Thursday

Parametric blocks

3 Comments Jul-05-2007 | Posted by Erhan Toker | Printable Version | Level |

AutoCAD 2006 and higher versions

We will not finish with the dynamic blocks until I say so . In this article, I will explain about the blocks that can change their dimensions depending on parameters. Indeed, it will be better to name them as blocks shape or view of which can be changed. In order to be able to explain what I am talking about, I prepared Fig. 1.
 

Fig. 1

As you can see, we have a list that has three different values. Depending on the items that we select among this list, extension parts that we placed on the side of the block will be visible or not. As a result, we will perceive the block as if it is extending or shrinking. It is an extremely useful feature for kitchen cabinets, bolts, office tables etc. Blocks.
 

Fig. 2

Before starting such drawings; first, you should create a scenario in your mind. Everyone may have different way of solution for a problem. However, the result must always be same. According to my scenario, the right capped 60×40 U shape will turn into any of the 60×10, 60×20 or 60×30 left capped shapes depending on the visibility options. According to this; part with 10 units is visible in VS50 option, part with 20 units is visible in VS60 option and the others are not visible, and part with 30 units is visible in VS70 option, others not visible. Now, let’s make the raw drawing and start.
 

Fig. 3

Place 2 parts on the side of the main part by taking red points as basis as shown in Fig.3. After this stage, we are inserting the VISIBILITY parameter (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Let’s place this parameter on the lower left corner of our block. After the insertion is completed, due to the fact that there are no visibility definitions yet, it will look like as shown in Fig. 5.
 

Fig. 5

Next, VISIBILITY STATE menu will help us. This menu is right on the upper right corner of the editor.
 

Fig. 6

Here, you can see Visibility Mode, Make Visible, Make Invisible, Manage Visibility States commands from left to right. First of all; in order to set how many modes we will have, let’s enter Manage Visibility States command (Fig. 7).
 

Fig. 7

After changing the item that comes as default in this window as VS50 ( Rename ), let’s add two new items named as VS60 and VS70 by using New… command and exit by using OK. From now on, when you enter the list that is on the right side of VISIBILITY menu, you will see that there are 3 items here.
 

Fig. 8

Finally, we will determine which entities will be visible and which ones will not be visible in each of the three modes that we created. First, let’s select VS50 and make the two lines (20s unit and 30 units) visible by using Make Visible command. Then, let’s make the relevant lines not visible for VS60 and VS70 respectively (Fig. 9).
 

Fig. 9

If you execute the Visibility Mode command that is on the left side of VISIBILITY menu once, then all of the invisible entities will be shown with faint color. This will be very efficient for you. After completing all of these, now our drawing is ready. After exiting block editor and returning to model screen, now we can insert our new block. Then, you will see that the new block will function as shown in Fig. 1.

Related articles: Please read ‘Dynamic Blocks‘ category.

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