topic Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible? in Visual LISP, AutoLISP and General Customization Forum

Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 13:35:16 GMT

Does anyone know how I could get a reverse rolling ball lisp working?

Basically I have a cities property lines drawing and I have to separate the lines touching the road into a Right of Way layer, and keep the internal lines as property lines. I do have a road center line drawing that could be uses as a center line for a routine using something like vlax-curve-getClosestPointTo maybe?

These drawings are huge, so I currently do them manually for the sections I need.

The images below are what I start with and then manually select to change it to the Right of way layer.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

john.uhden — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:46:19 GMT

Well, it seems things would be a snap if the right of way around the block were a polyline.

As long as no property side line intersects the right of way at an endpoint, you could try using my QJOIN to create the polyline right of way.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

CodeDing — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:50:19 GMT

@J_Spurgeon ,

Are you using Civil 3D?

Yes: Use the LINEWORKSHRINKWRAP command

No: Use Lee Mac's OUTLINE command

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:53:55 GMT

Fantastic routine, but unfortunately I have to explode and run overkill on the property lines because they mainly come in joined together as individual boxes or weird polygons.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 14:59:13 GMT

I am using Map 3d. Lee's command is super close to what I need, however it gets confused on some important spots like this.

I will look further into his routine and see if i can make some alterations to help my application.

Thank you!

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

CodeDing — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:05:43 GMT

@J_Spurgeon ,

Assuming you are using GIS data from somewhere, that is where you are seeing your "errors" it is not from Lee's command. It is because when large quantities of linework are digitized (normally for GIS use) there are gaps that can be created by nodes not perfectly aligning from adjoining entities. So there is no single "fix" unless you somehow customize a routine to identify these gaps (wouldn't be easy). You will just have to fix these imperfections as you encounter them. Usually not too painful of a process.

Best,

~DD

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:10:02 GMT

Thank you again, I am playing with it now to see what would speed it up. These parcel drawings are the size of counties, so its taking a while. But yes it is GIS data, so the nodes and lines are very inconsistent.

Appreciate the help!

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

Kent1Cooper — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:13:58 GMT

I would think you could draw an enclosing rectangle or circle or something around a portion of the map, outboard of the area you want turn off the center-line Layer, and just use BOUNDARY or BPOLY, picking within a roadway somewhere. It would make more Polylines than you need [you can get rid of the unneeded ones along with the enclosing shape], but it should get the perimeter(s) you're looking for. [That is, of course, subject to the same possibility of little gaps that can cause incorrect outlines using custom routines.]

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

CodeDing — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:21:05 GMT

@J_Spurgeon wrote:
These parcel drawings are the size of counties, so its taking a while.

This is a red flag to me that perhaps you are not being as efficient as you should be with whatever you are doing.

What is your desired end goal? Why do you need to create ROW for "country" sized areas of parcels? I can not imagine that you would need to deliver a drawing that large to a client ever, plus it would be painful to work with.

If you give me a better idea of what you are trying to accomplish, perhaps we can suggest improvements to your workflow. Why do you have to create ROW for all parcels that you obtained from GIS?

Best,

~DD

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:33:07 GMT

I am not trying to run it on the whole drawing, I usually clip out the part that I need out of the main parcel drawing, which is still pretty large. Usually 5-10 mile long spans.

My end goal is to have the ROW lines on a separate layer than what we call the property lines. Basically I have to change the line type of the ROW lines that follow the roads.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:35:03 GMT

I just tried this with no luck, it didn't recognize the outside bounding poly as a useable poly. So it said I had no inner shapes detected. Thanks for the suggestion though, I have not used the boundary command before and it could prove useful in the future!

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:46:20 GMT

@Kent1Cooper I restarted CAD and this is working pretty decent now. Thanks!

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

john.uhden — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:51:28 GMT

How about posting a sample drawing? I'd like to see what might work.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 15:54:51 GMT

@john.uhden Here is a clipping of a drawing with the road center lines as well.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 16:45:27 GMT

@john.uhden Here is a second copy, this is without the poly lines being xploded

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

john.uhden — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:19:27 GMT

QJOIN did not work as every front lot corner is also a right-of-way
endpoint. Right now I am running a homegrown MENDLINEs program (intended
for a little different purpose). It is taking almost literally forever as
it is trying to operate on every line on the PARCEL layer in the drawing.
I am not expecting pleasing results, but it might be tweaked a little to
work better for this situation. I just hate doing things manually if
there's some kinda slam-dunk approach available. That's why I'm interested.

So, are you J. Spurgeon or J.S. Purgeon?

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

Kent1Cooper — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:25:36 GMT

@J_Spurgeon wrote:

I just tried this with no luck, it didn't recognize the outside bounding poly as a useable poly. So it said I had no inner shapes detected. ....

[Whoops -- now I see your message about re-starting and it's working. Anyway, since I made the pretty picture...] It worked for me. I drew the red Circle, then a BOUNDARY command with a single pick within one of the roadways produced the green Polylines.

Any gaps in the source elements would corrupt the result, but I would think that if the zone boundary [my red Circle, your Polyline] is closed, you would get something. Is everything on the same plane?

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:52:04 GMT

@john.uhden Yea that's the difficult part, I thought for sure it would be possible to select the lines closest to the center line. I use rolling ball sometimes to make my own center lines, but I can't figure out the reverse of that.

I completely agree, love it when something gets automated.

And its J. Spurgeon lol Just realized I never changed my username.

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:48:58 GMT

@Kent1Cooper That actually seems to be dong a decent job in small sections. If I could get overkill to delete the line under the new poly line created by the boundary command then I might be set. For some reason its leaving them

Re: Reverse rolling ball? Is it possible?

J_Spurgeon — Tue, 27 Apr 2021 18:27:58 GMT

@Kent1Cooper

Also, is there somewhere I can set the threshold for tighter angles? This is happening on radiused corners.

Green line was the one created by boundary tool