New e-book: Understanding AutoCAD Blocks

Hello dear readers,



We have now completed the Blocks series that we have been working on for quite some time. We have always been compiling article series into e-books upon completing them. This tradition has not changed and we are now offering you Erhan Toker's e-book: "Understanding AutoCAD Blocks".

This time, our e-book has a price tag. Our readers who wish to access the articles can find them on our site, for free. Readers who wish to have a compiled version of the e-books in their library can purchase the e-book for $ 9,95 with PAYPAL.

Sample Pages
Table of Contents

Thank you all!

9.95 USD.-

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ARRAY Command in AutoCAD 1 - Creating Rectangular Array

[This article was prepared using AutoCAD 2011 and the operation of the command may be different from previous versions.]


Figure.1

Copying objects at regular intervals is a situation we face quite commonly in AutoCAD. We mentioned how DIVIDE and MEASURE commands can be used in placing blocks at regular intervals. These two commands just copy the blocks and their primary function is not this. The ARRAY command can carry out both linear and polar copying. AutCAD can do linear arrays in matrices with 2 dimensions (3) and polar arrays in circular patterns. This article discusses rectangular arrays.

Let’s Prepare the Stage

Let’s decide on what we really want before executing the command. As an example, let’s use a drawing like the one in Figure.2 below.


Figure.2

This drawing contains 5 axis placed at 250 unit intervals along the X axis and 3 axis placed at 400 unit intervals along the Y axis. In the lower left corner we have a ‘column’ of 50x75 size. Using the ARRAY command, we will copy this column to all the intersection points of our axis, in one fell swoop. We placed the column in the lower left corner intentionally because the positive axis of our coordinates are to the right and upwards. This however is not an obligatory starting parameter, we are also allowed to define negative values for offset distances. We will cover this while running the command.

The Way the ARRAY Command Works

The command can be reached from the ‘Modify’ panel in the ‘Home’ tab on the ribbon interface or by entering ARRAY or AR in the command line.



Command: ARRAY


Figure.3

The command’s window is really well thought out and useful. On top, you select the type of array you wish to use. In this example, we’ll be using “Rectangular Array”. Then we need to use the “Select objects” button to select the objects we need to copy, that is, our column. We then need to enter the number of rows and columns we need. We need 3 rows and 5 columns (corresponding to the number of axis we have...), all that’s left is to specify the row offset distances. Here we’re faced with more choices. The big button allows us to select a rectangle where the X and Y distances between the marked points are used as row and column offsets. The order with which we specify the points is significant.


Figure.4

As seen in the figure above, the X and Y coordinate differences determine the distances for row and column offsets. X is used for column offsef and Y is used for row offset. As we have our column on the lower left corner of our drawing, it will be appropriate for us to complete our selection starting from the lower left heading to the upper right corner.

The “angle of array” at the bottom helps us specify the angle of array. Our example boasts a system of 0 degrees, we thus don’t have to enter any value.


Figure.5

Our axis system might have been oblique. We would have had to specift an angle then.


Figure.6

In angled systems, if X and Y values are to be specified on-screen, they should be done so seperately.

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Tip: Copying Layers Between Drawings Using AutoCAD Design Center

Dear Friends,



I will be continuing my series on the Design Center with this article. Previously, we talked about how all layers in a drawing can be brought into the drawing we’re working on.

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Fig.1

Open up the your Design Center with the CTRL+2 keystroke combination. Find the drawing from which you wish to copy layers. Click on the little plus sign on the left side of the drawing and select ‘Layers’. You’ll see that the layers in the drawing will be listed on the upper right side. Select the layers you wish to copy and then right click to select ‘Add Layer(s)’.

Layers already existing in your drawing will be ignored.

There will be more coming on the Design Center these days.

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AutoCAD for MAC Announced

Hello dear friends,



Autodesk, who has been supporting only the PC platform despite the requests of MAC users has now announced AutoCAD for Mac. AutoCAD for Mac, which has been announced to be ”Coming this Fall” on Autodesk’sown site will be a native 64-bit program.



