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As most of you know, for the last year now I have been working on a totally automated drawing process which does not allow for any user input. For the most part this has been working but I have now taken on a new product line with this client which has many different materials and configurations. Drawing the assembly is not a problem, however, trimming the lines has now become a major issue. I have tried several different methods but each method sooner or later runs into something that just cannot be trimmed using LISP. I would love to show some examples but I'm limited by confidentiality agreements so if I show anything it would have to be only a facsimile not the real parts.
So this morning I thought ok, why not draw a block for each condition, couldn't be that hard right... OK there are 5 different items in the area to be drawn, and each one has a number of different variations. So just doing the math on the number of different combinations of conditions I end up with 385 different blocks. And that's just for this one corner.
I was wondering what others have done in a similar situation. I have tried using the WIPEOUT command and it has some real merits as a problem solver for some trimming situations, but not all. And even if it was, there are too many AutoCAD 2005 users in this group who are unable to use WIPEOUTS...and asking for a department wide upgrade of AutoCAD will be next to impossible.
OK, I've included a small schematic sketch which may help to clarify the complexity of this task. As you can see, some of the areas to be trimmed are no problem. Others are difficult and still others are impossible to do with code. I've even tried inserting a mask with all the shapes but that has proven to be hit or miss and is not reliable.
B4-After.pdf |
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