When I click on Advanced Digitizing Panel, I get the message "CAD tools are not enabled for the current map tool" What does this mean and how can I used the Advanced Digitizing tool?
I'm using QGIS 2.18.12
[GIS] CAD tools are not enabled for the current map tool
qgis
Related Solutions
I would strongly suggest creating a grid of 250x250 m squares rather than doing it manually. You can do this from the toolbar:
Vector > Research Tools > Vector grid...
If you can locate the North Sea by a shapefile then you can use the extents of this layer; if you can locate by other means such as using a basemap from OpenLayers (or preferably QuickMapServices plugin) then you can use the extents of the canvas.
The output can be in polygons so you can select, edit, move the ones you want to keep and delete the remaining polygons. The amount of squares will depend on the coordinate extents you use.
Also, as @TobsenB mentioned, you may want to use a CRS which uses meters as distance.
You don't need to use the panel to access the Simplify Feature function, you can do this from the toolbar. First enable it by going to:
View > Toolbars > Advanced Digitizing Toolbar
Select a polygon/line layer and toggle the editing icon (shown in the blue circle) and then select the Simplify Feature (shown in the red circle):
Note: I tested this on QGIS 2.16.0-Nødebo.
Best Answer
One possible issue is that your data is in geographic coordinates, and CAD tools can not work with geographic coordinates:
Advanced Digitizing Panel, and you will receive a message thatHowever, when working with projected coordinates data, it works perfectly: