’d dump TC in favour of Alibre, and use Alibre for everything.  That includes abandoning ‘orthographic drawings’ beyond simple pencil sketches.  Instead, develop 3D models with Alibre and then use the software to generate 2D drawings from the model.

The reason I suggest switching to Alibre is that following the magazine and forum Q&A showed me Alibre is similar to my understanding of FreeCAD and Fusion. I’m confident Alibre will do what I want and that I could quickly learn to drive it.   In contrast, I discovered TC to be rather alien.  I found its many options and modes hard work, and not well matched to my way of thinking.  However, if I’d persisted and conquered TC, I’d stay loyal – TC does what is says on the tin, and it has many happy customers.   Interesting that many TC users find other CAD software difficult to learn!  That suggests ‘difficult’ and ‘easy’ are a function of previous experience.  What we know, or believe we know, can be an obstacle.

I’m a satisfied Solid Edge user, but not because Solid Edge is easy to learn!  It’s powerful, does everything I need and more, and above all the Community licence suits me well.   Fusion was easier to learn, probably because it’s very modern and has addressed many usability issues, but for this hobbyist, its licence and online requirement are both problematic.

Dave

 

 

[Andy_CParticipant @andy_c]

Nigel – to set printing through use of viewports try the following in TC.

in your drawing in model space go to menu View and select named views then create view.  This will produce a square cursor in your drawing allowing you to select the area or the whole drawing area you wish to print (I am assuming your drawings are drawn full size).  When you have selected the area a dialogue box will open allowing you to name the viewport it will come up with something like view1 as a guide – I recommend giving it a meaningful name if you are going to have a few viewports in the drawing.

next move to paper space.  You will have probably already set up your paper size in page setup for your printer.  Next in the paper space menu view viewports a square cursor will appear allowing you to again draw the area you wish to select to place your named viewport.  Having selected the area a dialogue will appear allowing you to select your named viewport.  Click go to.  Change the cursor to the arrow to select the area and then right click to get properties and select viewport – select scale and check the box fixed allowing you to manage scale either the offered ones eg 1:1 or others or type your own.

 

select print from the top menu and then page setup to select printer and drawing sheep sizes and also the paper space printing scale bottom right.

 

all the above can be moved and manipulated to allow different elements to be moved into view.

 

hope that helps and is what you were after.  All above on TC 2016.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Howard –

I don’t think that approach would work in TurboCAD. It’s quite prescriptive in what it expects and if you don’t follow its route you’d probably not be able to set the printer scale.

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Dave –

I know the trap of trying to use two systems is of trying to think in one way while using the other. Many have warned me of that, and indeed even when the previous experience is of manual draughting. So although I compare and contrast them, when using one or another I am careful to think as it wants.

TurboCAD does seem in a very different family from Alibre and SolidEdge (and Fusion360?), and that helps me run either TC or Alibre with the right hat on. It is far more powerful than I would ever need for my model-engineering, but with that power comes considerable complexity and it seems to have no proper operating-manuals. If I had managed to learn it properly to a sensible level I would most likely stay loyal to the IMSI product, but despite several years’ experience with it, I still cannot grasp some of its fundamental techniques.

I am now starting to use Alibre in preference, but still need use my many TurboCAD drawings. Though a lot are now surplus and can be deleted – either they were pure exercises, or are earlier versions of the drawings I actually used. Some cannot be translated to Alibre for further work as they are not only partial assemblies but also intentionally show their geometrical constructions. They might transfer as “finished” drawings.

My last 3D TurboCAD creation was a purely diagrammatic, 3/4-section image of a lift and a force pumps, to explain their principles to someone. This was for an intended real project and I would indeed have made some of the components for whichever pump was selected, but that was a couple of years or so ago now and the project seems to have been still-born. Making a new version from blank sheets might be quite a good Alibre exercise!

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Andy –

Thank you for those instructions.

My version of TurboCAD is 2021 but I don’t think the printing routine has changed significantly. Another reply quite a while ago showed I had missed a vital but not very obvious tool-menu command.

I had been trying to do more or less as you describe, but from your text, I think I made the mistake of not making the Paperspace frame the same size as the original View. I was not making the viewport any regular size, just enclosing the wanted area of drawing, then plonking it down on a big rectangle that fits the paper. I’m not sure you can set the View sizes; but I thought the system transferred the View at whatever size you drew it, set it at the scale you enter, and that’s it.

 

[Andy_CParticipant @andy_c]

Nigel, the two frames do not need to be the same size.  Apologies if I gave that impression.  You can draw the paper space viewport the size you want and scale the dia within it to any scale you wish and therefore have a number of different viewports on the same sheet of paper all with their own views and scales.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thankyou Andy, for clarifying that.

