kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[José Ignacio <jose.cyborg@xxxxxxxxx>]

One good example of a really flexible snapping system is what Autocad does
with OSNAP and OTRACK modes

Object snap (OSNAP) creates snap points from many features in the objects
or interaction between objects. an important feature is that the different
classes of snapping points active at any time are user-selectable:

[image: image.png]

Most types are self explanatory, endpoints of lines and arcs, center
points, midpoints and quadrants. extensions from endpoints and intersection
between lines, arcs, circles or combinations. When they are activated they
work as a simple "magnet" for the active tool. another very useful feature
is that the UI shows a distinctive icon for each kind of different snapping
point, so it is easy to tell if you are snapping to the correct thing. Eg
squares for endpoints, triangles for midpoints, diamonds for quadrants,
circles for centers, etc.

Object Snap Tracking (OTRACK) is the really delicious thing. if you hover
over an object snap point for a couple seconds, it "sticks", now tracks
shooting out of those points are snapping guides, and you can snap to the
intersection of such, it is hard to explain how much it improves the
drafting experience but this page does a pretty good job of describing it
with pictures: http://www.ccadinc.com/autocad-tutorials-otrack.html


I'm not saying we have to copy autocad... but the tools are a bit of an
industry standard in the drafting world and they really improve
productivity when you have to lay down lines, arcs and have all of them
line up perfectly, with some practice you can make very complex shapes
using construction geometry and the snapping system.



On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 3:48 AM Eeli Kaikkonen <eeli.kaikkonen@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> ke 13. maalisk. 2019 klo 19.51 Wayne Stambaugh (stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx)
> kirjoitti:
>
>> On 3/12/2019 1:21 PM, Ruth Ivimey-Cook wrote:
>>
>> >  4. Pcb: is there a chance of a smart snap - where the editor looks for
>> >     things to line up the cursor with (e.g. while moving 1 wire it looks
>> >     to see if there is another wire nearly in line with it, or while
>> >     moving a component it checks to see when this component is 1/2 way
>> >     between two other components?)
>>
>> I'm not sure what you mean precisely mean by this.
>>
>>
> I have given thought to something like this. Technically my proposition
> would be a bit more generic.
>
> There could be an "alternative grid" which would consist of lines going
> through special points of items. Now the grid can be thought of as
> horizontal and vertical lines and each grid point has one of each. In a
> regular grid most of the lines converge, i.e. points 1,0 and 2,0 have the
> same horizontal line but different vertical lines.
>
> The proposed alternative grid would be activated with for example a
> hotkey. The normal grid would disappear. Instead there would be an
> irregular grid where every horizontal and vertical line would go through at
> least one special point of some item. Special points would be for example
> anchor points of footprints and end/start points of lines or track
> segments. When moving an item the beginning point of the movement would be
> a special point, too (like it is even now, I think, so that you can move
> horizontally without changing vertical coordinate or vice versa). The grid
> would consist of all those special points and all crossings of these
> alternative grid lines.
>
> To be really useful this should be configurable with regards to special
> points. Many footprints would be simple enough that all special points
> could be active. I would include corner points of pads to the special
> points (and would like to have an ability to grab a pad from a corner or
> from the mid point of an edge). But for most boards the alternative grid
> would soon become too crowded to be practical. Therefore the user should be
> able to select which points are used as special points. For example only
> center points of footprints or only vias or only track segments or some
> combination.
>
> This wouldn't help with finding the mid point ("1/2 way") between two
> points. But I have missed such a feature many times, especially when
> drawing outlines and other graphics. It's quite tedious to calculate mid
> points and hit or mark them.
>
> Eeli Kaikkonen
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