Create a fairly simple Lisp for me please.
@Anonymous wrote:
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I am wanting the lisp to allow me to select 2 points, draw a line between those 2 points and I want the line to offset 3" for a 1/4" scale drawing and 6" for an 8th scale drawing. Basically I want the offset to be based upon the dimscale.
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I will also want a "DOT" placed at each end of the line. My office already have a lisp for creating this "DOT" and it is called "SPOT"
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For the Line part, how would the side to which the Line is to be Offset be determined? [EDIT: I imagine this is an area where the Action Recorder could sometimes "let you down," but an AutoLisp routine could, for example, be made to always Offset in the more upward of the possible directions, regardless of the angle of the Line or in which direction it was drawn.]
For the dot part of it, I'd suggest using a dot defined in a drawing file that can be Inserted as a Block in any drawing. Let's call it dot.dwg, in some shared folder location that's in everyone's Support File Search Path List. Make the dot there .05 units in diameter, on Layer 0, and Insert it, scaled directly by the DIMSCALE System Variable. You wouldn't need the spot_od variable at all, and would adjust the (command) part:
(command
"laymcur" spot_loc
"_.insert" "dot" spot_loc (getvar 'dimscale) "" ""
)
Also, if you wanted to move one of the dots, it would have a grip at its insertion point at the center, which Donuts don't -- you'd need to reach for Osnap Center as a basis to move a Donut if it's the center you want to end up somewhere else. And a Block couldn't be distorted as a Donut could by grabbing a grip and dragging just that grip, rather than the whole Donut, somewhere accidentally.
[By the way, you could do this in a more "graceful" way than (repeat 20), if you're interested, that could be ended if you need fewer than 20 by Enter/space rather than requiring Escape as I suspect yours does, and that could go on for any number more than 20 if you ever need that, without reinvoking the command.]
@Anonymous wrote:
So I am not 100% sure how the offset would work. I am kind of wanting to tweak that aspect of the lisp. ....
.... how do I ensure that this new command will take the layer of the line I am attaching it to and apply it to the dot?
Operationally, when you do it manually, how would you choose which side to Offset to for Lines running in different directions? A routine can probably be made to choose the same way for you, if there's something consistent about the criteria.
Ensure the Layer in the same way as in your SPOT routine -- I left the LAYMCUR command in my suggested adjustment, which should handle it, provided the dot in the drawing that's being Inserted is on Layer 0 as mentioned.
@Anonymous wrote:
I see these smiley faces... Why?
You can turn off the colon+character emoticons. See this thread.
@Anonymous wrote:
Well if I was to do it manually, I would draw a line, then offset based on dimscale. I would assume 3" for 1/4" and 6" for 8th scale. That is probably the best i can assume for at the moment. Maybe even more, I might want it to be 6" for 1/4 scale and 12" for 8th scale. I am unsure as I have to test this to figure it out.
The dimensional part is easy, once you decide what you want it to be, and can be a single calculation that will work for any scale, not just 1/4" and 1/8" scales.
The more challenging part is how a routine would decide to which side to Offset the Line. If there's no regularity about the circumstances, it can be left for a User pick in each case, but that's a step they would need to take. If there is anything predictable about it, for example that it should always go in the more upward direction, and [let's say] to the left for a vertical Line, then the User can be spared the need to pick the side each time, which would be an operational simplification as well as a small time-saver. This kind of figuring is done in a lot of routines that determine, for example, the rotation of Text that aligns with something, so that it will always be in the more readable direction, regardless of the direction of whatever locations or elements the angle is being calculated from.
@Anonymous wrote:
I want it to offset in both directions.
Ah -- that's easy, by turning the Line into a VLA object and using the (vla-offset) function using the positive and negative versions of the same value. Then there is no pick point to be determined, and the angle of the Line doesn't matter.
In your original description, you say you "want a "DOT" placed at each end of the line." Is that on only the original Line, or also on the Offset ones, or on the Offset ones but not on the original?
Ah again -- EXTEND rather than OFFSET.
As a start, try the attached BeamLineLabel.lsp with its BEAM command, which I use for Lines representing beams and lintels. Use the WW option [as if from a Wall to another Wall, where the beam Lines get Extended into the wall at both ends], and change the 0.05 in two places to the plotted-on-paper length you want them Extended. The two points you would give it for a beam are at the face of the wall, so give it the places [on your blue lines?] from which you want the length extension to be taken.
It puts in a Text label, and has its own Layer names, etc., but if it otherwise works for you in the Line-drawing-and-Extending aspect, it can be altered easily to use your Layer name, omit the Text and the Post-vs.-Wall options, and add the dots [and presumably change the file and command names].
