QuickGrid for AC3D

Released under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.

Current version - includes button for viewing current grid settings
Download (with "inch" labels)
Download (with no labels) - you may wish to rename this to "quickgrid.tcl" when downloading.

Previous version - no facility for viewing current grid settings
Download (with "inch" labels) - you may wish to rename this to "quickgrid.tcl" when downloading.
Download (with no labels) - you may wish to rename this to "quickgrid.tcl" when downloading.

For changing the grid size in AC3D with a click on a tool palette instead of going to the AC3D preferences screen.

This script is freely distributable

AC3D versions prior to version 5 have not been tested with this script.

NOTE: The sample provided with "inch" labels is an empirical conversion that makes the assumption that 1 AC3D unit is equal to 1 metre.

History

2005/12/29

Added current grid settings to top of form (courtesy Andy Colebourne)
Made TCL form a "new_toplevel", better for Mac users (courtesy Andy Colebourne)

2005/07/20

Added labels to buttons
Forced uniform button widths

Description

Displays a set of 9 buttons on a tool window, with each button containing a major and minor grid size (and an optional, descriptive label). Clicking a button on the tool window sets the AC3D grid to the associated Major / Minor grid size.

For example, if the button is labeled "1 / 0.5", then clicking this button will set AC3D's major grid (Draw grid major) to 1.0 units and the minor grid (Draw grid minor (snap)) to 0.5 units.

The values in the quickgrid window may be changed by editing the quickgrid.tcl script in the AC3D "scripts" directory. Note that any changes made to this file will not be registered until AC3D restarts.

Installation

Copy the quickgrid.tcl (or quickgrid_nolabel.tcl) file (included with this distribution) to your AC3D scripts folder (for example, if using Windows, C:\Program Files\AC3D5\scripts) and (re)start AC3D.

You will find the "Quickgrid..." menu item under the "Tools" menu.

Changing the button values

To change the values to suit your own preferences, look for these lines in the quickgrid.tcl script (Windows users - you can edit this file with notepad):

   set gmaj { 1      1      1      1      1      1      1      2      4      }
   set gmin { 0.0125 0.0250 0.0500 0.1000 0.1250 0.2500 0.5000 1.0000 2.0000 }

Set the numbers in the top row to whatever numbers you'd like for the Major grid. Set the numbers in the bottom row for the Minor grid. If you'd like more or less options, simply remove or add values as you wish.

NOTE: You must have the same number of values in both rows.

Changing the button labels

To change the labels to suit your own preferences, look for this lines in the quickgrid.tcl script (Windows users - you can edit this file with notepad):

   set glab { "0.49 inch" "0.98 inch" "1.97 inch" "3.94 inch" "4.92 inch" "9.84 inch" "19.69 inch" "39.37 inch" "78.74 inch" }

Edit the labels to what you'd like to show up to the left of each entry.

NOTE: You must have the same number of values as you have in gmaj or gmin.

Removing the button labels

To remove the labels, look for this lines in the quickgrid.tcl script (Windows users - you can edit this file with notepad):

   set glab { "0.49 inch" "0.98 inch" "1.97 inch" "3.94 inch" "4.92 inch" "9.84 inch" "19.69 inch" "39.37 inch" "78.74 inch" }

Place a "#" at the beginning of the line, then add a new line below it, like so:

   #set glab { "0.49 inch" "0.98 inch" "1.97 inch" "3.94 inch" "4.92 inch" "9.84 inch" "19.69 inch" "39.37 inch" "78.74 inch" }
   set glab { "" }

Changing the button widths

To change the button widths, look for this lines in the quickgrid.tcl script (Windows users - you can edit this file with notepad):

   set btnwidth 24

Change the number "24" to whatever number you'd like. This number is the average number of characters that will fit in the button.

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All content Copyright © 2006 Dennis Hawthorne, except where explicitly noted supercoldmilk © 2006 Dennis Hawthorne