Getting up to speed with AutoCAD 2012

[mrdavie]

It's a little bit of a challenge to get up to speed with LT after using Adesk Architecture and Revit. Hey, a thousand dollar investment isn't nearly the same as a six thousand dollar investment but I am determined to use LT to my advantage.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to alternate ways to place bubbles around plan and sections that I want to reference to enlarged versions. Right now I draw a box around the area, change the width of the polyline and then fillet the four courners and then add the identy key. The attached example was generated in Adesk Architecture and I want the detail keys to look the same.

[Charles_Shade · Accepted solution]

That bubble more or less exists as a standard Dynamic Block that comes with the program.

Type TP at the command line and explore the Annotation and Design tab.

The box you have could be created as a Dynamic Block also; that would be easy to manipulate as you need.

Please mark any response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.
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[mrdavie]

Excellent! Thanks for the file too. It would have taken me a while to figure this block out. It took me a moment to realize that I had to open callout.dwg and THEN drag the block into my palette. Thanks!

[Charles_Shade]

You are welcome.

[mrdavie]

Are you inserting this callout tag in paper space? It works fine there. I prefer to place the tags in model space but this item does not appear to be annotative so that it resizes according to the scale of the model,

[Charles_Shade]

Type BE (Block Editor).

Open the CALLOUT block

Type PROPERTIES to open the Properties window

Under the tab Block Name set the option Annotative to Yes

Time to start huntin' an peckin' an right clicken'

BTW - I built that last night after you posted for you to use. I will not use it. Enjoy.

[mrdavie]

Thanks again.

[mrdavie]

I have been able to recreate the Callout.dwg which you provided as an example. This was the only way I could get it to be annotative so it looks the same whether inserted in paper space or into viewports with varying scales. There is one issue I cannot figure out.

With your sample block, when the leader is stretched (polar stretch) the landing and detail callout remain horizontal even when the leader angle changes. I want my version to do that too. What happens now is that when I stretch my leader, if the angle changes the landing and callout do not remain horizontal.

[Charles_Shade]

Post your block so we can see.

My guess is that you need to have the Polar Stretch selection box encompass the Callout bubble too and not just the intersection of the leader and landing.

[mrdavie]

Ok, but I must tell you I did not take time to give meaningful names to the parameters.

[Charles_Shade · Accepted solution]

Are you placing a Parameter and then adding an Action to the Parameter?

If so look lower on the Block Authoring Palette to Parameter Sets (These took me a while to use also).

Erase the Polar Parameter and Polar Stretch Action that you have.

Open that Parmater Sets tab and grab the Polar Stretch Parameter/Action that has already been created. The first point you place the Parameter will be the end you do not want to move. The second point will be the end you want to move.

Double click the newly created Stretch Action and follow the prompt (You did have the selection box correctly encompassing the Bubble as needed).

The Action on this entity should perform as you intend.

My thought is that the Polar Parameter you placed was backwards. Seems odd but it can happen.

You will need to dbl click the Flip Action and add this Polar Parameter to the Flip Action as well as any other Parameters that are not currently in the Flip Action.

(You really only need to name the Parameters and Actions when DynBlk's get complicated.)

You didn't like being able to resize the rectangle with one Grip?

Please mark any response as "Accept as Solution" if it answers your question.
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[mrdavie]

I created two grips for the vertical movement of the detail key so I could expand up as well as down.

[mrdavie]

It worked! But it wasnt easy. Following your instructions, after initiating the Polar Stretch Parameter/Action under the Parameter Sets, and defining the start and end point, the command ended. The only thing to double click on was the parameter, which did not do anything except open the parameter label for renaming. But, i kept hacking away at it and now it works.