Designing in inkscape

hackapelite said:
I have some experience with it, but I'm no graphics guru.

Why don't you just post the questions up?
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I was trying to design a square any size but just for example. I will make a 80x80mm square (specifically a size of a side-panel fan of a desktop). So when the square is done, I tried measuring it using a ruler on the screen and I don't know why but it doesn't match the specified size. Why is that? And i'm wondering if what I did was even acceptable?:D Does the measurements in inkscape not the same in real life? I'm doing this because i'm trying to design modified fan grills:D
 
The size on the screen depends on your resolution and whether or not you're zooming it and varies between computers and users. The measurements represent "real life" measurements or what it would (or should) look like on paper. So if you were to print the document, the measurements should match what you were expecting.

That's how I understand it anyway.
 
hackapelite said:
The size on the screen depends on your resolution and whether or not you're zooming it and varies between computers and users. The measurements represent "real life" measurements or what it would (or should) look like on paper. So if you were to print the document, the measurements should match what you were expecting.

That's how I understand it anyway.
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It's kinda weird it just looks so different, I really can't understand how it works. If I only had a printer. How about copying the square from inkscape to msword? will there be any difference? Will the size change?
 
It's kinda weird it just looks so different, I really can't understand how it works. If I only had a printer.
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Well think about this... if you had a 19" monitor at, say, an arbitrary resolution of 2000x1000 (making these up) and another 19" monitor at 4000x2000; the second screen will essentially have 4 times the display space of the first one in the same physical space, so everything on it will appear smaller. Likewise, if you had two monitors with the exact same resolution but one of them was bigger, the size of the stuff on the screen will be different as well. Monitors are somewhat "abstract" in this way; depending on the resolution and other settings, two identical drawings might appear to be differently sized on different computers.

Because of this, physical dimensions of things you're working on will practically never match the dimensions on the computer's screen.

How about copying the square from inkscape to msword? will there be any difference? Will the size change?
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It might if Word does some kinda fancy magic scaling stuff with the DPI that I'm not aware of, but probably not.
 
hackapelite said:
Well think about this... if you had a 19" monitor at, say, an arbitrary resolution of 2000x1000 (making these up) and another 19" monitor at 4000x2000; the second screen will essentially have 4 times the display space of the first one in the same physical space, so everything on it will appear smaller. Likewise, if you had two monitors with the exact same resolution but one of them was bigger, the size of the stuff on the screen will be different as well. Monitors are somewhat "abstract" in this way; depending on the resolution and other settings, two identical drawings might appear to be differently sized on different computers.

Because of this, physical dimensions of things you're working on will practically never match the dimensions on the computer's screen.

It might if Word does some kinda fancy magic scaling stuff with the DPI that I'm not aware of, but probably not.
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oh. I hear you:good: At least now I understand. So basically when I make a 80x80mm square, it will not look like the actual size during designing but when printed it will be the same exact size as what was wanted. hhmmmmmmm:cool: Cause i'm having a hard time making the right size of the fan grill
 
hackapelite said:
A CAD program would be a bit of an overkill, that's something you'd use when designing a house or a complex piece of machinery.
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You could say that and i'm just a beginner. I think inkscape is ok for not unless there is a better one specially for beginners for me
 
hackapelite said:
A CAD program would be a bit of an overkill, that's something you'd use when designing a house or a complex piece of machinery.
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:confused: Not really. CAD software is for designing anything, whether it be obnoxiously small or ridiculously big, or anything in between. Size is irrelevant. CAD software is aimed to help you draw something very precisely, and very easily. Oh, you want this part to be 10" long? Okay, click line and type in 10, etc.
It's made so that you can easily design anything you can think of. So in this situation, it's perfect. and there are free cad software programs out there. Though if you could get your hands on a copy of AutoCAD, that would be ideal. They do free students programs and free trials, as far as i remember. \

If you want to go in this direction, let me know and i'd be glad to help. :D
 
NyxCharon said:
:confused: Not really. CAD software is for designing anything, whether it be obnoxiously small or ridiculously big, or anything in between. Size is irrelevant. CAD software is aimed to help you draw something very precisely, and very easily. Oh, you want this part to be 10" long? Okay, click line and type in 10, etc.
It's made so that you can easily design anything you can think of. So in this situation, it's perfect. and there are free cad software programs out there. Though if you could get your hands on a copy of AutoCAD, that would be ideal. They do free students programs and free trials, as far as i remember. \

If you want to go in this direction, let me know and i'd be glad to help. :D
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Can you recommend which free cad software to use? I want to give it a shot.
 
There's not to many good free ones, which is why I'm currently writing my own :P
Anyways, I use AutoCAD
http://usa.autodesk.com/autocad/
You can download the free trial for 30 days, I highly advise trying it.
Otherwise, here's a list of free ones.
http://www.freebyte.com/cad/cad.htm
From that list, Draftsight looks pretty promising, it's a autoCAD clone.
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/free-cad-software/

If you have any issues, let me know what program you decide on and i can try my best to help.
 
I chose the first link. I'll will familiarize the interface first and I will update you here. Thanks much for the help
 
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