Posted by Doug W on
URL: https://forum.librecad.org/Introductions-and-Questions-tp5713196.html

Hello LibreCAD community!

My name is Doug, and I'm a freelance scenic designer and stage technician in Louisiana, USA. Most of my income comes from technical theatre work, stagehand work, and corporate stage work (like loading in/out conventions and things). I'm currently designing the set for a play for a local high school, and I am hoping to use LibreCAD to create my technical drawings. All of my training in this kind of thing was in the Vectorworks program (the Mac version, and I'm using the Windows version of LibreCAD), so I have some understanding of how to navigate menus and get started but nothing is really intuitive yet.

My biggest hurdle right now is understanding how to implement scale. In vectorworks that is the first thing you do with any drawing: tell the program what scale you are drawing in (1" = 1', or whatever). I can't find anywhere to do that in LibreCAD and I haven't seen another topic discussing it. I've already set my grid to use feet as the standard unit. Is it possible to draw in any scale other than 1:1? If not, do I just adjust any printed version's scale via the print settings?

Another problem I'm having is trying to get a useful digital copy of my drawings to the other people I'm working with on the show. The lighting designer needs to see my drawings, but he uses AutoCAD (which I neither have nor can afford). Can AutoCAD read the DXF filetype? If not, can LibreCAD save as a file type that he will be able to open?

Last question for now: Once I've created an object (a polyline or a polygon or anything), is there a quick way to select that object and view its dimensions and other properties?