There are also other suprises that will please Apple users. You will be able to view drawings on the iPhone and edit them on the iPad.





You can follow this link for the product brochure, this link for the video, and this link to try the product.

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Creating Block Libraries Using AutoCAD Design Center

Hello friends,



I actually don’t like using words like ‘easy’ ‘simple’, ‘quick’, but all it takes to create a block library with AutoCAD Design Center is really just a click. I will be discussing more about the Design Center from now on, making our work easier and explainin the Design Center in one fell swoop.

Let’s get started; open up the Design Center with the CTRL+2 keystroke combination. Resize it as you see fit.


Fig.1

The Design Center helps you browse through drawings much like Windows Explorer does within Windows and lets you control drawing properties, layers, line types and everything you can think of related to the drawing.

Without diving into further details, lets see how you can create a block library with the blocks in your drawings. Just like with Windows Explorer, find the drawing file that you wish to look into in the “Folders” tab of the Design Center. Click on the ‘+’ sign on the left of the drawing and then select ‘Blocks’ from the list.

You’ll see that for each drawing, the blocks in that drawing will be listed in the upper right part of the window. Highlighting any block displays a preview of the block below. You can resize the preview window as you wish.

Now, creating that library... You can actually place all the blocks you want in your library into a single drawing and then use the Design Center like a block library. You can drag and drop blocks from the Design Center into drawings.


Fig.2

However, if you right click on ‘Blocks’ as seen in Figure.2 and then select ‘Create Tool Palette...’, AutoCAD creates a library of all the blocks in the drawing and places it in the tool palette.


Fig.3

It’s all this simple. I’ll keep discussing the Design Center for some time coming.

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Blocks 16 - Scale Units in Blocks

[AutoCAD 2000 & Higher versions]


Figure.1

Sometimes we may need to change the scale units of a block after having defined the block. As a normal user, we would tend to use the properties window to do this. This is what we see in the properties window that pops up upon selecting the block.


Figure.2

As you can see, the block unit cannot be changed from here. What you’re actually intending to do is to change the block definition. The properties window however, is associated with only the block reference, the instance of the block. Now let’s open up the block defining window by entering BLOCK or the B keystroke shortcut in the command prompt.


Figure.3

Here, we select the name of the block that we wish to edit, then select the new block unit and then hit the ‘OK’ button. As a block definition with that name is already present in the drawing, AutoCAD will display a warning.


Figure.4

Replying this prompt by selecting ‘Redefine block’ will change the unif in your block’s definition.

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Blocks 15 - Changing the Scales of Blocks

[Autocad 2000 & Higher versions]


Figure.1

Scaling of Block objects can be done in a different way, compared to other objects. Looking at the object properties of a block, you see that they carry values for X, Y and Z scales. This can also be seen while placing the block too, in the Insert dialog box.


Figure.2

A scale common to all three axis can be specified (uniform scale) or a different scale can be defined for individual axis (non-uniform scale). Changing the scale on just one axis prevents us from performing certain operations. That said, I must also mention that scaling along a single axis has its benefits too. For example, scaling a circle to 1.5 along the X axis gives you a perfect ellips. A profile drawn as a unit can be stretched to fit, using scales. This can help you in a variety of profile drawings.


Figure.3

I wish you all a good week.

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Blocks 14 - Editing Blocks In-Place... Using the Reference Editor

[AutoCAd 2009 & Higher versions]

[Commands: REFEDIT, REFCLOSE, BEDIT, BLOCK]


Figure.1

When using blocks, we may sometimes need to edit objects within blocks. However, this is not as simple as editing ordinary AutoCAD objects. There’s a command for that: REFEDIT.

To access the command, all we have to do is to select ‘Edit Block In-Place’ in the right click menu that appears upon right-clicking on the relevant block. We need to select which block (sometimes blocks within blocks) we wish to edit.


