These notes are designed around the use case of drawing house plans. Units will be feet and inches.
Options > Current Drawing Preferences > Units (tab) >
Main Drawing Unit: inches Length: Format: Fractional Precision: 0 1/4
So we’ll draw a room. First lets draw one wall.
Press ‘l’ to draw a line. Enter first coordinate: 0,0
Lets just call this our south wall (bottom of diagram).
Draw > Line > Horizontal
At the top of the screen enter 196 for the length (16’4”)
In the drawing draw the left starting point. Since it is our first line you can just click anywhere.
If you’re like me, you made some wrong lines. Use:
Select > Select Entity
Then click on the wrong lines and hit DEL, to delete the line.
This wall needs to be 90 degrees to first wall, and connect to the end point. Lets call this our East wall or at the right side of the diagram.
Draw > Line > Vertical
Snap > Snap on Endpoints
Lets make the line (wall) 10’4” = 124”.
Left click on right end of horizontal line to make the east/right wall.
We’ll dimension the right/east wall.
Dimension > Vertical
Have `Snap on Endpoints` selected.
Select each end point.
Snap > Free Snap
Move the dimension to where you’d like it to show, and click for it to stick there.
Walls have a thickness that we need to account for. Lets draw parallel lines to indicate this.
Draw > Line > Parallel
Lets say this is an outside wall with a total thickness of 6”.
Unclick all the ‘qualifiers’ except for horizontal.
Then click just below the bottom line and a parallel line should show up.
You can do the same for the vertical line.
Problem is the bottom right corner outside lines dont meet!
So we need to extend both outside wall lines.
Modify > Trim
Now you need to select the ‘limiting entity’, so if we want to extend the bottom outside wall, to the right outside wall, we select the right wall first as the limiting entity.
Then select the bottom outside wall and it should extend to the right outside wall.
You can repeat for the right outside wall by first selecting the bottom outside wall as the limiting entity, then selecting the outside right wall, which will extend to the bottom outside wall.
A line at a 45 degree angle, plus a swing arc.
First we need to get to the point in the wall where the door is hinged. Lets say starting 5’ (60”) from the right/east wall, and swinging inwards/upwards.
Things like doors and windows repeat so we can make a separate drawing that we can add in each time we need a door/window, etc. We call this our `parts library`. Before we set this up, lets create one part, a door.
Our door will be 32” wide, be hinged on the right, and swing up/north from a south wall. Lets say the door is 3/4” thick, and we’ll draw it at a 45 degree angle, with a swing arc showing the swing.
Draw > Line > Angle
Distance: 32 Angle: 135
Click somewhere in the drawing and it should show up.
Draw a parallel line 3/4” away, so Distance: .75
Now we want to connect those two parallel lines at the ends by choosing:
Draw > Line > Angle
Distance: .75 Angle: 45
Snap > Snap on endpoints
Then we can just click at either end.
Through trial and error, I realized it is easier to first draw a horizontal line left from the bottom corner of the door, and one vertical. So:
Draw > Line > Horizontal
Snap to endpoint, distance: 32
Connect it to the bottom corner of the door. (Where the hinge would be).
Draw > Line > Vertical
Snap to endpoint, distance: 32
Connect it to the bottom corner of the door. (Where the hinge would be).
Now that we have a horizontal line, lets do the arc.
Draw > Arc > Center, Point, Angles
Keep both Snap to Endpoints, and Snap Middle on.
For Center Point (see bottom left of screen that it is prompting us for the center point), click the bottom most corner (i.e. where the hinge would be).
Next it asks for radius, I think the swing line going through the center of the door is nice, so click there.
Angles increase in a counter-clockwise fasion, so the starting angle begins on the mid point of the vertical line. Click there.
Mid point of horizontal line.
Finally remove the vertical and horizontal lines guides.
Select > Select Entity
Click on each and hit DEL.
I’d like to have a frame on either side of the door to complete the door. Gonna make it 1/2” thick, and 4” wide.
Draw > Line > Rectangle
Have Free Snap selected and put the starting point anywhere.
In command line type:
@.5,4
@ = relative. Format is: @width,height.
Lets make a center line guide plus lines on either side for either exterior or interior wall doors. An interior wall should be 4.5”, an exterior wall we’ll say 5.5”. The reason we create these lines is so that we can place the door in a wall lined up at a later date.
Create a root folder for your library somewhere on your file system, then two folders under that called `windows` and `doors` respectively.
Now lets save our door into the doors folder.
Edit > Application Preferences > Paths (tab) > Part Libraries (text)
put the path that you chose above, for example:
/home/ftravers/my-cad-library
note: dont use: ~/my-cad-library
Close LibreCAD and reopen it.
View > Toolbars > Library Browser
You should now see your folder you created with the door in it.
Note: you can add more paths separated with “;”
Lets create a new layer for the door. Click the plus on the layer dialogue.
Name it door.
We need to determine how far along the wall that door will go. Lets draw a horizontal line 4 feet (48”) from the inside wall of the right/east wall. Lets draw the line in the middle of the south/bottom wall.
Select the guides layer (since this is just a guide line).
You’ve been shown how to create vertical/horizontal lines so that info wont be repeated here. But when you are finished you should have a 4’ line (preferably in a different color to indicate a guide) that extends along the center of the bottom wall.
Now lets select the door and move it. So lets highlight the whole door, and choose:
Modify > Move / Copy
Since we already selected the door, let just click the right arrows in the tool bar to move forward.