topic Re: Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting in Visual LISP, AutoLISP and General Customization Forum

Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting

Micah.WrightX94VQ — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 14:55:21 GMT

I use AutoCAD 2021. Starting with a rectangle, say 10" by 20", I want to make a vertical line 3" to the left of the upper-right point. I select the Line tool, hover over the upper-right corner until it reads "Endpoint", and I drag my cursor to the left because I want a known distance from the corner point. However, the input it gives me is the absolute coordinate system. I want it to display (and give me an input) a distance away from the point, so that I can move the cursor to the left and type in "3" for my inches offset, have it snap the first point there, and allow me to continue drying my line. This is similar to "@" at the start of the distance, but I want to change the setting, not type in a command every time I want to make a line.

I spent two hours trying to find this setting. I want to change the setting for all uses of this offset distance, not just a command to do it one time or having to continuously put in the command. If anyone could show me the setting, I'd e grateful. Thanks.

Re: Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting

JBerns — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:02:49 GMT

@Micah.WrightX94VQ,

Have you enabled the OSNAP and OTRACK tools?

Also, you are asking on the AutoCAD Customization forum. Are you trying to automate with AutoLISP or Visual LISP?

Otherwise, this would be a good question for the Autodesk General Forum.

Regards,

Jerry

Re: Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting

Micah.WrightX94VQ — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 15:50:47 GMT

OSNAP is on. I can snap to the corner of the rectangle hover for second for it to change to change to a green crosshairs and appear to measure the distance from the corner with a green dashed line.

For OTRACK, if you're talking about the F11 command, that's on too.

So when you make a rectangle, you click a point, and then you can input the width and height, instead of selecting a point and then entering in the Cartesian location for the opposite corner to complete the rectangle. That's kind of what I want. I have my rectangle, but I want to draw a vertical line to section off part of the inside (making a floor plan for a house). I want to have my starting point a certain distance from the corner, rather than my starting point being an absolute location relative to the (0,0) point of the coordinates. This setting is saved on a different file, so I know it's there, but I can't find the setting to apply it to this new drawing.

Re: Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting

Sea-Haven — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 00:48:49 GMT

Ok a few programming answers, pick point on rectang near an end, 1st now can get which section of pline, 2nd can get which corner is closest, 3rd enter offset, 4th enter length of new line - is in. 5th draw new line. It does not matter if pline is 3 or 10 lines code should work. I would expect it is already out there. So will wait a bit before having a go. For testing I would use ploygon, including reversed.

Re: Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting

ВeekeeCZ — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 08:48:29 GMT

Not sure if I understood you well, but it seems to me that the FROM osmode is the right tool. See the screencast HERE

It's RT click to get the shortcut menu and F key for From (hope it's so by default, my menu is a bit customized).

Re: Offset A Starting Point At A Relative Distance From A Reference Point Setting

Micah.WrightX94VQ — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 12:57:58 GMT

Ah, I didn't know about the Shift+F From function. That worked perfectly, and I'll use it in the future. However, I figured out my issue. I prefer to do most of my work by clicking instead of having to memorize a bunch of functions and commands (not that Shift+F is too much). For my line Snaps, I had "Nearest" selected, which interferes with a lot of Snap things I'm doing. So I was able to turn Nearest off, select Line, hover over the corner, wait a couple seconds, and move the cursor to the side (essentially getting a From command) and input my relative offset distance.

Thanks for all the help! I hope others have learned from this.