Paper Size

Choose which paper size you need.

Any output needs to fit on the selected paper size. The program does not tile across pages. Custom sizes are not available at present, but can be handled by using the hand generating code and feeding this into Adobe Acrobat Distiller or GhostScript with a custom paper size.

Units

The Units variable is very important. Every measurement is done in terms of the Unit. The fonts chosen, the radius of circles are all in whatever Units you choose here.

The Units are mm, inches and points.

Inner Circle Width

This is the radius (not diameter) of the inner circle.

The units are in the Units chosen, mm, inches or pts.

Outer Circle Width

This is the radius (not diameter) of the outer circle.

The units are in the Units chosen, mm, inches or pts.

Font Size

Select font size for drawing the text in the setting circles in.

The size is in points.

User Font

Select which type of font to use. These are the standard PostScript (TM) fonts available.

The following fonts can be used:

AvantGarde-Book

AvantGarde Book Italic

AvantGarde Demi

AvantGarde Demi Italic

Bookman Demi

Bookman Demi Italic

Bookman Light

Bookman Light Italic

Courier

Courier Bold

Courier Bold Italic

Courier Italic

Helvetica

Helvetica Bold

Helvetica Bold Italic

Helvetica Narrow

Helvetica Narrow Bold

Helvetica Narrow Bold Italic

Helvetica Narrow Italic

Helvetica Italic

New Century Schoolbook Bold

New Century Schoolbook Bold Italic

New Century Schoolbook Italic

New Century Schoolbook Roman

Palatino Bold

Palatino Bold Italic

Palatino Italic

Palatino Roman

Times Bold

Times Bold Italic

Times Italic

Times-Roman

Major Marks Angle Width

This is the width of the Major Marks angle line itself. It is in terms of points and is not affected by the Units size.

Minor Marks Angle Width 1

This is the width of the Minor Marks Angle 1 line itself. It is in terms of points and is not affected by the Units size.

Minor Marks Angle Width 2

This is the width of the Minor Marks Angle 2 line itself. It is in terms of points and is not affected by the Units size.

Text X Angle Offset

This value determines how far the text is printed from the outside of the setting circle.

A value of 0 means that it's printed on the edge outer circle itself. A positive value means it's printed outside of the circle. A negative value means it's printed inside the outer circle.

The value is in terms of the Units chosen, mm, inches or points.

The diagram below should help in working out how to use this variable.

Text Y Angle Offset

The Text Y Angle Offset describes the Y (vertical) offset of the text round the edge of the setting circles.

If this value is 0 then the bottom of the text lines up to the angle marker. This often does not look right and so you have the ability to drop the text down by an amount so that the middle of the text lines up to the mark rather than the bottom of the text.

The value of this is in terms of points rather than Units. So a value of 12 here is 12pts rather than 12 Units.

Length Minor Marks1

The length to draw the half marks of the setting circle. See the picture below for more information.

The length is in the Units chosen, mm, inches or pts.

Length Minor Marks2

The length to draw the individual degree marks of the setting circle. See the picture below for more information.

The length is in the Units chosen, mm, inches or pts.

Set Mirror Image

This option reverses the output image. This allows the setting circle to be printed on the back of a transparency so that the ink can be protected. This options affects all output including a Vernier gauge if selected.

Draw Centre Lines

Draw a set of centre lines at the centre of the setting circle.

This is a simple boolean value.

This is useful for finding the centre oif a circle for spotting purposes. Make the circle the same diamter as your primary mirror and you can easily find the centre.

Set start as 360 rather than 0 degreees

If non-zero then print out all the values of the variable

Start Angle

The start angle is where we start drawing the setting circle.

This value can be anything from 0 to 360 degrees. It needs to be less than the start angle.

End Angle

The end angle is where we end drawing the setting circle.

This value can be anything from 0 to 360 degrees. It needs to be more than the end angle.

Start X Position

This is the X position of the centre of the Setting Circle on the page. 0,0 is the bottom left. The X position is far to the right of the page we start.

The units are in the Units chosen, mm, inches or pts.

Start Y Position

This is the Y position of the centre of the Setting Circle on the page. 0,0 is the bottom left. The Y position is how far up the page to start.

The units are in the Units chosen, mm, inches or pts.

Major Marks Angle

The angle between the major marks on the circle or arc. This angle is drawn as a full ine between the inner circle width and the outer circle width.

This is normally a value such as 10 degrees, 15 degrees or similar. There is no requirement for it to be any specific angle so a user can choose just about anything.

There is an advantge when using this with a Vernier gauge. Setting the Vernier gauge angle to the same as this angle means a proper Vernier gauge will be drawn. However there is no requirement to do so, but the use of a Vernier angle different to this is limited.

Minor Marks Angle 1

The slighly large marks that denote minor angles. These angles are normally some proportion of the Major Marks Angle, e.g. 5 or 10 degrees.

There is no requirement for it to be any specific angle so a user can choose just about anything.

