Aligning Shapes?

[Barguy]

Hi all,

I keep getting pulled away from using my software and forgetting things I have learned. Seems like I knew how to do these two things but oh well, guess I drank too much in college.

Anyways
Question 1 Example
Say I have a 6x6 peace of material. I want to cut 4 circles. I want the 4 circles to be perfectly centered in each quadrant of the square, not center of material. Can someone run that by me? I tried using the measure tool, but I couldnt get it to mark or stop exactly where I needed it for aligning circle centers. Is there an easier way? Also, is there a guide marker function for the ruler?

Question 2
I feel dumb for this one. How do I adjust the pass amounts. Example, I have 1/2'' material and cutting something out. I want to make 1/16'' passes each time. I tried forever to remember how to adjust this but couldnt find it. Thanks for any help.

[Barguy]

I guess noones really sure how to do this yet since no responses yet, so thought I would share some almost solutions...

One way to better to do this using the columns feature. I was able to just center up one circle and use columns to get the rest down.

I really think there should be a guide feature though. Maybe there is one and I can't find it? By guide feature Im refering to something I use on google sketchup if anyone is familiar with that. Basically, its like the ruler function on vcarve, but when you place it once, it can leave a dotted line where you placed the line. It's useful for lining up objects on that paticular axis. This should be on vcarve somehow. If someone knows how to do that please tell...

[jeb2cav]

I'm assuming you're using V Carve - and yes, there are guides available (like Sketchup and many other drawing apps). You can pull them from the top or left side by placing your cursor in the ruler, clicking and holding left mouse and dragging the guide to the desired spot.

On setting the pass depth - you do this in the bit configuration panel. So, when creating your tool path, edit the tool and set the pass depth as desired.

[jeb2cav]

One other thing I was reminded of last night while working on a project. If you have anything selected - vector, graphic, etc - in the 2D workspace, you will not be able to drag a guideline into place. Once you use the select tool to click on a blank area - and thus clear any selections - you are able to drag a guideline into place.

The other difficult part of using guides is that you have to zoom in until the ruler gives the increments you desire to set the guide to. For example, if you're zoomed out, typically the guides can only go to the 1/2 inch increment. As you zoom in, the ruler expands in increments, and you can then adjust the guide to the exact x or z you want. This is going to be corrected with the next release of VCarve - and you'll be able to type in a value you want the guideline set at regardless of what zoom level you are at.

[fison]

If you're using VCarve you can use the features of the 'draw circle' tool and specify exactly where on the page you want the circle centered. In your example the quadrant centers are:

Bottom Left - X=1.5, Y=1.5
Bottom Right - X=4.5, Y=1.5
Top Left - X=1.5, Y=4.5
Top Right - X=4.5, Y=4.5

If you have other things you want centered in the quadrants you can use these circles as a reference for the 'center objects' tool. The elipse, polygon, and star tools also allow you to specify their centers.

My $.02,
Paul Fison
Tacoma, Washington

[Barguy]

Thanks Jeb. I knew about centering them. I actually centered one then used colum on aligning the rest. Nice to know about the guide function.

[Buc]

Look in the edit vectors for the icon that looks like 4 squares. Mouse over it and it should read 'copy vectors in linear or circular array.' try this and it should do the job for you.