Placing the drawing
The imported drawing can be moved, turned by any angle and scaled on the stock, without changing the DXF. In the app, click the DXF in the Browser: its Position, rotation and scale are in Properties.
| Row | What it is | A change |
|---|---|---|
| Position X Y | the lower-left corner of the drawing’s box, mm | moves the drawing so its corner is there. Bottom left puts it 10 mm in from the stock’s corner, Centre on the stock’s centre. |
| Rotation | degrees counter-clockwise from the DXF as drawn, any angle | turns it about its centre; ⟲ 90 and ⟳ 90 turn it a quarter |
| Scale | the factor from the DXF as drawn | scales it about its centre |
| Size | the box’s width and height |
Each row has a reset button: the position back to where the DXF has it, rotation 0, scale 1. A change applies when you finish the edit (Enter, Tab or releasing a drag), as one undo step.
On the command line, chipload place (for a picture, --image ID with --at, --rotate
and --width):
| Command line | |
|---|---|
| Put the box’s lower-left corner at a point | --at 10,20 |
| Move by | --by 10,-5 |
| Put at an offset from where the DXF has it | --to 10,-5 |
| Align with the stock | --align bottom-left --margin 10, --align center |
| Turn about its centre, on top of any turn | --rotate 30 (any angle; negative: clockwise) |
| Scale about its centre | --scale 2, --width 100, --height 50 |
| Back to as drawn | --reset |
- Order: a turn and a scale come before an alignment, so
--rotate 90 --align bottom-leftturns the part and then puts it in the corner. - Saved as values: the placement is kept in the project, and updating from a new DXF puts the new drawing in the same place.
- What follows: operations follow the drawing, and their start points move with it.
- Arcs: scaling and turning keep arcs exact. Turns by 90°, 180° and 270° are exact to the bit; other angles are as exact as the computer’s arithmetic.
- Where it is now:
chipload place part.chiploadwith no option prints the placement and size.
Shapes drawn in Chipload aren’t part of the imported drawing and stay where they are. With
several DXFs, each is placed on its own: --dxf ID says which.
To have the G-code’s zero somewhere else, without moving anything, set the work zero instead.