Drawing lines and line rotation

[benmtech]

I am using a C125 for a non motorsport application and am making my own screen layouts. DC allows many creative ideas but I am unable to draw a single line - preferably with arrow heads - and rotate it so I can put a channel value along side. So for instance the distance between 2 vehicles. I have tried with the 3D element that allows rotation but this does not seem satisfactory. My only solution at present is to create a .png in Inkscape and import it to DC. This does work bur requires alot of trial and error. Is there a way to draw simple lines and rotate them? Obviously I can draw a very thin rectangle but rotation is still the problem as when selected, width and length can be adjusted but not rotation. Any suggestions much appreciated.

[David Ferguson]

This may seem odd (but you have to think oddly when looking for a workaround), but have you tried using a circular gauge, and making your line the needle. You can eliminate all the other elements, and scale it so the value represents the degrees relative to vertical.

Here is a demo project where I used an image of a line with arrows as a needle, The Math Constant channel specifies the angle when the DC is running (simulation or in a dash), but to get the pages preview to look correct, I had to change the first value of the needle range to be the same angle. (seems like a bug that the needle position doesn't honor the Preview Value).

[benmtech]

Thanks David. I had a play around with your gauge suggestion but the needle styles did not really suit my layout. Good idea though and I may use it for something else. Horizontal and vertical lines are easy with the draw rectangle feature. Its the angled ones that are troublesome. Life would be much easier if the rectangles had a rotation handle on them! I have got quite close with using the "slash" in some of the different text types that are available but they are never quite at the correct angle for me. I may also try doing the entire thing in Inkscape and importing it. Attached is a screen of where I am so far. Thanks again for your interest.

[David Ferguson]

I edited my post with a sample DC project. Take a look at that.

[benmtech]

I agree that your arrow works quite well. Thanks. Its just a bit of a faf to do when image rotation would solve it!

Dear Father Christmas. Please will MoTeC put image rotation in DC????