Invisible linetype

[Anonymous]

The invisible linetype is not included in ACA2010. Can someone tell me where I can find it or give me the

recipe for the line type so I can create it my self.

Thanks

[pendean]

invisible? Do you mean HIDDEN linetype? Load it if it's not in the file you are in, LINETYPE command's LOAD button, ensure you have selected an unmodified ACAD.LIN file (assuming that's your problem, someone edited yours).

[David_W_Koch]

I do not believe that an "invisible" linetype was ever part of the out-of-the-box ACAD.lin file (but I could be wrong about that).  I had previously read about someone creating a linetype that simulates invisibility, however.  My apologies to the person who originally came up with this idea, as I do not recall where I read it (or if the person writing it was the originator or just someone passing the idea alogn).

The "invisible" linetype consists of a starting Dot and then a really long pen up segment.  For all but truly crazy-long lines, you will end up with a dot at each endpoint and nothing in between.  I used the following and it worked for me.  Unless your lines exceed 83 quadrillion feet in length (or whatever 999,999,999,999,999,999 drawing units works out to for the units you are using in your file), you will only get a dot at the starting and ending points of your line.

*INVISIBLE,Dots at line ends only .                      .

A,0,-999999999999999999

The attached ZIP file contains the custom LIN file I created so that I could load this linetype into a drawing file.  (These Discussion Groups do not permit attaching LIN files directly.) You could also add this to your ACAD.lin file if you prefer - but if you customize that, you will want to back it up so you have a record of your customizations so that you can add them to future ACAD.lin files.

[MarySeufert]

I could be wrong too, but I believe the 'Invisible' linetype came from the Softdesk days. One of my CAD Managers in the past was meticulous about documentation, and he always had this linetype labeled as a Softdesk one. The custom line added to my ACAD.LIN is this:

*INVISIBLE,Invisible .         (Dot at endpoints only)              .
A,0,-1000

David's would definitely assure dots only!!!

~ Mary

[Anonymous]

thanks ALL, thats what I needed.

[Anonymous]

I normally create a DIMSTYLE called Invisible. I do ALIGNED dimension and turn off all the Dim Lines and Extension Lines and leave the text on. If I decide I DO NOT want the text I simply Edit  and hit the Spacebar leaving just the dots on your pickpoints.

Sometimes I do this to place bearings on property lines.

Just to mention.

[legWZPED]

This works great for straight lines, but not so well for arcs. As soon as I convert to an arc, the spacing between the dots shrinks down and I end up with ......

I thought it might relate to linetype generation, but the results are the same with it enabled/disabled. I've never seen a pattern restart/repeat like this before within a single segment.

Any clue on what I might be missing?

[MarySeufert]

Your not missing anything.... An unfortunate normal behavior with this linetype.  AutoCAD doesn't actually 'draw' an arc, rather small line segments. Each dot is at the start and end of the lines that make up the arc. The amount of dots on the arc will correlate to your display resolution settings (Options- Display Tab).

[legWZPED]

Thanks, Mary. That is really unfortunate. Adding it to my growing list of AutoCAD shortcomings. I feel like during the ACAD development process there were a lot of conversations that went like:

Engineer: "Hey so there's this small thing I could tweak that would increase the functionality of [X] feature. but it's gonna take a day to get working"

Boss: "Nah, skip it."

[pendean]

If they did have that talk, it was 35-years ago and not enough users in that whole time spoke up about it enough for them to change it.