Minor Marks Angle 2

The very smallest angle markings on the setting circles. This angle is normally set to 1 degree though can be anything. For very large setting circles this could be 0.5 or even smaller allowing quite fine control.

Printed Angle

The PrintedAngle variable is the angle printed around the setting circle. It is used to define more unusual setting circles.
e.g. if you want a 90 degree arc of a circle that starts at 180 degrees rather than 0, then you could set this variable to be 180.

It is closely aligned with PrintedAngleIncrement. This sets the increment of the angle, so if you want a seting circle with a 24 hour clock then you would set the Major Marks Angle to 15 and set the PrintedAngleIncrement to 1.

This variable has no impact on any other element of the setting circle, just the printing of the angles.

Printed Angle Increment

The PrintedAngleIncrement variable is closely aligned with PrintedAngle. This sets the increment of the angle, so if you want a seting circle with a 24 hour clock then you would set the Major Marks Angle to 15 and set the PrintedAngleIncrement to 1.

This variable has no impact on any other element of the setting circle, just the printing of the angles.

Draw Numbers Clockwise

Draw the numbers clockwise or anti-clockwise round the setting circles.
This is a simple boolean value.

Draw Vernier Gauge

Choose whether to draw the Vernier gauge or not.

This is a simple boolean value. If this is set to no then changing any other value associated with a Vernier gauge will have no affect.

The use of a Vernier Gauage is best described here

Vernier Start X Position

This is the X position of the lower left corner of the Vernier Gauge. This is a relative position from the 0 degree position of the outer circle. See the diagram below for a better understanding.

The units are in the pts

-- -- --

Vernier Start Y Position

This is the Y position of the lower left corner of the Vernier Gauge. This is a relative position from the 0 degree position of the outer circle. See the diagram below for a better understanding.

The units are in the pts

Vernier Width

How wide should the Vernier Gauge be? The value is in terms of pts, not mm or inches.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Vernier Angle

The Vernier Angle value determines how far around the arc of a circle to draw a Vernier. The angle chosen should (but does not have to) match the Major Marks Angle.

Only a few angles are allowed in the pop down list. This is because most angles apart from the ones chosen here, produce fractional elements and do not look right when printed as they have significant decimal places etc. If you need to have some odd angle, not in this list, you can always edit the PostScript by hand to get it.

Vernier Font Size

How large should the numbers be on the Vernier Gauge? These units are in pts and are unaffected by whatever Unit is chosen.

Normally this value should be quite small as the Vernier Gauge is a small element. Clearly a 26" circle would allow a far bigger gauge.

Vernier Text Y Angle Offset

This value is used to tweak how above or below an imaginary baseline that extends out from each angle on the Vernier Gauge. The bottom of each numbers sits in this imaginary baseline.

Normally this value should be quite small and is normally negative so the bottom of the fonr is below the imaginary baseline, e.g. perhaps 1/5 of the Vernier Font size. It is suggested that the default is used and then tweaked in small amounts until the gauge looks correct.

The value is in terms of pts and is independent of the type of the Units set.

Vernier Text X Angle Offset

This value is used to tweak how far away the Vernier Gauge fonts are from the edge of the Vernier Gauge. The value is in terms of pts and is independent of the type of the Units set.

Normally this value should be quite small, perhaps half of the Vernier Font size. It is suggested that the default is used and then tweaked in small amounts until the gauge looks correct.

Vernier Staggered Text

The staggered text option allows the user to alternate the text on the Vernier Gauge, so that one number is offset towards the Vernier Gauge
and one number is offset away from the Vernier Gauge. This allows the text to be slightly larger and ensures that the numbers do not crash into
each other.

The simplest way to use this is to start with a 0 as the value, see what the result looks like and then make the value by a number approximately
half the size of the Vernier Font Size. Tweak this number by a small value, decimal values e.g. 1.3 are allowed, until you are happy with the result.

The two diagrams below show the difference between the Vernier Staggered Text having a value and being set to 0.

Vernier Staggered Text

The staggered text option allows the user to alternate the text on the Vernier Gauge, so that one number is offset towards the Vernier Gauage and one number is offset away from the Vernier Gauge. This allows the Vernier text to be slightly larger and ensures that the numbers do not crash into each other.

The simplest way to use this is to start with a 0 as the value, see what the result looks like and then make the value by a number approximately half the size of the Vernier Font Size. Tweak this number by a small value, decimal values e.g. 1.3 are allowed, until you are happy with the result.

Make the value negative simply changes the order in which the alternations occur.

The two diagrams below show the difference between the Vernier Staggered Text having a value and being set to 0.

Here the value is set to 0. You can see that it is quite difficult to work the numbers out. A very large Vernier Gauge may allow larger fonts and this value may be 0.

Select whether or not to draw the encoder circles.

The inner circle width (in Units).

Width of the encoder rings in Units

Number of divisions to print around the circle