AutoCAD 101 Series – Dynamic Blocks Week 3 – Points and Alignment

Are you new to AutoCAD? Have you been using AutoCAD for years but only use the blocks, styles, layers and tools that others have created?  Do you want to learn more or step up your game on features you’re not very strong in and pick up some practical examples of best practices?  If so, this series is for you.  Over the course of 12 months and maybe more I will cover the basics of a lot of AutoCAD tools and features that many may want or need to learn more about.

This is the 8th article in my AutoCAD 101 series – to read about the origination for this series, see the first post here: <Intro>  The last post in this series was about diving in to “Dynamic Blocks” <link>, this post will be diving in to the ‘Point’ and ‘Alignment’ Parameters and the ‘Move’ and ‘Stretch’ Actions.

Up until now, I have been using a 2×4 Light fixture for the how-tos, for this post, I am going to switch to a new block.  For the various parameters and actions being discussed, I am going to introduce the ‘Phone_Board’.

Typical phone board blocks are a 4′ wide by 1″ or so thick rectangle that sometimes includes a hatch.  When other sizes are needed, it is often exploded and stretched.  In this post I will cover adding the ability to re-size the block, align it with a wall surface and toggle through various insertion points, as well as combine it with the previous discussed Visibility state option to make this a super phone board!

Below is the final product highlighted to show the various points on the Block with which Parameter/Action each one is associated with.

 

 

 

 

Figure A

Before we get in to adding the parameters, lets make a quick phone board block.  The most common phone board sizes are 4’x4′ and 4’x8′ vertical or horizontal.  So I will start by making a rectangle on layer ‘0’ (zero) that is 48″ wide by 1″ thick with the insertion point on the lower left side of the rectangle, which will be the ‘back’ side, then save this block as ‘Phone_Board’.

As stated previously, a common issue with phone board blocks is their size – 4ft does not work in all conditions.  What I have seen some companies do in the past is to create multiple blocks for the various sizes – which works pretty well until you get the requirement to wrap a room with phone boards that is not in 4ft increments – so off to explode they go.  We don’t believe in exploding blocks here – Right?  Right!!??!?  So the Phone_Block I am creating will be resizeable.  For this we need the point parameter.

Point:

The point is the first parameter on the Parameters menu and can be use with various ‘Actions’.  For this post I am going to use it for two actions – ‘Stretch’ and ‘Move’.  I will address the resize dilemma by adding a ‘Point’ parameter to the end of the block and assign the ‘Stretch’ action to it.

Sequence to add Stretch functionality:

• Right click on block and select ‘Block Editor’
• Pick the ‘Point’ parameter and place on the far right side of the rectangle in the mid-point of the vertical line.
• Pull the cursor to right to place the label
• Switch to the ‘Actions’ tab of the ‘Block Authoring Palette’
  • Note: If you are following along, on the remaining steps, watch the command prompt to see what is being asked for.
• Select the ‘Stretch’ Action and then select the label of the Point parameter just inserted
• Create a stretch frame around the end of the right side of the rectangle, crossing the ‘Point’ parameter.
• Select the objects that need to stretch – which in this case is the right end of the rectangle.  Do this with the crossing selection, and get the parameter as part of the selection.
• Done
• Test the block to make sure it is doing what is expected – pick on the right end of the block and drag the point left or right.  If all is well, close test window and go to next step.

Once the block can be resized, the next challenge is getting it inserted on the right wall surface.  By adding an ‘Alignment’ parameter to the block, it will automatically align to the wall surface chosen – no matter what weird angle it is at.

Alignment:

In AutoCAD there is an ‘Align’ command for align objects.  Within dynamic blocks, you can use an ‘Alignment’ parameter.  Like the ‘Visibility’ parameter, this has no associated Action menu item. With the alignment parameter on a block, when you move your block near a surface, it will automatically align with that surface.  This can be a bit tricky to do and you have to understand how it works to get your ‘Alignment’ parameter placed properly.  The important thing is to have the pointed end of the symbol facing in the direction of the object that you want the block to align with.

 

Figure B

Sequence to add Alignment functionality:

• Right click on block and select ‘Block Editor’
• Pick the ‘Alignment’ parameter and place at the insertion point of the rectangle (lower left).
• Pull the cursor to the left to have the alignment parameter point down (this is the direction of the wall that the board will be mounted to).
• Done
• Test the block to make sure it is doing what is expected – when sliding towards a wall, the block should automatically align with the wall.  This can be a touchy process, which is why for small items I avoid using this parameter.  If all is well, close the test window and go to the next step.

Now the Phone board can be resized and will align to a wall – the next step is to add some additional functionality to it by combining two Parameters – ‘Point’ and ‘Visibility’.

Visibility:

In many situations the phone board is in a building that is served by conduits from the outside or has conduits that lead to other spaces – like bldg tenants.  I added (6) conduits to my block and made each combo of (0) to (6) it’s own visibility state.  Now when inserting the phone board, I can choose a number from the the visibility states menu of 0-Conduits to 6-Conduits.  See Figure below.

NOTE:
The sequence in ‘Figure C’ shows the order to be 2-Conduits first, then 1, then 0; this is because the 2-Conduit version is what is used most often, so that will be the default inserted view. 

 

 

 

Figure C

Sequence to add conduits:

Now that we have the ability to show conduits, there may be a situation that these conduits come up in the middle of the board or at the other end of where they are shown by default.  For the other end, I could mirror the block, but that will not work in the middle – Do I Explode and Move?  NO!  I’ll just add a move parameter to the conduits.

Move:

This process uses the ‘Point’ parameter again combined with the ‘Move’ Action.

Sequence to add Move functionality:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure D

Since I used the ‘Alignment’ parameter in this post,  I will do a short post follow-up showing a multi-point insertion option and then follow that up with the ‘Flip’ and ‘Rotate’ Parameters and Actions.

If you run into a snag with any of this, email me at walt@functionsense.com

WES