Units In Measurements?

In my preferences I've set the default unit to 'foot.'

I want to measure distance and area on plans from my architect, so I used Info->Distance Point to Point to measure the width of an octagonal room that should be 12' wide.  (It might be give or take a few inches.)  When I measure, in the command line window, I get this:

Distance: 138.1948 Cartesian: (138.1948 , 0.0000), Polar: (138.1948<0.00°)

My guess is that measurement is in inches, since it's only about 6" off, which could be easily accounted for depending on my zoom settings and if I was on the exact line or not.

Is this in inches and is there any way I can have it normally displayed in feet?  (Yes, I can divide by 12, but it's just one more thing to have to worry about or remember to do.)

current drawing preferences -> units -> length -> format -> architectural

Okay.  Works fine.  Thank you!

I'm running into an issue on this.  While I get the linear distance in feet, the area of an object comes up as 12 times what it should be.  For example, I drew a box 5' x 5'  (actually 5'-1/32" square, since, at the zoom level I was at, that was the closest it came to 5').

Then I measured a line and it came out to 5'-1/32", which is correct.  But when I measured the area, and I was a bit off on one corner, I got this:

Circumference: 20'-1/2"
Area: 301'-3"

The 20'-1/2" seems right, since I was a bit off on one corner (instead of 20'-1/8"), but the area should be approximately 25'.  I could understand being off by a factor of 144, since it's 144 square inches in a square foot.

I think you found a real bug this time.

That's one I would have thought someone would have found a good while ago.  At least it's an easy one to fix: Divide area by units squared, not by units.

Just filed it and it's now Issue #669.

At least it should be an easy one to fix.  For area, multiply or divide by the conversion factor squared instead of just that factor itself.  (Also suggested to print the answer with an indication the units are square units.)

Thanks for the help!

is this bug (Issue #669) easy enough to fix that if I were to find a way to offer a bounty on it of, say, $25, does anyone have any idea if that would possibly be enough encouragement for it to be fixed in a nightly build any time soon?

I will try to fix this one. If I succeed before others, you save $25

Tango wrote

is this bug (Issue #669) easy enough to fix that if I were to find a way to offer a bounty on it of, say, $25, does anyone have any idea if that would possibly be enough encouragement for it to be fixed in a nightly build any time soon?

pushed a quick fix in master and 2.0 branches

https://github.com/LibreCAD/LibreCAD/commit/552a899016fa9a1f7fb043516f374b2eda1194a5

Just got home late and saw this.  Thank you!

It's a small thing, but as I'm getting my changes to the house plans done so I can get them to the architect, it's been a real pain to double-check numbers with the calculator!

area is also computed during hatching. while the "Info > Area" only does polygon area, hatching compute area for more complex contours (with edge in lines, arcs, ellipses, and splinepoints).

Total length of selected entities is also shown in the "Selection Widget", again, computing circumference of more complex contours than polygons.

Tango wrote

Just got home late and saw this.  Thank you!

It's a small thing, but as I'm getting my changes to the house plans done so I can get them to the architect, it's been a real pain to double-check numbers with the calculator!

I just uploaded alpha-12, which includes the patch.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/librecad/files/OSX/2.1/2.1.0/alpha/

Much appreciated!

Thank yoU!

I've been using this now and it's working, but when I'm using "Architectural Format," and other measurements are converted to feet when appropriate, this will always give the answer in square inches.

At the risk of being asking for too much, would it be fitting for this function to take another extra step, in Architectural Format, to convert the answer to square feet if the answer is above several square feet?

I'm asking here, since we've already been discussing this and I don't know if it should be filed as an issue or if it's even worth discussing.