Tutorials TakeoffCraft help Walkthroughs
Pick the PDF's lines
Click a line of a vector PDF to measure its whole connected path, or click inside a closed outline for its area, with the gap tolerance shown and one undo per segment.
Written for TakeoffCraft 0.8. The same help is inside the app: press F1.
On a vector PDF the walls and edges are real lines. Path (PP) takes them as they are drawn: one click on a line measures everything joined to it, end to end, so you do not trace a wall by clicking its corners. The sheet needs a scale. A scanned page has no lines to pick; use Linear or Area there.
Pick a path or an outline
- Choose Path. The line under the pointer is outlined, with the other paths it could be drawn thinly.
- Click a line: the whole connected path is picked. The bar under the toolbar gives its segments, length, the gap tolerance and how many gaps were bridged. A path that comes back to its start is closed and also reports its perimeter.
- Or click inside a closed outline, away from any line: the outline around that point is picked as an area. The smallest one comes first; TabTab tries the next larger one.
- Press ReturnEnter (or right-click, or double-click) to add the marks. A picked path becomes a mark of a linear item, an outline a mark of an area item: the active item if it has that kind, else the newest one of that kind. With none, the new-item form opens and nothing is added until you press ReturnEnter again. Everything picked is added in one undo step.
The gap tolerance
Drafters leave small holes where lines should meet. Two lines join when their ends are closer than the gap tolerance. It starts at 1.5 points on the sheet (shown in feet and inches at the sheet's scale), and a dashed ring that wide follows the pointer and sits on each end of the path under it. Each hole that was bridged is ringed in orange on a picked path, and the bar counts them.
]] makes the tolerance wider, [[ smaller. A picked path is joined again at once at the new tolerance. At a junction the path keeps going straight on, the way that bends least, and leaves the branch.
Keys
| Key or action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Click | Pick the path under the pointer, or the outline around it. |
| ⇧Shift + click | Add another path or outline to what is picked. |
| TabTab | Try the next path under the pointer, or the next larger outline. |
| DeleteBackspace or ⌘ZCtrl+Z | Take the last segment off the last picked path, one segment at a time. A path with no segments left goes. With nothing picked, ⌘ZCtrl+Z is the ordinary undo. |
| [[ and ]] | Narrower and wider gap tolerance. |
| ReturnEnter | Add the marks. |
| EscEsc | Clear what is picked. |
Good to know
- A curve in the drawing is a chain of short straight pieces, so its length is a hair under the true arc. For an exact arc, measure a drawing's own file (Measure from a drawing).
- A bridged gap counts as a straight hop across it, so a closed outline's perimeter includes it.
- Only strokes and fills in the page's own paths are lines. Text drawn as letters, and pictures, are not.