Improvement on reference line and grid alignment in Drawing Software

Whether 2D or 3D drawing software, Reference Line alignment and grid alignment have become a standard feature-even in software such as office, grid alignment can be seen everywhere as a default feature. Currently, the reference line and grid are usually used in the following ways:

• Non-Alignment: Allows you to move, rotate, and scale freely without auto alignment or any guides or objects. In the Windows drawing program, you can always be in this initial state.
• Grid alignment(Snap to grids): This is the default enabled option when you use the drawing feature in MS office, such as inserting a rectangle in PowerPoint. The entire drawing area is evenly divided into N x m grids, and the coordinates of all drawing operations are forcibly moved to the closest grid point. This is a very convenient processing method.
• Reference Line alignment(Snap to guides): usually used in drawing software. You can define horizontal or vertical reference lines by yourself. When the screen coordinates of the Drawing operation are close to a certain degree, it will be forcibly moved to the reference line. It produces a feeling of "adsorption.
• Intelligent Reference Line alignment: It is similar to the reference line alignment in terms of specific behavior, but these reference lines are automatically generated on a temporary basis instead of manually defined by the user. It usually includes the edges, axes, and diagonal lines of the operated object itself and the surrounding object.

I am not planning to add a new alignment method here, but to make some modifications to the specific operation. Software users often encounter the following situation: In most cases, these alignment functions are very useful, but there are also a few cases (not very few, but relatively few ), we really need to deliberately deviate from the reference line a little bit. The current practice is to temporarily disable the alignment function when necessary, and then enable it later.

For example, when the user approaches the gray rectangle above the reference line, once the distance is less than 4 PX, it automatically absorbs and becomes the following.

As a matter of fact, alignment exists in order that users can perform a uniform design without having to perform precise positioning. According to Fitts law, because the original 1 px precision is increased to 8 PX (that is, ± 4px), the operation speed can be increased to about 3 times. Then we can find that:

• When the user's operation speed is relatively highFastIt means they don't want to spend time on exact positioning (or they believe that automatic alignment of reference lines or gridlines will help them process ), in this case, the reference line should be aligned to help users quickly create neat drawings.
• When the user's operation speed is relatively highSlowIt indicates that they want to perform precise positioning. At this time, users should be allowed to freely locate the location, without the limitations of the reference line.

In this way, if the system detects that the user is moving slowly near the reference line (for example, less than 5px/sec), the reference line and grid alignment functions can be temporarily disabled, this allows you to freely move and zoom, and even bring up a magnifier and ruler to help you locate the problem, as shown in.

In addition, the user's operation history sequence helps to determine whether the current operation motivation is rough or accurate. Assume that the user has just adjusted the displacement or size of an object over a long distance (for example, over 20 PX or over 30% of its size or other context-based reference values ), then performing slow operations on the same object often means precise positioning. You can temporarily disable the reference line or grid alignment function without hesitation.

This method can also be extended to other aspects that can intelligently optimize system behavior through user operation speed, for example, the rolling control of large-scale fish eye lists and the help of fixed-point devices on large-sized display devices.

(All Rights Reserved. For more information, see the source and retain the link .)