From oglesby@sover.net Wed Aug 31 08:16:55 2005
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 13:16:35 -0400
From: Mac Oglesby <oglesby@sover.net>
To: Walter Sanford <wsanford@wsanford.com>
Subject: DeltaCAD Tutorial part 1


Walter,

Open DeltaCad

Choose Circle from tabs near top of screen

At bottom instruction line type 0,0 (enter)

    for circle of 12 units diameter type 6 (enter)

If the screen appears blank, use the up arrow near SCALE (lower 
right) to bring the circle into view

Type 0,0 (e = enter) 5 (e) 0,0 (e) .5 (e) for additional concentric circles

***** (= pause and admire your work)

Choose Point (tab) and type 0,0 (e)

    red dot appears at 0,0

Choose Select tab. Left click with pointer anywhere near the circles. 
Move mouse, moving pointer across screen, creating a selection box. 
When box contains at least some part of each circle, click again. 
Selected items turn red.

At this point, the circles and center point are all in layer "Default"

Click on tab for View, then Layer --> New

Enter new layer name, Circles. Click OK, Close

(At some point, you'll want to play around with displaying only 
certain layers.)

Click on Edit (way at top) --> Select --> Change layer

Click OK to change the layer for your circles from Default to Circles.

*****

Click View --> Layer and create another layer, "Lines"

Make Current and Close

Choose Line tab. Type 0,0 (e) 0,7 (e) 0,0 (e) -7,0 (e)

*****

If the Snap Mode (right of "BOOKMARKS" at lower right) shows a red 
cross, move the pointer to where the horizontal line crosses the 
innermost circle. Left click, type 0,6 (e)

Choose Edit tab and click on Er (for erase)

Click on horizontal line, erasing it

Now, click on the split line button (5 buttons right of Er)

Move the pointer to the intersection of the left vertical line and 
the second largest circle

When you click the line, it should split into two parts (Use the 
"Undo" in the top edit menu if you make a mistake) Sometimes it's 
useful to change the scale to identify items which are close together.

Erase the top portion of the line.

Suppose we don't want the hour lines to extend all of the way to the 
side of the gnomon rod, but stop a little short.

Choose Circle, type 0,0 (e) 1 (e)

Now use the split line function (and the erase function) to remove 
that part of the hour line (the left most vertical) which lies 
between the two smallest circles. Notice you want to split the line, 
not the circle. If you have trouble getting the pointer to "light-up" 
(turn red) the hour line, do the process in two steps.

*****

DC file COED-1.dc attached shows what I think you should have at this point.

Let me know how it goes.

Best wishes,

Mac

P.S. Of course, COED means Construction Of Equatorial Dial.
    [ Part 2, Application/OCTET-STREAM (Name: "COED-1.DC")  846bytes. ]
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