Before you start drawing in ZWCAD Flex, it’s important to set the measurement units, angle settings, scale, and other basic options. This ensures your drawing sizes are accurate and consistent.
Measurement units define what one drawing unit actually means. For example, a radius of 60 units could represent 60 millimeters, 60 feet, or any other unit of length. Setting this clearly helps you work with the right scale.
Imagine you want to draw a circular hole with a radius of 60 units on a rectangle. Whether those 60 units mean millimeters or inches will affect the real size of your hole.
Use the UNITS command to choose the unit system for your drawing, such as metric (millimeters, centimeters) or imperial (inches, feet). The current unit setting is always shown in the status bar.
Set Units
The UNITS command allows you to set the drawing units, including imperial and metric units. The units of current drawing file are displayed in status bar. The unit does not have practical significance in a single drawing file and only works in data exchange between different drawing files.
If two drawing files are set to different units, when copying objects between them, the size will not change. However, when inserting one drawing file as a block or external reference into another, the size of objects will be scaled based on the conversion relationship between units.
If your drawing is set to “no units,” inserted blocks won’t be scaled by default. You can execute the OPTIONS command to open the Options dialog box and specify the conversion settings when there are no units in the User Preference tab.
If you want to change the units for an existing drawing, first use UNITS command to set the new unit type. Then use the SCALE command to resize all objects based on the conversion factor.
For example:
· To convert feet to centimeters, scale by 30.48
· To convert centimeters to inches, scale by 0.3937
You can control how units are displayed and how precise they look in your drawing.
Linear Units
Specify the type of linear units to be Scientific, Decimal, Fractional, Architectural or Engineering. You can convert between these unit formats, for example, the decimal input displayed in the dynamic input on the left can be converted to the four unit formats on the right, as shown below.
To set the linear unit format, you can do one of the following:
· When both the STARTUP and FILEDIA are set to 1, execute NEW to specify the Units option when you choose Use a Setup Wizard to create a new drawing in the New Drawing dialog box.
· Or execute UNITS to open the Drawing Units dialog box, and choose a unit type from the Length - Type drop-down list.
Angular Units
You can enter angles in various formats such as decimal degrees, radians, degrees/minutes/seconds, gradians, or surveyor’s units. Besides choosing how angles are displayed, you also need to set two directions: the direction of angle 0° and the direction in which positive angles increase.
· The angle 0° direction is usually set to east or north, but you can choose any direction you prefer.
· Positive angles can increase clockwise or counterclockwise.
To set the angular unit format, you can:
· When STARTUP and FILEDIA are both set to 1, execute NEW to specify the Units, Angle Measure and Angle Direction options when you choose Use a Setup Wizard to create a new drawing in the New Drawing dialog box.
· Execute UNITS to open the Drawing Units dialog box, and choose a unit type from the Angle - Type drop-down list.
Precision
When you set precision for units, it means that numbers will be rounded and displayed with that level of detail. For example, you might choose to show lengths rounded to two decimal places.
This setting only changes how numbers look on the screen or in dimensions, and it does not affect the actual accuracy of the coordinates or measurements stored in the drawing.
You can set precision separately for linear units (lengths) and angular units (angles) in their respective settings.
The grid is a rectangular set of lines displayed across the drawing area, covering the entire XY plane of the current User Coordinate System (UCS). It helps you see distances and spatial relationships between objects more clearly, like graph paper on your screen.
The grid is made up of three parts:
· Grid main lines (thicker lines)
· Grid auxiliary lines (lighter lines between main lines)
· Grid axis lines
The GRIDDISPLAY system variable controls how the grid is shown and where it appears in the drawing area. When GRIDDISPLAY is set to 0, the grid will only be displayed within the drawing limits. You can set these limits by using the LIMITS command to define the drawing boundaries.
The GRIDUNIT system variable controls the distance between the main grid lines along the X and Y axes, which affects how dense the main grid lines appear. The GRIDMAJOR system variable sets how many smaller grid spaces appear between each pair of main grid lines, controlling the density of the lighter auxiliary grid lines. For example, if GRIDMAJOR is set to 5 on the X axis and 4 on the Y axis, there will be 5 and 4 smaller grids respectively between each main grid line.
With the adaptive grid display feature, the spacing between grid lines automatically adjusts when you zoom in or out. This keeps the grid from looking too crowded or too sparse at different zoom levels, making it easier to work with your drawing.
You can also customize the grid by running the UCS command, where you can set a new grid origin using the Origin option and rotate the grid around the Z-axis using the Z option.
Grid snap restricts the movement of the cursor to fixed points on an invisible coordinate grid. When enabled, the cursor “sticks” to these snap points, helping you place objects exactly on regular intervals.
The system variable SNAPUNIT controls the spacing between these snap points on the X and Y axes.
Although both Grid and Grid Snap use rectangular grids with specified spacing, they serve different purposes:
· Grid displays visible lines on the screen to help you visually measure distances and align objects.
· Grid Snap uses invisible snap points to restrict the movement of the cursor, allowing you to place points precisely at fixed intervals.
