Generating Freestyle (Or Squiggly) Lines

[Ross101]

Hi All

What I'd like to do is select a tool, possibly a line tool, hold down the left mouse button (or a key) and when I move the cursor around on the screen, a squiggly line would be drawn that follows where the cursor goes.  The line could then be selected, coloured, thickened, etc.  

 

Why?  In this case, to add an indication of vegetation to some graphics of planter boxes, etc.  However, it would probably have other uses.

 

Anyway, maybe it already exists somewhere in the program but I can't find it? If not, I'm guessing that I'm going to have to generate this in another program and import it somehow?  

 

I've attached a rough idea of what I want to do.  Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

 

Regards

Ross Young

 

[Alaskan_Son]

We don't have a tool like that, however you can get similar results using the tools we DO have.  I would personally probably start with the spline tool (its probably all you need), however its definitely not as fast as a "freestyle" tool would be.  Importing something from another program would probably be easier, however I think creating it within Chief would be far more useful. 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Some separate freehand drawing (sketching) tools would be useful. There are times where it would be great to have the ability to markup proposals in a more casual manner, especially in the earlier design concept stages. As the OP mentions, to do this currently requires an auxiliary program to either make the sketches up and export/import them as say jpegs or exporting the Chief doc into the sketching program. Would save a lot of time if this could be done in just one program.

 

Graham

[Ross101]

Thanks for the replies.  It confirms I haven't overlooked an existing tool.  It seems like an obvious one to add ...... it would add flexibility in early sketches and allow easy markups as Graham notes. Maybe I'll have to look again at programs like SketchUp, but I'm a fan of being able to do simple things with one program.

I've posted something on the Suggestions Forum.

Regards

Ross 

[HumbleChief]

Some separate freehand drawing (sketching) tools would be useful. There are times where it would be great to have the ability to markup proposals in a more casual manner, especially in the earlier design concept stages.

Been looking for something like this for years. I used Corel Draw for many years and the ease with which freehand shapes can be drawn is amazing. Nothing like that in Chief - or even close.

[MarkMc]

Agree that a tool would be nice to have for a lot of reasons-even just posting a screen shot.

For markup I use Bluebeam which has said tool among others. Not live BUT that can be an advantage to be sure that the markups are not changed/lost in iterations.

Forgot to add that I'd love to see a plugin for Bluebeam- it exists for SU, Revit and ACAD. Then I'd spring to upgrade to the CAD version so I could also get 3D pdfs and pdf's with layers.

[johnny]

Is that supposed to represent grass or vegetation? 

 

I'm all for better drawing tools for CA, but in this case Id say you'd be way better just grabbing some vector art of simple grass that you can import as line work.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=vector+grass+drawing&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=TVdmVa77I9j7oQSp9YLYCw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1995&bih=1369#imgrc=_

 

I used this type of vector in a recent drawing I did for a detail of grass -