Plines vs Lines

[Anonymous]

Can anyone suggest an advantage in using plines over regular lines, without the need for width, measuring an area, or convenience of having them joined to each other?  One of my colleagues insists on using individual plines and it's driving me batty.

[pendean · Accepted solution]

Plines are not an upgrade or replacement for lines: your colleague needs to better explain why they do it and you two probably should come to a mutual agreement for moving forward. You pretty much explained the "normal" reasons the to switch (and you don't need apparently).

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Dean, I totally agree! He has no justification, other than he "loves plines!"  I have noting against them, and they certainly can be hugely helpful when they're needed, but when they aren't there's just no point that I could think of and now I know for sure that's correct. This is an individual who is resistant to instruction.  I just wanted to hear it from someone more knowledgeable before pressing the issue.

[Charles_Shade · Accepted solution]

Press. Press hard.

PLINES; IMHO, have their place but not in general use

Love the ability to create an ARC...

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your response, Charles. What do you mean by, “Love the ability
to create an ARC...?”

[steven-g]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Can anyone suggest an advantage in using plines over regular lines

---

Playing devil's advocate here, can you suggest why plines have a disadvantage over lines. I spend a great deal of my time converting lines that don't meet at corners or do form a wall boundary into polylines because I do want an area or even just a total length, or to be able to use the offset command on one single entitiy rather than having to select many individual lines, I can't think of anything that would be better drawn in lines if it could be drawn as a polyline, there are not many times in a drawing when a line is just that a line, more often it is a part of a larger object. 

Then it comes to other less obvious advantages, if you work with external drawings having 3D content then plines offer a big advantage over lines in that once a pline is started it ignores any further Z (or elevation) issues and always draws on the starting plane.

[Anonymous]

3-D is not an issue with LT – we rarely use drawings from outside sources -
and these plines are individual lines, not connected segments. I’m not at
all opposed to plines when used appropriately, but these are not. The main
disadvantage is that the angle of a pline is not dispayed in the properties
box, and this person has a problem with keeping his ortho on when it should
be, and that affects dimensions.

[steven-g]

3D only tends to be an issue when working with external files, even manufacturers blocks as opposed to client drawings, and yes it does affect LT. A line drawn between objects with varying z values in LT will snap to those elevations and report the real length of the line when people expect just the 'plane' length, a pline will remain flat (even though it might have an elevation).

If ortho isn't on then plines or lines will make no difference to drawing accuracy, but I have to admit that drawing using plines as individual 'lines' is a bit of a weird concept.

[GrantsPirate]

There are advantages and disadvantages to lines and plines.  Using plines for a single line is kind of strange to me, but what ever works I guess.