Tutorial on viewing and printing CAD files with the free FastCAD viewer
(windows only)
1] Download the cad viewer, preferably
into an empty folder. Once the download is complete, open the folder
you downloaded the file into with windows explorer or my computer.
Double-click the file vw6038.exe to start the installation of the
software, and accept the defaults to install the program.
2] Download the cad file you are interested in - for the purposes
of this tutorial use the plan of the Wellington
Operahouse
The FastCAD drawing viewer
Pressing
"Esc" cancels out of any command.
The status bar at the bottom of the screen presents context sensitive
messages indicating what is expected next to complete a command.
Pressing "enter" or the space bar repeats the last command.
The first 25% of what you need to know: The Zoom Commands:
4] Start the viewer software by double clicking the view32 icon on
your desktop.
Choose file/open and navigate to the folder where the file "operahse.dwg"
is. Note you need to change the type of file the viewer is looking
for from "view32 FCW drawing" to "AutoCAD dwg file"
by using the drop down box next to "Files of type" at the
bottom of the file open dialog. Open the file.
5] The drawing is presented full screen with all layers visible.
(see Layer Control below - ignore this for now) At the top of the
window under the menus are various icons. The first three are familiar
file open, file save and print icons. The next two with arrows are
zoom in 
and zoom out 
- try clicking them now - the drawing zooms in and out depending on
which one you click. Use the down arrow to zoom into the drawing once
or twice. Now click the dot icon  once
- the cursor changes to crosshairs - click anywhere in the drawing
to centre the view on that point. Now the zoom in and zoom out use
that point as the centre of the zoom.
6] Click the large cross icon 
- the drawing zooms to its full extents so everything is visible.
Use this any time to return to full screen.
7] Now click on the icon with a rectangle on it 
This is the zoom window icon. The cursor changes to crosshairs. Click
once anywhere on the drawing and then move the mouse. A dynamic rectangle
follows the cursor. When you click a second time to place the other
corner of the rectangle, whatever is enclosed by it zooms full screen.
Return full screen by clicking the zoom extents icon ,
and practise using the zoom window icon
until you get it together and can zoom accurately into any place in
the drawing and back again. If you want to get closer, just zoom window
again.
8] Finally, the L icon 
simply repeats the last zoom command - zoom previous. Really though,
you can do all you need with the zoom window and zoom extents commands.
The 2nd 25% of what you need to know: Layer Control
9] All but the simplest CAD drawings are drawn on a number of layers,
each layer containing information that belongs together in some way.
Layers are able to be made visible in various combinations, so you
may view (and print) only the layers you are interested in. Click
on the layer icon 
- this brings up the Layer dialog.
10]
About 30 layers are listed. Click "hide all". All layers
are turned off. [If this does not happen, just move the dialog box
a little by clicking on the title bar and click-dragging, which will
force a screen redraw - seems to be a video card thing] Notice all
layers have an "H" in the check box next to their name.
This indicates they are hidden. Unhide layers by clicking in the checkbox
to clear it. Turn on all layers that begin with "L", and
press ok.
11] The theatre is displayed in long section only. Click zoom all
to bring this section of the drawing full screen. Examine the drawing
by zooming into various areas with the zoom window tool .
Now lets hide some more layers to simplify the drawing further. Hide
all layers except L-AUD, L-SR and L-STAGE. That's all there is to
it - you just turn on or off layers until you get the drawing to display
how you want.
The 3rd 25% of what you need to know: Measuring Distances
One
of the huge advantages of CAD drawings over paper plans is that they
can be very accurate, and that the drawing can be printed at any scale
you want. In order to do this, and also be able to measure within
the drawing various distances you may need to know, you need to identify
how the drawing is being presented within your CAD program or viewer.
To do this accurately, you measure a known real world distance on
the drawing, and compare this with what the program reports it to
be. Generally, all CAD programs are "unitless", even though
they may display in mm. meters, inches, miles or whatever. All drawings
on the venueweb site have a scale on the title layer, [any layers
that are untitled - i.e. just numbers, need to be turned on also.
This is to do with how the viewer displays blocks, which we won't
go into here] and it is this we will measure to confirm how the drawing
is being presented.
12] Using the layer control ,
turn on numbered layers (0) and the layer named Title, and all others
off. Zoom extents
to bring the scale full screen. Zoom window
into the first five meters or so of the scale.
When
drawing (and measuring) in CAD, one takes advantage of the programs
ability to identify key points within the drawings geometry. All CAD
programs, (and this viewer) can identify things like the END of lines,
the CENTRE of circles and arcs, the MIDPOINT of lines and arcs, the
INTERSECTION of various entities etc.
