Graph Paper Grids

Two graph paper grids, major and minor, provide visual and automatic snapping of graphics to the defined grid. The grid spacing may be defined as needed with the Grid and Guide palette, or they may be automatically linked to the drawing's ruler. If defined by the user, the across grid spacing may be defined independently from the vertical spacing.

Soft Snapping

Snapping to the graphing grid may be very time efficient for many drawing activities. But there always arises the situation where one particular point needs to be visually positioned "off the grid". With soft-snapping you may leave the point snapped to the grid, or override this position by pulling the point away from the snap spot to the desired location. This setting is frequently used when drawing with grid snapping.

Add Tangents (and "Normal"

The EazyDraw Tape Measure tool has the ability to interactively indicate tangents to any Bezier path. A command key click will convert this tangent indicator to a line graphic and insert it precisely on the drawing. Another key click will drop a perpendicular, with the right sequence both may be inserted to also define an intersection.

Align To Grid Palette

This palette allows one to specify the point, relative to the graphic, that is snapped to the grid. This is especially important for symbols constructed as a group of several elements, such as an electronic symbol such as a transistor, NAND gate, or network router. This capability allows one draw the symbol then assign the snapping point so that the symbol places smartly on the grid and connects precisely to other symbols and drawing elements.

Print Grid - if you wish

The graphing grid may be printed or displayed on the screen - this is fully under user control. The grid may be positioned above or below (behind) the graphics. You even get to pick colors for the grids (major and minor may be different colors). And, of course, transparency is supported for the grid colors.

Snap to Vertices and Intersections

This allows precise connecting of graphic elements in an end-to-end fashion. For example the end of line will position at the corner of a rectangle or the end of a Bezier curve. Intersections of lines, curves, -- any graphic -- are solved on the fly to allow precise interactive snapping to these important points on the drawing. Visual clues appear on the screen when snapping occurs and a snapping sound may be enabled to provide feedback to indicate snap positioning.

Guidelines

invisible lines, other than horizontal and vertical, are discovered and presented as you move elements on the drawing. For example a line drawn at 30 degrees will automatically become a guide for positioning corners of rectangles along the extension of the line.

Parallel and Perpendicular

Orientation snapping works with the guideline capability. Any graphic with a well defined orientation or axis (lines, rotated rectangles, a sine wave, etc) will snap at parallel or perpendicular orientation to any other graphic with an axis. This is all live - interactive. EazyDraw is highly optimized in these computations so that this capability is fully responsive even with modest CPU capability.

Cloaking - very useful

Guides and guidelines are a very useful drawing aid, but a rich drawing can become "cluttered" and produce too many unwanted guide positions. EazyDraw solves this problem by allowing Cloak a single graphic, or an entire layer. Cloaking means the cloaked graphics do not present their position, vertices, or orientations for position or orientation referencing. This feature means that EazyDraw's guide and snapping capability is not just a cool trick that works on simple drawing situations, but it is actually a very useful productivity enhancing capability.

Video Tutorials

Technical drawing using drawing scales can be a become more involved than other graphic design projects. The video tutorial series has several tutorials that relate specifically to these tasks. A little time spent with these learning aids will undoubtedly make your design project with EazyDraw more fun and less frustrating.