GGU-CAD: Program concept
The GGU-CAD program was primarily developed for post-editing work on graphics produced by the GGU program range. It offers numerous functions allowing the program to also be used as a two-dimensional CAD system. The program differentiates between the following four drawing objects:
lines;
characters (texts);
colour-filled areas;
graphics.
Note on lines
Although numerous drawing objects, such as rectangles, circles, Bezier splines, etc. are available, these objects are treated as individual lines once they are created. A circle, for example, is composed of numerous individual lines. After generating a circle the circle segments are treated as individual lines and can only be edited using the corresponding actions for lines. Beside a number disadvantages this generally provides only advantages (see menu item "Window/Erase" for example).
Note on colour fill and graphics
Colour-filled areas and graphics can only be erased, moved, copied, etc. as a whole.
10 different visualisation layers can be used. Almost all actions, such as "Draw/Polygon" or "Window/Move", for example, refer to the current drawing layer. The active drawing layer is displayed in the status bar. The active drawing layer can be changed using the [F11] and [F12] keys or via the toolbar.
GGU-CAD files can be generated from within any GGU program using the print function; they can then be loaded and further processed in the GGU-CAD program.
If you generate a DXF file or a HPGL file in a different application it is possible to import the data using the "File/Import" menu item.
After starting the program you will see an empty start-up screen with cross-hairs. There are nine menus in the menu bar:
File
Draw
Lines
Preferences
Special
Window
Graphics preferences
Fonts
Info
After clicking one of these menus, the so-called menu items roll down, allowing you access to all program functions. The displayed screen area roughly corresponds to an A3 format page. However, a total drawing area of approx. 130 x 130 cm can be used.
The program works on the principle of What you see is what you get. This means that, overall, the display on the screen represents what you will see on your printer. In the last consequence, this would mean that the screen display would have to be refreshed after every alteration you make. For reasons of efficiency, and as this can take several seconds for complex screen contents, the GGU-CAD screen is not refreshed after every alteration. If you would like to refresh the screen contents, please press either [F2] or [Esc]. The [Esc] key additionally sets the screen display back to your current zoom, which has the default value 1.0.