Circles inside line

[Anonymous]

Hi.

I have a project where aluminium panels are going to be perforated in different patterns. The perforation machine is going to use a 5mm tap to make the holes. I need to draw a scale 1:1 drawing of the aluminum plate that goes in to the perforation machine.

Is there a easy way for me to place a "net" of 5mm circles over a line pattern and then remove the circles touching outside the pattern line without trimming the circles that are removed? In other words the circles that are touching the pattern line needs to be removed completely, not trimmed of.

See picture.

Thank's =D

[murray-clack]

Try this..

1. Make sure the logo is a closed Polyline
2. Array your circles as needed
3. Turn the group of circles into a block (make sure the "convert to block" radio button is checked)
4. Enter the command XCLIP, select the block of circles, accept NEW, enter S for "Select Polyline", and select the logo

[Michiel.Valcke]

You could work with the commands _QSE (quickselect) or _SELECTSIMILAR to quickly isolate all your circles which are still complete (non-complete circles become arcs - different objects). You can use the command _HIDEOBJECTS to make them temporarily invisible and then select the rest of your objects and delete them all.

When you bring back the hidden circles with the command _UNHIDE or _UNISOLATE they should be the only elements left in your drawing.

I have demonstrated the principle here:

To create the net, you can use a custom hatch pattern and explode the hatch. In the express tools you have the superhatch command which can help you create custom hatch patterns, and a quick google search will yield tons of tutorials on how to create your own hatch pattern.

[Kent1Cooper]

---

@Michiel.Valcke wrote:

....To create the net, you can use a custom hatch pattern and explode the hatch. ....

---

Not if they need to be actual Circles.  Hatch patterns can be made only of straight-line pieces.  @Anonymous , would a "circle" that's really a polygon of many short segments work for you?  I have a pattern that makes 24-gons, but they're in a triangular grid, not rectangular:
 

but on close examination, they're not actually circular:

If that's close enough for you, a similar pattern could be defined in a square grid.

If you need true Circles, such as for fabricating equipment to use their centers for hole drilling locations [you can't get those from a Hatch pattern], you could define a Block containing one Circle, and use Superhatch, then Explode the result, and all the ones that were clipped at the edges will become whole again and extend across them.  An AutoLisp routine could be written to find all of those with a Fence selection using the vertices of the Polyline outline, if all its segments are always lines, not arcs.

EDIT:  Search the Customization Forum for routines to select everything inside a Polyline.  You could join your outlines into Polylines if they're not already, do your wide-area Array of Circles, and use one of those routines to find all the ones you want to keep.  You could do something like put them on a different Layer, turn that Layer off, and easily Erase the remaining ones.  But be aware that many of those routines could have erroneous results if there are Polyline arc segments involved [that issue is discussed in most such threads].

[Kent1Cooper]

---

@murray-clack wrote:

.... XCLIP....

---

That won't fulfill this requirement from Message 1:

"... remove the circles touching outside the pattern line without trimming the circles that are removed? In other words the circles that are touching the pattern line needs to be removed completely, not trimmed of[f]."

[dbroad]

These would be my choices:

1. Superhatch method, which only works with a rectangular pattern
   1. Make a block with a circle and points on layer defpoints that defines its spacing/size.
   2. Use the superhatch command with the block option.
   3. Explode the superhatch.
   4. Edit the block definition to remove the points
   5. Delete the extra holes for odd locations manually.
2. Array method, which allows great flexibility regarding angles.
   1. Add a circle.
   2. Array it large enough to cover the boundary and align it as well as possible.
   3. Adjust and then explode.
   4. Erase outside elements by selecting a large enough window to enclose the exploded array and removing a crossing window of the boundary itself. Finish by inspecting angular locations and manually removing them.
3. Use a filling program, similar to the garden path tutorial.  The only copy of the tutorial that I could find was on the Mac website, which seemed odd to me. Garden Path Tutorial . This would require a significant programming effort but would then be sufficient to automate without inspection.

Technically, if you will be drilling holes in sheet metal, I would think that you would prefer to use points instead of circles and convert that to CNC code for drilling.

[JTBWorld]

If you want to do it manually you can use regular object selection with use of either WP or CP.

If you will do it a lot and need help with a custom command to simplify it let me know. 

[leeminardi]

If you want only the circles that are completely inside the polyline and none that cross it or are out side it I would use the  Move command followed by WP (Window Polygon) then, with object snap set to end,  pick the vertices that  define the polygon ending with picking the polyline itself an moving the selected objects away from the other objects.  This will yield on the circles totally with the polyline.