Figure.2

Once we complete the selection, all other objects lose focus while the selected block remains highlighted on the screen. The reference editing tab also appears on the ribbon strip.


Figure.3

All that will be done at this step will be done using standard editing commands within AutoCAD. You can see our block before and after editing in Figures 4 and 5 respectively.


Figure.4


Figure.5

Click on the ‘Save Changes’ button once you’re done editing or the ‘Discard Changes’ if you change your mind. If you accept the changes, all blocks with the same name in the drawing will be updated.

AutoCAD also has another developed block editor. That can be accessed with the BEDIT command or by double clicking on the block and then selecting the required block from the list as we did above. Although both editors have the same uses, the BEDIT command can be used in editing dynamic commands. Moreover, this new editor does not allow us to use UCS and some other 3 dimensional commands. I therefore refrain from using this command unless I have to work on dynamic commands.

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Blocks 13 - Using ATTRIBUTEs

[AutoCAD 2007 & higher versions]



We will conclude our discussions on ATTRIBUTE usage with an applied example. We will make a block from a circle and write it's area in the middle as an attribute.

Let's construct a circle with 100 unit radius and open up the attribute definition window.


Figure.2

Let’s first mark the ‘Preset’ and then the ‘Constant’ options. Our aim is to enable the user to be able to edit the attribute value. By making the justification ‘Middle’, we ensure that the attribute is placed in the center of the circle. After entering a name for the attribute, let’s open the FIELD window by hitting the formula button on the side. We talk about the FIELD command in two previous articles. Let’s continue from here.


Figure.3

Through this window, we can access nearly every information within AutoCAD. We’ll select the ‘Object’ tab, as we are interested in the area of the circle, and select the circle with 100 radius using the object selection buton marked in Figure.3. Selecting “Area” at the top of the circle properties opens up the area properties of the circle. Let’s work a little bit on these properties.


Figure.4

As you can see now and as we have studied earlier, the counting format and tolerance for numerical values are displayed. There is the “Additional Format” button that does what its’ name suggests; it brings up additional formatting options. Curiousity gets the best of us and we hit that button...


Figure.5

This window resembles the dimension style formatting window while sporting some differences. You can see the current value. Right below that you can see the displayed value. In our office, we generally take “1DWGunit = 1cm” in our office. Therefore, the numerical value of the area of a circle with 100 diameter is quite a large number. We think it wil be better to take this value as m2 and we adjust the Conversion Factor to 0.0001. we can even configure m2 to be displayed as a suffix.


Şekil.6

Making a block from the circle and the attibute gives us the expected result. However, changing the area of the circle within the block is not so easy, so this actually doesn’t really help much in practice. In our next articles, we will discuss block editing and dynamic blocks. Today’s topic will start making much more sense then.

Dear readers, we keep mentioning various features of AutoCAD in all of our articles. There are so many features spread accross so many window that you may eventually wonder “How am I going to learn them all?”. The main rule in software usage is learning the basics. You will notice that once you start using a software, your understanding of the software will increase with practice and you’ll have an easier time acquiring new knowledge. I humbly advise you that if you wish to learn AutoCAD better, you need to fiddle with the features a lot.

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Blocks 12 - Counting the Blocks

[AutoCAD 2007 & Higher Versions]
[Commands:ATTEXT, EATTEXT, DATAEXTRACTION]



Once we place attributes in commands, they become intelligent. They can carry a lot of information on them. If you're using blocks correctly and regularly, the attribute objects you place can help you a lot in quantity surveying. This is why AutoCAD has a data transfer command (DATAEXTRACTION) which can be accessed in the "Insert" tab of the ribbon menu. Although this command can do a lot more than just extracting block data, this article will focus on this feature of the command. We will be talking about this feature while we're preparing this comprehensive series about blocks.