At the moment I am still awaiting my A3 printer’s repair. The repairer obtained a new print-head, fitted it… and it didn’t work. This brand-new head itself was faulty. So he’s awaiting a replacement.

Well, I took another step forwards yesterday.

Re Jason’s explanation of Levels, above.

I have a basic orthographic GA of my steam-wagon, in TurboCAD. I went through it, simplifying its somewhat tangled innards, re-saved in its original .TCW format then exported it in .DWG to my Alibre library. TurboCAD does not have an “export” command as such – simply “Save As” by type and destination in the usual way.

So what will Alibre make of it?

It worked!

I then spent a while tidying that import, saving it as an Alibre drawing file; moving all the outlines into a new level called “Parts”, dimensions into the Alibre default Dimension level, centre-lines ditto but I did set them from continuous to dash-dot pattern. One exception is the boiler’s outline, which I left in its own level and colour.

I’ve not yet found what the line-thickness values mean. Some are negative numbers? I’ll have to search the manual. I could also experiment by setting up a very simple drawing with several elements in basic shapes like cubes, each on its own level.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On 11 December 2023 at 23:31 Nigel Graham 2 Said:

(Yes I know I have bought Alibre Atom;  but I still have many drawings on TurboCAD, and need it for direct orthographic drawings such as complicated assemblies and general-arrangements.)

I want occasionally to print drawings to true scale as possible, so does anyone know how, please?

.

TC’s “Viewport” printing system is hard to use, but I go carefully through all its various menus to set the drawing size, printer size and paper size all to A4, portrait / landscape, and the scale to 1:1.

I know the drawing will overlap the paper so am careful not to select the auto-sizing option. The important areas of the drawing are well within the margins.

Yet measuring the prints shows them nowhere near the drawn dimensions; and there appears no pattern to the errors in the 3 or 4 attempts I made.

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I suspect TurboCAD’s so-called “viewports”. You need create two separate viewports, respectively in “Model Space” and “Paper Space”. I do not know if these two rectangular frames need be identical for an accurate copy, but I have never found any way to set them.

Anyone know, please?

I see this is an old thread but if anyone has problems with Turbocad have a look on youtube at Paul Tracy’s turbocad videos, and if still stuck give him a ring.  I find that after playing with a problem for some time and still being stuck it can be explained in 5 mins.  I did buy the software from Paul at a decent price.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I’ve been somewhat overtaken by events.

My A3 printer came home to die.

The repairer, an independent local recommended by Curry’s who sell things but not mend them, managed to obtain a new print-head but found it broken on arrival, and it appeared to have been the last available as HP no longer make that model.

So the printer was no longer useable. I dismantled it, messily and with difficulty, hoping for potentially-useful salvage; but there was virtually nothing worth saving.

I have deferred buying a replacement.

.

I use an HP A4 printer for most things; but one of the few drawings now of any value in my TurboCAD library is a rough, incomplete, 2D GA of part of my steam-wagon project (shown below); and too large for A4.

Though I managed to copy it to Alibre thence in jpg for here, Alibre opens it as a “finished” drawing of no practical use. The transfer seems to left some parts of it behind, too. So I have to keep it “alive”, and use it, in its original TurboCAD home.

Drawing a complicated general-arrangement from which to extract individual parts for their own drawings, necessitates either TurboCAD in 2D-only mode or my manual drawing-board – if I can rebuild it.

The printer repairer suggested I do as he does when he needs an A3 sheet printing: take or send the work as an image file to a print-shop.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Just a thought, Nigel

… You could probably buy a decent second-hand iPad for less than the price of an A3 printer [have a look at CeX]

here’s a screenshot of part of your posted image, on my ageing iPad Pro 9.7”

… the resolution is, of course, currently limited by what you have posted rather than by my screen.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ I would be happy to test the concept, if you can send me a file at suitable resolution,

 

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[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

As has been discussed before the imported file is not “useless” in Alibre. It can be used as a basis for a 3D model. See the earlier part of this thread.

I’m not sure what Michale is suggesting as I can’t see how an ipad will allow Nigel to pint anything larger than the size of paper his printer can handle?

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

Hi Nigel, why can’t you use TCAD’s Tile print option to print your A3 drawing on multiple A4 sheets on your A4 printer?

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

[…]

I’m not sure what Michale is suggesting as I can’t see how an ipad will allow Nigel to pint anything larger than the size of paper his printer can handle?

Michael is suggesting using an iPad to view the images instead of wasting effort and resources printing them.

I’m happy to keep out of it if Nigel wants to stay locked into the 20th Century.

 

MichaelG.

[Author]

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