LibreCAD for mapping?

Ries, Firstly congratulations on a very good program.
I am working for Department of Agriculture (Soil Conservation services) in South Africa and I want to try something different with LibreCAD. My job is doing and teaching ranch/farm planning for farmers, which entails the drawing of a map of the ranch with the existing infrastructure (fences, paddocks, pipelines, roads, etc.) and then also draw new proposed improvements on the map.
How I am doing it at the moment is:
I identify the farm on Google Earth. Then I add placemarks as reference points on the GE image and I measure the horizontal- and vertical distances between the points and then save the bitmap image.
Then I go to my CAD program (I am using AllyCad), I load the bitmap as a background image. I measure the distances between the reference points that I added on the picture and then scale the size of the bitmap, untill the distances between the reference points are correct. Then I draw my map on top of the background image. It is important to be able to measure the sizes of the different camps/paddocks, lands, etc. on the map.
If this can be done by using LibreCAD it will enable many farmers to draw their own affordable farm maps instead of paying consultants to develope it for them.
Do you think it will be possible to do this in LibreCAD?
I do not see the function for measuring an area in hectares or sq meters.
Can I load a bitmap image and draw on top of it?
I am using Windows XP and the Help file does not work on it.

Thank you and keep up the good work.

Frans

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Ries, thank you for your quick response.
I have version 1.0.ORC1 Compiled on Jun 16 2011, in Windows.
My version does not have the measure polygon option in the Info menu. Have I perhaps downloaded an older version?

OK, I managed to load the .png background image and I can draw on top of it. My problem now is to calibrate the image to the right size so that the map that I draw on top of it has the correct scale. Is it possible to scale the image?

Another question: Is it possible to import a CSV file with coordinates of points?

You can call me anytime to test your new installer. Just remind me with an email.

This is really an exciting and unselfish project and will open doors for many people. CAD programs are so expensive that nobody but professionals can afford it. I am a part-time lecturer at Central University of Technology- teaching Agricultural Engineering, and you cannot imagine what gift you are giving to those students. Thank you!!

Frans

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Ries,
Thank you, I found the measure polygon on the left menu.

For scaling the image you say: "You can, however select the image, and when selected use the  modify->scale menu entry to rescale."

Please explain to me step by step how it works. I tried it, but cannot manage. I must enlarge my image with a factor of 3.7. How do I do it?

Thank you

Frans

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There are already a plugin to import CSV files.
If it is in the version that you have can be found in menu File->Import->Read ascii points

Simply change "format" to "Comma separator" for CSV files

The format of the data expected by the plugin are (code not mandatory):

number,x-coordinate,y-coordinate,z-coordinate,code

like:
1,257.65,354.25,0.0,wall
2,293.58,355.98,0.0
3,315.12,357.37,door

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understood, Ries.
I do not know, since I use the version of OpenSUSE and packaged with the plugins of the master branch.

If you think it right I can remove them from the RPM packages as plugins for all or none

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Ries,
Thank you, I managed to scale my background image and it works perfectly.

I will appreciate if you can make an experimental executable to play around with.


Thank you

Frans

2011/7/6 Frans [via LibreCAD] <[hidden email]>: Only  is required the attached asciifile1.dll.
Copy it in one of the following dirs:

c:\documents and settings\"your user"\.librecad\plugins\asciifile1.dll
(see the point in librecad)
c:\documents and settings\"your user"\my
documents\librecad\plugins\asciifile1.dll

or, if you installed LibreCAD in c:\program files\LibreCAD

c:\program files\LibreCAD\resources\plugins\asciifile1.dll

dll file attached, but not if it will come to the mailing list

Rallazz,
Thank you. I just imported a CSV file that I modified from Garmin Mapsource and it works perfectly.
Excelent!!

Thank you

Frans

Hello guys.

I,m re-floating this thread because me too I need to load a PNG and calculate an area.

I.m new on LibreCAD and Lubuntu. I have installed LibreCad from Ubuntu repositories and I have the Version :
1.0.0rc1 Compiled on: Oct 4 2011

I,m not able to find the way to load a PNG. The Import from the File Menu does nothing (is empty) and the Open option don't have the PNG files option.

So any help on that point will be appreciated.

Regards from a Barcelona guy in Victoria BC.

we just released 1.0.2 and 2.0.0_alpha3

for images: use Draw Image in the main menu or cad tool box.

File Import is for importing LibreCAD plugins only.

thanks,

dxli

"Draw/Insert Image" ... is so obvius... and works !!!

I have also updated to the v2.0a

Thank you and congratulations for this good software.

Hi
libreCAD is just great! i have been trying to promote open source softwares to students. However i was wondering if there could be possibility of importing georeferenced raster images in LibreCAD, either from Google Earth or rasters which are georeferenced geotiffs in Quantum Gis (which is an open source software i use and teach my students).

At present my students are using plexearth which is a plugin for autocad. This plugin imports georeferenced imagery and terrain from google earth into autocad. This can then be vectorised and taken to gis for building database. If this facility is available in LibreCAD, then we can go totally opensource :)

looking forward to hear from you....

Abhijeet    

Hi, Abhijeet

At this moment is not possible to add georeferenced raster. Only insert images, then move rotate and scale.

It is easy to develop a plugin that allows it, using GDAL, the same library which uses QGIS
but first is needed to add IMAGE support in plugin, then develop the plugin

Sorry re-activatign that49CDP old topic. I'm using LibreCAD 2.0 beta 1 compiled 10/29/2012 and I can't understand how to scale an imported JPG image. On your video, it seems you clic "select" then a menu appears and you choose "scale", but for me, no menu appears... What have I un-understood ?

Thanks

Sorry again : I found !

There was two problems : it's not obvious (at all !) to select the drawing I want to scale, and I must specify the scale factor in the US fashion : 1.255, instead of 1,255 which is the French fashion, as it was copied/pasted from the Windows 7 calculator.

Thanks for a very usefull work !