The command extracts drawing properties, object properties and block attributes into data tables, external files or an EXCEL file (as a link). It is really useful for users who use blocks a lot. The command can be accessed by entering DATAEXTRACTION or EATTEXT from the command line or from the ribbon menu (Figure.1). The EATTEXT command actually does not work any more, it redirects you to the DATAEXTRACTION command.

A wizard takes us through eight steps. Let's explain these step by step. We will be working with block attributes in our example and hence we'll be using appropriate settings.

Step 1: Creating a new DXE file...

Figure.2

This is where we decide whether we'll be working on a new file or an existing file. DXE files store the data and settings used during the execution of this command. The data table we will be using will come in the next steps and have nothing to do with the DXE file. We will be creating a new file in this example. If there is a file that you have been using and you wish to use similar settings, use the old file by marking 'Use previous extraction as template (.dxe or .blk)'. Do not forget that the file you select will be used as a template. Keep this in mind. You wil be asked to name the new DXE file before we move on to Step 2. We have emphasized the importance of keeping these files organized in a location that you know, in previous articles.

Step 2: Specify the data source...

Figure.3

We can use a drawing, mutliple drawings or selected objects from within a drawing as the data source. If you wish to transfer data from multiple drawings, you can use the 'Add Folder...', 'Add Drawings...' and 'Remove' buttons near the 'Drawings/Sheet set' option. There is a little button just beside the option we used in our example (Select objects in the current drawing). We then switch over to the drawing to select objects. The first thing that catches our attention is the fact that non block objects can also be selected. We'll come back to this later. We have some settings to pay attention to first, so let's hit the 'Settings...' button.


Figure.4

This screen is where detail level is specified. This command has other areas of use also, but for now we're interested only in blocks. Some of you may find these settings useful. We may sometimes need POLYLINEs and their geometric data.

Step 3: Which objects are we interested in?

Figure.5

As we are working only on blocks, we unmark ‘Display all object types’ and then mark the ‘Display blocks with attributes only’ option. With the 'Display blocks with attributes only' option, blocks with attributes are filtered. The ‘Display objects currently in use only’ option removes the blocks, text styles etc. that have been defined, but not used in the drawing. This option comes in really handy when working on one or more drawings. In this example however, this option is unnecessary as we did the selections manually.

Step 4: Selecting which data to extract...

Figure.6

At this step, the category list on the right side is really important. Block attributes are important, they're even our starting point. This is why we should have 'Attribute' marked. When 'Drawing' is marked, information about the drawing is transferred too. You may configure the rest to best suit your needs.

Step 5: Fine tuning the data...

Figure.7

Now we have our data list ready. A list of the blocks and their number of appearances is given. Similar rows can be grouped using the 'Combine identical rows' option. The similarity has to be in attributes and not just names. That is, both the block names and attributes have to match. Although listing can be done easily in the transfer file, I hit the 'Sort Column Options...' for a more comprehensive job. I list by the 'TAG-TITLE', as seen in Figure.8.


Figure.8

You can link external EXCEL tables using the ‘Link External Data...’ button. This process is a little complicated and we'll leave it aside for another article.

Step 6: Deciding on outputs...

Figure.9

There are two types of outputs with this command. You can add it as a TABLE object into the drawing or store it as a file. Any of XLS, CSV, MDB and TXT file types can be used. I suppose only people with no access to EXCEL or ACCESS programs would use CSV or TXT files when there are the other options. In this example, we'll be using EXCEL files. Because we choose this option, the command ends here. I'll like to discuss further how tables can be placed in drawings, using the other option.

Step 7: Table Style...

Figure.10

Hitting the 'Finish...' button once you're done will prepare your EXCEL file if you selected the option; and prompt you to place the table as you wish.

The prepared EXCEL file is as seen in Figure.11.



Figure.11

Table view of the same list will look similar to Figure.12.



Figure.12

We have already talked about software that transfers block counts to EXCEL before. Follow the links below to download and try these free programs.

• Free Block Counter For AutoCAD 2010
• .NET Block Counter
• VBA Block Counter

Have a nice day.

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