Talk:Transversal (instrument making)

Circular Transversals
The section about them is basically empty, other than saying they’re more complicated to draw. More information would be useful. Anyone know about them? CielProfond (talk) 16:34, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Ideal ones are hard to draw but in practice they were approximated using a circular arc. The problem is how to big an arc to draw and where to center it. There's a section about this in Bion's book on instrument-making. It is only a short section because he makes it easy. Woodframe (talk) 21:50, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Modern use
The article starts out saying that transversals have been replaced by Vernier scales. It would be better to mention the continuing use of transversals in cartography and surveying. Their advantage is that they are quick to use with dividers for measuring and transferring distances. Woodframe (talk) 21:50, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Merge from diagonal scale
From what I can tell, a diagonal scale is just an ordinary linear scale with one or two of these 'traversals' on the ends. I think it would perhaps be better to just describe diagonal scales in a "history" section of this page, or the like. Thoughts? –jacobolus (t) 04:38, 19 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Support: Clearly the diagonal scale article describes the same thing, and is only a stub with little if any content worth merging. catslash (talk) 08:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 18:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)