September 29, 2005
“The CAD Times”
An AutoCAD Newsletter for CAD Users
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Issue #8, September 2005 Hey everyone! RJ here from
cad-design-and-drafting-services.com. Ah September… As the TV commercial jingle
goes, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”. While parents are prancing
around the stationary stores joyfully snatching up school supplies while their
disheartened kids, with moping faces, are dragging their feet along. School has
once again begun. Onto this month's
tips and tricks... Copying Objects Between Drawings – COPYBASE
/ PASTE -----Sidebar----- Earn Cash From
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Ok, let’s say you have a polyline that runs here and there with a few arcs and straight segments in it,
and is about 20’ in total length. You would like to know where the 2’ intervals
are. Thinking of trying out AutoCAD? Want to Purchase AutoCAD? Until next month :)
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And…
Is it just me or do the summers seem to be getting longer? I have a feeling we
won’t be seeing cool weather until November. Feels like warm spring temperatures
here in Northern Ontario. You won’t find me complaining anyways … :)
There is a great way to copy information from one drawing file to
another, without having to create
WBLOCKS.
The commands to use are COPYBASE and PASTE.
COPYBASE
Ok, let’s say you have been working on a landscape plan that contains contours. The
boss calls you in to tell you that you need to add ¼ meter intervals to your site
plan. He puts you in touch with the surveyor and before you know it you have a
20 MB survey file, full of a mess of information; most of which you don’t need.
Still with me? Ok, so you isolate the contours in the surveyors drawing and now
you want to bring them into your CLEAN site plan. You could just block them out,
using the WBLOCK command. Or, you can use the COPYBASE command to grab the
contours at a certain insertion point and drop them into your site plan using
the PASTE command.
PASTE TO ORIGINAL
COORDINATES
It’s always nice when the AEC disciplines are on the same page with their
drawing coordinates; however, most unlikely – in my experience anyways. But, if
by chance the surveyor, engineer, landscape architect and architect ARE using
the same coordinates – great! You can use the PASTE TO ORIGINAL COORDINATES
command in your target file. But if they are NOT using the same coordinate
system, read on…
PASTE
When the coordinate system you are using is different from those of other
disciplines, you will need to find a common point in both files to be used as
the “insertion point”. By selecting a point that exists in both files, i.e.
building corner, surveyor’s property bar, etc., you can then PASTE your selected
entities into your target file using the same reference point.
You can also Paste as Block and Paste Special… Play with these two paste
options; I think you’ll like them.
The Measure Command
Similar to the Divide command (but not to be confused with) the
Measure command is a great AutoCAD tool for placing points (nodes) along
entities at specific intervals.
“An example would be nice”, I hear you thinking.
So…use the Measure command to specify the 2’ intervals on the polyline
and presto – AutoCAD places nodes along the polyline at 2’ intervals. Now you
can use the OSNAP feature to snap to these individual nodes as needed.
The Measure Command and
Blocks
Here’s a neat little feature of the Measure command. Why not insert your blocks
at the specified intervals along the polyline? Great for creating a fence using
your fence symbols. Just specify “Block” when prompted to “Specify length of
segment or [Block]:” after selecting the object to Measure.
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