Creating a circle of predetermined radius + measurement tool

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gonefishing777
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Creating a circle of predetermined radius + measurement tool

Post by gonefishing777 »

Dear Tracker Team

Is it possible to create a circle of a predetermined radius/diameter? At the moment I draw a horizontal line of a predetermined length (say 20m), then copy that line, paste it, flip it so that I get the midpoints of the two lines as close to center then draw a circle (using alt function to get an perfect circle), move it to the midpoint of where the lines meet and adjust the north, east, south, west square control boxes (i think that's what they are called?) so that they extend to the ends of the 4 lines to make a circle with an equal radius of 10m.

It's an absolute pain in the thing I'm sitting on to do it this way and wonder if there is a quicker way?!

Additionally on a plan (to scale say 1:200) if I want to use the measure line tool to create a line say 10m long, it's almost impossible to get an actual line of 10m, it maybe 9.89, 10.02 etc. I realise this is a measurement tool to measure between two fixed points, however, in my line of work I often need to create a line of a predetermined length (context - I am an arboricultural consultant and therefore need to ensure buildings are located at predetermined distances from buildings. The plans I receive from architects and other consultants are in PDF format).

Many thanks for your help and thank you for a great product

Best wishes

P.
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TrackerSupp-Daniel
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Re: Creating a circle of predetermined radius + measurement tool

Post by TrackerSupp-Daniel »

Hi, gonefishing777

While there is no special function to create a circle with a predetermined radius, you can shave quite a few steps off of your current process by enabling "snapping" from the Measurement preferences (Ctrl+K):
PDFXEdit_Mt9WwiKqNd.png
With this setting enabled, you can Draw a single line for the radius of the circle:
PDFXEdit_dQeChy0x0c.png
PDFXEdit_dQeChy0x0c.png (1.81 KiB) Viewed 1060 times
Then Select the Circle tool, and hold Shift to temporarily toggle "Exclusive mode" during the initial placement. Once you have placed the first point, let go of shift, and instead hold Ctrl and Alt, this will make the placement revolve around the center of the annotation, and will keep all 4 "sides" of the shape the same length:
PDFXEdit_j8ywuGBqJX.png
PDFXEdit_j8ywuGBqJX.png (14.15 KiB) Viewed 1060 times
This should help with placing circles of a specific size. as you now only need to create a single line, and use the snap points of that as the radius of the circle during placement.

As for the troubles reaching an exact measurement, PDF is coordinate based, and as such there will be times when the nearest "point" you can select is not precise enough either due to your zoom level, DPI, or other factors, Zooming in before placement will help you to achieve the precision you need, but you can also create custom calibrations that go to the exact decimal place you need and switch to that scale when needed. This article details the process: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... the-Editor
It is generally better to use a similar line for your scale calibration, as your measurements will be. As an example, saying .5cm = 100in may result in some discrepancies occurring when measuring very long distances due to the short calibration distance and possible rounding. Instead calibrating with 5cm = 1000in will generally result in more precise measurements for long distances with less cases of improper rounding. The opposite is also true, measuring 100cm = 20000in and then trying to measure a distance of .8cm might result in some odd rounding.
Try for the happy medium in your documents, I generally find that measuring about 1/3 of the page width and making the scale based on that distance is the best outcome across the board. Alternatively, simply having your calibrations scale only go to a single decimal point, or possible not offering any decimal points would force the "rounding" to work in your favor.

Kind regards,
Dan McIntyre - Support Technician
Tracker Software Products (Canada) LTD

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gonefishing777
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Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Oct 24, 2017 10:21 am

Re: Creating a circle of predetermined radius + measurement tool

Post by gonefishing777 »

Hi Daniel

You are a star! - your solution for creating a circle to a pre-determined radius has really saved a lot of time!!

Thank you also for your suggestions with the measuring tool - very helpful.

Best wishes

Paul
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Tracker Supp-Stefan
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Re: Creating a circle of predetermined radius + measurement tool

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello gonefishing777,

Glad we could help! :D

Kind regards,
Stefan
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