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Your first drawing

CompleteChecked against Musa CAD 0.8.0Verified

In about ten minutes you will draw the plate below: 120 units wide, 80 high, with two round holes and two dimensions. Then you will save it and print it to a PDF. Each step shows exactly what Musa CAD asks and what you type, so you can follow along.

A rectangular plate, 120 wide by 80 high, drawn in outline, with two round holes of radius 10 at its left and right thirds. A horizontal dimension under the plate reads 120.00 and a vertical dimension on its left reads 80.00.
The finished drawing, printed to an A4 sheet by Musa CAD.
Plotted by Musa CAD 0.8.0 from the example drawing first-part.musaDownload the drawing

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”
  • Musa CAD opens with an empty drawing called Drawing1. Think of one unit as one millimetre.
  • Just start typing. You do not need to click anywhere first. What you type appears next to your cursor, and so do Musa CAD’s questions (the prompts). This is called Dynamic Input. If you prefer a command line at the bottom of the window, press F12.
  • Enter or Space confirms what you typed. Esc cancels. In the boxes below, ↵ means “press Enter”.
  • Roll the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Hold the middle button and drag to move around (pan).

Draw the plate

Section titled “Draw the plate”

  1. Type REC and press Enter. This starts the RECTANG command. Type the first corner, then the second corner. The @ means “measured from the last point”:

    Command line
    Command: REC
    Specify first corner point or [Chamfer/Elevation/Fillet/Thickness/Width]: 0,0
    Specify other corner point or [Area/Dimensions/Rotation]: @120,80

    If the rectangle is too small to see, type Z, press Enter, then type E and press Enter. This zooms to fit everything (Zoom Extents).

  2. Draw the first hole. Type C for CIRCLE, give the centre, then the radius:

    Command line
    Command: C
    Specify center point for circle or [3P/2P/Ttr (tan tan radius)]: 30,40
    Specify radius of circle or [Diameter]: 10

  3. Draw the second hole. Musa CAD remembers the last radius and offers it in angle brackets, so you only need to press Enter:

    Command line
    Command: C
    Specify center point for circle or [3P/2P/Ttr (tan tan radius)]: 90,40
    Specify radius of circle or [Diameter] <10.0000>: Enter

Tip: pressing Enter when no command is running repeats the last command. That is a quick way to start the second circle without typing C again.

Add the dimensions

Section titled “Add the dimensions”

  1. Type DLI for DIMLINEAR. It asks for the two points to measure between, then where to put the dimension line. You can type the points, or hover over a corner until the Endpoint snap marker appears and click:

    Command line
    Command: DLI
    Specify first extension line origin or <select object>: 0,0
    Specify second extension line origin: 120,0
    Specify dimension line location or [Mtext/Text/Angle/Horizontal/Vertical/Rotated]: 60,-15

    The dimension shows the width, 120. Musa CAD measures it from the two points, so the number is always right, even if you change the plate later.

  2. Now the height, on the left side. Musa CAD works out whether the dimension is horizontal or vertical from where you put the dimension line:

    Command line
    Command: DLI
    Specify first extension line origin or <select object>: 0,0
    Specify second extension line origin: 0,80
    Specify dimension line location or [Mtext/Text/Angle/Horizontal/Vertical/Rotated]: -15,40

Made a mistake? Press Ctrl+Z to undo. To move a dimension’s text, click the dimension, then drag the small square on its text.

Save it

Section titled “Save it”

Press Ctrl+S. Because the drawing has never been saved, the Save window opens with the file type Musa CAD (*.musa). Name it first-part.musa. The tab at the top now shows the file name. From now on Ctrl+S saves straight away, and Ctrl+Shift+S is Save As.

A .musa file is Musa CAD’s own format. It is plain text, so you can even open it in a text editor. Files saved by version 0.8.0 need 0.8.0 or newer to open. Older files always open in newer versions.

Section titled “Print it to PDF”

Press Ctrl+P, or type PLOT. In the Plot window, choose:

  • Printer/plotter: PDF File…
  • Paper size: A4, Orientation: Landscape
  • Plot area: Extents (the whole drawing)
  • Scale: Fit to paper. For a real drawing you would pick a fixed scale instead.
  • Plot style (CTB): Monochrome (all black), which is how a workshop usually wants a drawing.

Click Preview… to check the sheet, then Plot and choose where to save the PDF. The PDF is made of real lines, not pixels, so it stays sharp however far you zoom in.

You can also print it without opening Musa CAD at all. The picture at the top of this page was made exactly that way:

Terminal window
musacad --plot first-part.musa first-part.pdf --paper A4 --landscape --monochrome

What you learned

Section titled “What you learned”
  • Start commands by typing their short names: REC, C, DLI, Z.
  • Read the prompt: options are in [square brackets], the default is in <angle brackets>, and Enter accepts it.
  • Type exact points: 30,40 is a point on the drawing, @120,80 is measured from the last point, and @50<45 means 50 units at 45 degrees.
  • Dimensions measure the drawing; you never type their numbers.
  • Save as .musa, print to PDF.

Next

Section titled “Next”