- finished adding in Paint Tool the usage of an external object to set the extent of th area painted. For simple shapes (single Polygon) the shape can be anything, for the rest will be a convex hull of the reference object

- modified NCC tool so for simple objects (single Polygon) the external object used as reference can have any shape, for the other types of objects the copper cleared area will be the convex hull of the reference object
- modified the strings of the app wherever they contained the char seq <b> </b> so it is not included in the translated string

flatcamTools/ToolPaint.py

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 from FlatCAMTool import FlatCAMTool
 from copy import copy, deepcopy
 from ObjectCollection import *
+from shapely.geometry import base
 
 import gettext
 import FlatCAMTranslation as fcTranslate
@@ -238,19 +239,27 @@ class ToolPaint(FlatCAMTool, Gerber):
         selectlabel.setToolTip(
             _("How to select the polygons to paint.<BR>"
               "Options:<BR>"
-              "- <B>Single</B>: left mouse click on the polygon to be painted.<BR>"
-              "- <B>Area</B>: left mouse click to start selection of the area to be painted.<BR>"
-              "- <B>All</B>: paint all polygons.<BR>"
-              "- <B>Ref</B>: paint an area described by an external reference object.")
+              "- <B>Single Polygons</B>: left mouse click on the polygon to be painted.<BR>"
+              "- <B>Area Selection</B>: left mouse click to start selection of the area to be painted.<BR>"
+              "- <B>All Polygons</B>: paint all polygons.<BR>"
+              "- <B>Reference Object</B>: paint an area described by an external reference object.")
         )
         grid3.addWidget(selectlabel, 7, 0)
         # grid3 = QtWidgets.QGridLayout()
         self.selectmethod_combo = RadioSet([
-            {"label": _("Single"), "value": "single"},
-            {"label": _("Area"), "value": "area"},
-            {"label": _("All"), "value": "all"},
-            {"label": _("Ref."), "value": "ref"}
-        ])
+            {"label": _("Single Polygon"), "value": "single"},
+            {"label": _("Area Selection"), "value": "area"},
+            {"label": _("All Polygons"), "value": "all"},
+            {"label": _("Reference Object"), "value": "ref"}
+        ], orientation='vertical', stretch=False)
+        self.selectmethod_combo.setToolTip(
+            _("How to select the polygons to paint.<BR>"
+              "Options:<BR>"
+              "- <B>Single Polygons</B>: left mouse click on the polygon to be painted.<BR>"
+              "- <B>Area Selection</B>: left mouse click to start selection of the area to be painted.<BR>"
+              "- <B>All Polygons</B>: paint all polygons.<BR>"
+              "- <B>Reference Object</B>: paint an area described by an external reference object.")
+        )
         grid3.addWidget(self.selectmethod_combo, 7, 1)
 
         grid4 = QtWidgets.QGridLayout()
@@ -950,6 +959,38 @@ class ToolPaint(FlatCAMTool, Gerber):
             self.app.plotcanvas.vis_connect('mouse_press', on_mouse_press)
             self.app.plotcanvas.vis_connect('mouse_move', on_mouse_move)
 
+        elif select_method == 'ref':
+            self.bound_obj_name = self.box_combo.currentText()
+            # Get source object.
+            try:
+                self.bound_obj = self.app.collection.get_by_name(self.bound_obj_name)
+            except Exception as e:
+                self.app.inform.emit(_("[ERROR_NOTCL] Could not retrieve object: %s") % self.obj_name)
+                return "Could not retrieve object: %s" % self.obj_name
+
+            geo = self.bound_obj.solid_geometry
+            try:
+                if isinstance(geo, MultiPolygon):
+                    env_obj = geo.convex_hull
+                elif (isinstance(geo, MultiPolygon) and len(geo) == 1) or \
+                    (isinstance(geo, list) and len(geo) == 1) and isinstance(geo[0], Polygon):
+                    env_obj = cascaded_union(self.bound_obj.solid_geometry)
+                else:
+                    env_obj = cascaded_union(self.bound_obj.solid_geometry)
+                    env_obj = env_obj.convex_hull
+                sel_rect = env_obj.buffer(distance=0.0000001, join_style=base.JOIN_STYLE.mitre)
+            except Exception as e:
+                log.debug("ToolPaint.on_paint_button_click() --> %s" % str(e))
+                self.app.inform.emit(_("[ERROR_NOTCL] No object available."))
+                return
+
+            self.paint_poly_area(obj=self.paint_obj,
+                                 sel_obj=sel_rect,
+                                 outname=o_name,
+                                 overlap=overlap,
+                                 connect=connect,
+                                 contour=contour)
+
     def paint_poly(self, obj, inside_pt, tooldia, overlap, outname=None, connect=True, contour=True):
         """
         Paints a polygon selected by clicking on its interior.