13]
From the info menu, choose distance. The cursor changes to large
crosshairs, and the status bar at the bottom left of the screen reads
"Distance from:" indicating to you that the program is awaiting
your entry of the first point to measure from. You could just click
on the point you want to start measuring from, but you should generally
always use snaps to ensure accuracy.
14]
So, from the menu Mod, choose Endpoint. A small rectangle appears
at the centre of the cursor, and the status bar changes to read "entity",
indicating the program expects you to choose the endpoint of some
drawing entity. Position the cursor rectangle over the line near the
end indicating the beginning of the scale and click once. The cursor
is now attached by a dynamic line to the end point of the line, and
the status bar reads "distance to:", indicating it is waiting
for you to choose the second point to measure to. Once again, choose
Mod / Endpoint and then click on or near the top of the line indicating
the 5 metre mark.
15]
A Dialog box pops up saying "Distance = 5000.00391". We
can read this as 5000 mm, which is what the scale says, so we are
sweet. If you want to get rid of the trailing zeros, choose Specs
/ Units and from the dialog box, in "Decimal Places" enter
0. (Do not muck about with the rest of the settings). Now re-measuring
the above distance returns "Distance = 5000" Using the same
technique, you can now measure the distance from any two points anywhere
on the drawing, with the figures being in millimetres. You can snap
to any of the points listed in the info menu, or you can just click
on the drawing for ball park figures. Note you can zoom into and out
of the drawing in the middle of the command to identify where you
want to measure from with as much accuracy as you need.
The final 25%: Printing
Now you
know how to use the zoom commands, the measurement command and the
layer control, you can put all this together and print exactly what
you want, at whatever scale you want.
16]
Turn all layers off except LAUD, L-SR and L-STAGE. Zoom extents. Choose
File / print or just click on the printer icon. In the dialog box
that comes up, ensure the following are checked:
- View
to print: everything
- Sheet:
(Standard drawing - COMMON sheet only)
- Common
prints all: checked
- Scaling:
fit to page
- Options:
print white as black checked, print everything black checked, Landscape
checked.
Now choose
print preview,
and the drawing will be displayed as it will fit on the paper from
the default windows printer. Close the print preview window, and print
the drawing if you wish. This method of printing - i.e. "fit
to page" is great when you just want a quick overview.
17]
To print in scale: Check the "print to scale" option in
scaling, then in the "drawing distance" area, enter a number
which is whatever scale you want multiplied by 25.4. Thus to print
at 1:250, enter 6350 in the drawing distance box. (250 x 25.4 = 6350)
Print preview the drawing - it fits fine in an A4 landscape sheet,
but supposing you want to print at a scale that will mean the drawing
will be bigger than a single A4 sheet?
18]
Lets print the drawing at 1:50. Enter 1270 in the drawing distance
box (because 50 x 25.4 = 1270). In the tiling boxes, enter 3 for both
horizontal and vertical, and set the overlap to 5%. Preview the drawing.
The preview shows the drawing at 1:50 tiled over 9 sheets of A4 landscape
paper (or whatever paper is in your printer). We can see from the
preview that more sheets are needed, so cancel the preview, and enter
4 for each tiling option. Previewing the print again shows the drawing
will now fit fine, and you can now print the drawing if you wish,
and tape it together as appropriate.
Stuff you don't need to know, but is cool:
- Layers
don't have to be named, and are sometimes presented as numbers only.
When presented with an unfamiliar drawing, its it easiest to turn
all layers off, then turn them on one by one to identify what each
one does.
- Choose
Info / List layers to bring up a window listing all layers in the
drawing. This can be re-sized and left open - useful for a complicated
drawing.
- Use
shortcut keys for measuring snaps - e.g. F5 for end. The shortcut
keys are listed at the end of each menu command.
- Use the dynamic zoom command. Click the dynamic zoom icon
 ,
left click to choose the panning centre. Hold down the left button
and move the mouse to zoom in and out, right click then left click
to reset the centre, right click and choose done or press escape
to end.
- The
left and right arrows open the next and previous files - useful
if you are working with several drawings.
- You
can use the File / save as command to convert drawings from dxf
to Autocad dwg and vice versa. The viewer will read up to Autocad
2000 dwg format, and up to release 13 dxf. It outputs to release
11/12 dxf.
The FastCAD viewer is a free application from Evolution computing,
who make the CAD program FastCAD. You might like to check them out
at www.fastcad.com
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