New user - new to CAD need some help

 Hi all.
I'm completely new to this but my company thinks this could be useful.

As part of our processes for estimating jobs, we get sent a whole load of coordinates of pile positions.  We then need to draw around each position with a circle radius 1.5m.

Is there a way to import coordinates from the Ordnance Survey grid system and automatically draw the circle at the position?

Like I said; no clue.

All the best, Ade

Welcome adigreen!

First I have to mention, that LibreCAD and Surveying are not best friends. The big numbers from coordinates, in relation to property size entities leads to some issues, where tools don't work as expected. This is a matter of math, namely rounding errors, which can't be solved easily.
A workaround for these issues is to offset the drawing to get coordinates with not more than 4 pre-decimal digits.

Concerning your problem I have two ideas.

The Read ascii points plugin can import X/Y coordinates and draw points or lines. So you have to convert your grid system positions into appropriate X/Y coordinates, which you can then import with the plugin.
There is sadly not much documentation for the plugin, but I think it's not too complicated and with some trial and error you should get into it. Maybe Excel or Calc can do this easily and a CSV export is probably what the plugin can read.
See https://docs.librecad.org/en/2.2.0_a/ref/menu.html#plugins

The other idea is explained in the wiki, but might be a bit more complicated. When you have the coordinates, you can use the pseudo scripting technique to draw circles at the desired locations.
The reqirements for the file are more pretentious, it has to use valid command line commands to draw the circles.
https://wiki.librecad.org/index.php?title=Pseudo-Scripting_With_Excel

For both solutions I think a well-conceived Excel/Calc spreadsheet can automate the process and make the creation of the drawing reproducible in case of errors.

Good luck

Armin

LordOfBikes wrote

The Read ascii points plugin can import X/Y coordinates and draw points or lines. So you have to convert your grid system positions into appropriate X/Y coordinates, which you can then import with the plugin.
There is sadly not much documentation for the plugin, but I think it's not too complicated and with some trial and error you should get into it. Maybe Excel or Calc can do this easily and a CSV export is probably what the plugin can read.
See https://docs.librecad.org/en/2.2.0_a/ref/menu.html#plugins

I've used this plugin many times with CSV exported files, the only problem I found with it is that my locale uses coma as decimal separator and have to change to English locale before generating the CSV file in the spreadsheet.
Otherwise LibreCAD will not understand the generated CSV.

Catalan locale, but Spanish and French at least also use coma as decimal separator.

HTH
Pere

Many thanks for this.  I think the offset could work and then I just need to try and get the circle drawing bit to work.  I might have to have a play over the holiday period.  My boss will be chuffed if I go back with a load of circles drawn in the right pattern.

Ade

Luckily in UK we use a decimal point as a decimal point.  Thanks for your comment though, it might help in the future when we do projects abroad.

I've added a "Paste to Points" command to last builds of LibreCAD (https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/releases/tag/2.2.2_alpha-latest)

That commands allows to perform "Paste" operation in locations, specified by selected Point entities.

So, with this command you can address your task using the following steps:

1) Import points coordinates via CSV plugin
2) Create single circle of specific diameter (at any location in drawing)
3) Copy that circle (with setting copy reference point to center of the circle) using Copy (or Copy Quick) command.
4) Select all imported point entities where you need circle (there is "Select Points" command available for this)
5) Invoke "Paste To Points" command.

As result, in each point you've selected, the circle you've created and copied will be inserted.