topic Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them in AutoCAD Forum

How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 11:09:24 GMT

I have a pattern made up of a lot of lines and circles between lines. I fill (off) and regen it. Some rectangles and circles are generated. But there are a lot of lines inside circles. And I want to join all of them and then get some closed polygons. How could I do? 1.png is snapshot of a part of pattern after fill and regen. 2.png is the cirles with lines. 3.png is what I want.

Thanks a lot for your kind help.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

dmfrazier — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 12:18:52 GMT

"I fill (off) and regen it."

What is the purpose of doing the "fill"?

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 12:21:52 GMT

Are the "lines" [and the rectangles] actually Polylines with width?

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 12:24:07 GMT

@dmfrazier wrote:

"I fill (off) and regen it."

What is the purpose of doing the "fill"?

I think they mean that they turn FILLMODE off, so that [my assumption] Polylines with width are not filled. REGEN is needed after changing the FILLMODE value, to visually get rid of the fill.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

leeminardi — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 13:28:48 GMT

To get a drawing like your figure 3 from figure 1 I would use the boundary command. Draw a rectangle around the entire figure 1 then use boundary followed by a click just inside the rectangle to create a polyline of the outer boundary. Use boundary again to make polylines for the inner islands.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:06:21 GMT

yes, it is.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:06:44 GMT

@leeminardi wrote:

... use the boundary command. Draw a rectangle around the entire figure 1 then use boundary ....

Maybe. If the "lines" are Polylines with width, as suggested by one of their original images, that won't work. Boundary does not "see" Polyline width, but goes to the center-line path of a Polyline. Given the left situation here, that approach produces the dashed green on the right:

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:06:50 GMT

exactly！

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:09:16 GMT

yes, it is. This is what I want to say.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:12:08 GMT

In my opining, could we convert every line to closed rectangle and then convert it to a region, and then use union command.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:16:24 GMT

Part of a solution could be PLWtoOutline.lsp with its PLWO command, >here<. That will make all those edges recognizable to BOUNDARY. It would remain to ERASE those outlines and the Circles.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

Kent1Cooper — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:24:30 GMT

@tongkezhou21 wrote:

In my opining, could we convert every line to closed rectangle and then convert it to a region, and then use union command.

The conversion part, see Message 11. [But please use correct terminology -- the word "line" has a specific meaning in AutoCAD, and these are not Lines.] I hadn't thought of the Region approach, but it looks like it would work [also converting the Circles to Regions].

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:27:37 GMT

Thanks for you correction. I am going to try immediately. Thanks a lot.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 14:54:21 GMT

Hi Kent, Sorry to bother you. I have another question. I have converted polylines to rectangles successfully using PLWO command. As you can see, there are many circles in my file. When I want to convert them by calling PLWO command, it didn't work. Autocad showed:

select object:

can't call (command) from *error* before call (*push-error-using-command*).

suggest convert (command) to (command-s).

And a very big circle appeared.

Do you know what it means? Thanks a lot.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 16:07:34 GMT

When I convert circles by calling PLWO command, I can only convert circle one by one. And There will be a small circle and a big circle. Could you please help me?

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

dmfrazier — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 11:35:47 GMT

I think this is (perhaps) because the "circles" were made with the "DONUT" command, with an inside diameter and an outside diameter specified. This actually creates a 2D polyline (similar to your "lines") "circle" (two arcs joined) with thickness based on the difference between the two diameters. The LSP routine converts this into two circles in the same way it converts a thick polyline into two lines.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:47:09 GMT

I think maybe you are right. So could I replace them by circles, or magnify every circles at the same time based on their own centers? Thanks a lot.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

dmfrazier — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:50:41 GMT

If they all should have the same diameter, then you can select them (use Selectsimilar or Filter) and use Properties to change them all at once.

Otherwise, you will have to pick and choose based on diameter.

Unless someone else can come up with a nifty tool that does some (more) magic.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 18:19:33 GMT

Unfortunately, their diameters are different. It would be better if we could magnify them in proportion, such as 1:2.

Re: How to join rectangles and circles between them

tongkezhou21 — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 18:46:30 GMT

Sorry, what do you mean? This is a link about golf