You can customize grid snap settings in the Drafting Settings dialog (DSETTINGS command), under the Snap and Grid section.
Orthogonal mode restricts the movement of the cursor (crosshairs) to only horizontal and vertical directions. When this mode is turned on, you can only specify points along the X-axis or Y-axis of the current User Coordinate System (UCS).
In a 3D view, orthogonal mode allows the cursor to move vertically, horizontally, and also up or down.
Note that entering point coordinates directly or using object snap is not affected by orthogonal mode — you can still place points freely in those cases. And Orthogonal mode and polar tracking cannot be turned on simultaneously.
You can turn orthogonal mode on or off in a few ways. The most common method is to click the Ortho Mode button located in the status bar at the bottom of the ZWCAD window. Alternatively, you can press the F8 key on your keyboard as a shortcut.
While drawing, if you want to temporarily override orthogonal mode, you can simply hold down the Shift key — the mode will be disabled while the key is held and return when you release it.
Object Snap allows you to accurately select key points on existing objects in your drawing, such as endpoints, midpoints, centers, and intersections.
Once Object Snap is enabled, when you move your cursor near a feature point, a marker and the point’s name will appear automatically. This helps you precisely lock onto that exact location.
ZWCAD Flex supports various feature points, including Endpoint, Midpoint, Center, Node, Quadrant, Intersection, Extension, and more.
You can enable or disable Object Snap in two ways:
· Click the Object Snap button in the bottom status bar.
· Press F3 on your keyboard.
You can also open the Drafting Settings dialog by typing DSETTINGS in the command line. In the Object Snap tab, check or uncheck "Object Snap On" to turn it on or off.
There are two ways to use Object Snap: one-time use and persistent settings.
One-Time Object Snap
If you only want to snap to a feature point once, you can use any of the following methods. Note that the setting will be reset after the snap, so you'll need to select it again next time.
· Hold down the Shift or Ctrl key, then right-click to open the object snap shortcut menu.
· Right-click and choose Snap Overrides to open the same shortcut menu.
· Run the TOOLBAR command, enable the Object Snap toolbar, and click the desired snap icons.
· Type the snap mode directly in the command line (e.g., type end to snap to an endpoint).
Persistent Object Snap (Recommended for Repeated Use)
To keep object snap settings active across multiple operations, you can set persistent snaps using one of the following methods:
· Right-click the Object Snap button on the status bar, then select the snap points you want.
· Run the DSETTINGS or OSNAP command, and choose your desired snap points in the Object Snap tab.
· Set snap modes manually using the OSMODE system variable, which stores snap settings as a numeric value (for advanced users).
A polar axis is an invisible ray that starts from a point and extends outward in a specific direction. With polar tracking, your cursor can automatically align or “snap” along these rays to help you draw at precise angles.
Polar Tracking helps you draw lines or place points at specific angles. When enabled, it displays guide rays (polar rays) as you move your cursor, helping you snap along preset directions.
In the following figure, after specifying the first point of line, the first point is used as a temporary tracking point, and the second point in polar direction can be specified through polar tracking.
You can enable or disable Polar Tracking in several ways:
· Click the Polar Tracking button in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
· Press F10 on your keyboard.
· Run the DSETTINGS command, go to the Polar Tracking tab, and check or uncheck "Polar Tracking On".
Please note that Polar Tracking cannot be used at the same time as Ortho Mode.
The polar angle determines the directions along which your cursor can snap. You can configure this in the Drafting Settings window:
Run the DSETTINGS command and go to the Polar Tracking tab, and then you can set:
1. Incremental Angle
This is the angle between each polar ray. For example, if set to 45°, rays will appear at 0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, etc.
2. Additional Angles
Use this if you need custom angles (e.g., 50° or 70°) that don't fit into the incremental pattern.
Tip: By default, 0° points to the right (horizontal), and angles increase counterclockwise. You can change this using the UNITS command.
Setting Polar Distance
Polar Distance controls how far the cursor jumps along a polar ray. For example, if the polar distance is set to 50, your cursor will snap to points at 50, 100, 150 units, and so on.
To enable and set this:
· Run DSETTINGS.
· Go to the Snap and Grid tab.
· Check Snap on and Polar Snap, then enter your desired distance.
Object Snap Tracking
Object Snap Tracking helps you align to precise points related to other objects (like midpoints or endpoints). It requires both Object Snap and Polar Tracking to be enabled.
Hover Snap
In the following figure, a circle needs to be drawn at the center of rectangle. Execute the CIRCLE command, hover the cursor over midpoint of the horizontal edge of rectangle, then move it away, and then hover over the midpoint of vertical edge. Move the mouse until the two polar axes intersect, click the mouse to obtain the center of rectangle, and then specify the radius.
Temporary Tracking
In the following figure, draw a circle at a specified distance outside the rectangle. Execute the CIRCLE command, enter "tk" in command line to enable temporary tracking, move the cursor to the vertex of rectangle, click, move the cursor horizontally and enter polar distance, then move the cursor vertically and enter polar distance, directly press Enter to specify the center of circle, and then specify the radius.
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