What is the difference between the Figure & Drawing tools?

[Anonymous]

What is the difference between the Figure & Drawing tools?

Why are there two tools that are so similar?

Which tool would be best for me to bring in PDFs of architectural drawings so I can draw minor changes over them and then make a print of the original PDF showing the minor changes that I've made?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Here is a [edit] second draft of a PDF of a table comparing the two tools.

Please post any corrections or additions so we can polish this as a group before putting it on the Tips and Wiki. 🙂

Thanks,
Karl

[Attachment deleted - updated PDF attached to more recent post.]

[David Maudlin]

Karl:

This looks great. You could add that only Drawings have Titles (and so are best for Layouts). A few examples of when using one over the other would also be helpful (similar to your example: bringing in a scanned site plan that needs separate adjustments on the X and Y axis). In some cases there may be little reason to choose one over the other.

Very helpful.

David

[Karl Ottenstein]

David wrote:
This looks great. You could add that only Drawings have Titles (and so are best for Layouts). A few examples of when using one over the other would also be helpful (similar to your example: bringing in a scanned site plan that needs separate adjustments on the X and Y axis). In some cases there may be little reason to choose one over the other.

Thanks, David. I've updated the PDF below to mention Titles, changed some wording a little, and added another row at the bottom: offhand, I cannot see much of a reason to use the Figure Tool other than for separate x/y scaling, or PDF background transparency (when the PDF-to-bitmap conversion by the Figure Tool yields enough pixels that one doesn't have to use Photoshop/etc to obtain a higher resolution image).

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Karl

[Stress Co_]

Nice
Thank you Karl

[Link]

Hi Karl

Is it worth mentioning the insertion method of clicking in the model view while in the Drawing tool and ~then~ selecting the source view/external drawing?

And you have n/a for dragging/dropping drawings?

Comprehensive list - you know I'd like to see them combined!

Cheers,
Link.

[Link]

Thinking about this some more, maybe it's worth defining what tool is used with a drag and drop action on different file types.

I haven't tested it thoroughly but a few tests indicate that the file types listed under the Figure Tool define what file type will be dropped using the Figure tool. And they override the same options listed under Drawing Tool file types?

I obviously have no problem with dragging & dropping files!

Cheers,
Link.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Thanks, Link. I added a few more extensions to the list, added the insertion-by-tool-click, and fixed the n/a for drag-and-drop for drawings in model views.

Added a row for Scheduling.

Keep 'em coming or let me know when it looks good enough. 😉

Thanks,
Karl

[Edit] Revised version was attached here - current version in most recent post.

[David Maudlin]

Karl:

You could add that the Drawing Tool has the option of adding a frame to the image and can be cropped. I'm running out of ideas, you might want to move the "Practical advantage over other tool?" row to the top, as this is the short version for the comparison. Good work!

David

[Anonymous]

Aloha Karl,
Many thanks for the table.

I'd like to know why there is no input from the developers. To me it feels like the developers are behind some sort of screen of silence and the users outside trying to guess what and why the developers are doing things.
I'd really like to encourage the developers to give their informed input on discussions like this.

I think that a good interactive discussion with the users would be helpful in making ArchiCAD better.

Thanks again Karl.

[Karl Ottenstein]

David wrote:
You could add that the Drawing Tool has the option of adding a frame to the image and can be cropped. I'm running out of ideas, you might want to move the "Practical advantage over other tool?" row to the top, as this is the short version for the comparison. Good work!

Good catches, David! Thanks!

Update attached... but most up-to-date version is here:
http://www.archicadwiki.com/Difference%20between%20Drawing%20and%20Figure%20Tools

Karl