Awhile back Peter Hughes-Davies and a few others were discussing a guy anchor block with a polar stretch action that allowed a simple method of rotating and stretching the guy to the pole. I made a note of it for the future and moved on.
Fast forward to the present and I'm working on a large as-built survey of three units of a subdivision where the city requires all utilities and other improvements located in the street right-of-way to be shown. Once I used F2F to insert all of the symbols; I realized that it was going to take half of forever to reposition all of the symbols and add leaders to them.
The proverbial light bulb went on above my head and I thought it would be really handy to have blocks that work like LDD or Carlson point blocks. Having a leader automatically created as you drag the block away from the insertion point would be great. My solution isn't quite that slick, but I'm pretty happy with it.
I took the Dynamic block idea from the thread months ago and dug deeper. I figured out how to create them, then modified several of my blocks so that when they're inserted they are centered on the point and look normal. Clicking on one of the blocks reveals three special grips. The first one allows me to toggle the visibility of the hidden leader, the second allows me to move the block with the tip of the leader remaining on the insertion point, and the third grip lets me flip the block left to right around the insertion point as needed.
Here's how they look when they're first inserted.
This is how they look once the leader is turned on and the block moved away from the insertion point. By default they're set up with the leader on the left side of the block, but the flip grip allows me to quickly mirror the block as shown.
The initial setup wasn't all that bad. Figuring out how to keep the text from reversing when flipping the block left to right drove me to distraction. I'd like to further automate them so that when I drag the block away from the insertion point, the leader becomes visible, and the block flips left or right as I cross an imaginary vertical line running through the insertion point. Anybody who knows how to make that happen please chime in.
Cool. I have been working on my blocks and may have to follow your lead... My quick revision list:
added wipeouts to all objects
added rotation to applicable objects
added stretch to several items
used a attdef to add text - will not rotate with the block and can be changed or relocated
(Hatches were created in another drawing and will be added to this drawing this week.)
That's an awesome legend.
I discovered the wipeout trick for blocks years ago when we first started using LDD. Dynamic bearing-distance labels and trimmed linework are a bad combination.:pinch: Another pet peave of mine is exploded line types where the line consists of about a million separate line and text segments.
I would love to automate and create blocks similar to those. I also like the legend. I might have to "borrow" some of those ideas.
Where can I find some information on how to create blocks similar to those?
Thanks
You've essentially recreated the functionality of Civil3d cogo points.
Here's a link to a search of AutoDesk containing a bunch of dynamic block info.
There are also two forums on AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) that are dedicated to dynamic blocks, one for sharing blocks and the other for technical questions. AUGI Forum Scroll down and look for Dynamic Blocks - Sharing & Dynamic Blocks - Technical.
Thanks Stephen. I'll have to find some time to look into this.
I want it! 😀 😀
