December 30, 2016

ACA: AEC Modify Tools, Part 8, AEC Array

First post in series [AecLineworkExtend]
Previous post in series [AecLineworkCrop]

The AecLineworkArray command can be found on the Home ribbon tab, on the Modify panel flyout, by selecting the AEC Array tool from the Array flyout. If the AEC Array tool is not displayed on the Array flyout, select the right side of the split button (down arrow icon) to deploy the flyout and choose the AEC Array tool.
Or, with no command active, you can right click in the drawing window, and choose AEC Modify Tools > Array from the context menu.
If you are intending to apply this command to a Door, Window or Opening object, you can also select the object and, on the contextual ribbon tab for that object type, on the Modify panel, choose the AEC Array tool.
While the AecLineworkArray command can be used to create a linear array of any AutoCAD® or AutoCAD® Architecture object, you will probably find the standard ARRAY command more appropriate for non-anchored objects, particularly if you want an associative array or if your array has columns and rows (and levels). But for anchored objects like Doors, Windows and Openings, which will remain anchored to the host Wall, you may find the non-associative linear array created by the AecLineworkArray command to be easier to use to achieve the desired results.

AecLineworkArray Command Notes:
  • If you do not typically work with Dynamic Input turned on, you will want to to have it on when using this command, as that will allow you to key in the spacing value; otherwise, you will need to use the Pick array distance command line option and then pick two points to define the spacing value. Verify that the Enable Dimension Input where possible toggle is checked on the Dynamic Input tab of the Drafting Settings dialog and that Dynamic Input is enabled (DYNMODE system variable is set to 2 or, if you also want pointer input, 3). With Dynamic Input so enabled, you will see a dimensional input on the screen when you are in the command, and can change the value on the fly and see the potential effect on screen before committing to the array.
  • The initial prompt, Select an edge to array from or Enter to pick two points:, is asking you to define a line in the drawing. The array will run perpendicular to this line, so, for objects that are anchored to a Wall, you will want this line to be perpendicular to the Wall, so that the array projects out along the length of the Wall. A jamb line would be an appropriate choice; just hover your cursor over one until you see the highlight line, then left click to select that line. If you prefer, you can press the ENTER key and then select two points in the drawing to define the "edge to array from".
  • Once the "edge to array from" is established, you will be prompted to "Drag out array elements" or choose one of the command line options. The initial spacing value and spacing method will be whatever was used for the previous use of the command. Moving your cursor away from the edge by the spacing amount will result in a two-element array; as you move the cursor even farther away, additional elements will be added. Preview graphics, in the form of a bounding box indicating the overall extents of the arrayed object(s), will show you what you will get at the current cursor position. Selecting a point when you have what you want will end the command and create the array.
  • As previously noted, you can key in a spacing value to set the distance at which the array elements are spaced, if Dynamic Input is turned on and Dimension Input is enabled. The preview graphics will update accordingly.
  • There are two different ways in which the spacing value is applied, and you can choose one of the two command line options to select the desired method. The Offset method arrays the elements such that the distance from a given point on one object to the same point on the next instance of that object is the spacing value. The dimension of the arrayed item(s) in the direction of the array is included within the spacing value. The Clear distance method arrays the selected objects such that the distance between the objects in the direction of the array is the spacing value. The dimension of the arrayed item(s) in the direction of the array is added to the spacing value..
  • The Pick array distance command line option can be used to set the spacing value by picking points in the drawing canvas, rather than keying in a value. This can be useful if you want the spacing value to match a distance that is already constructed in the drawing, particularly if it is not a nice, round number. It can also be used if you do not want to enable Dynamic Input.
  • The Enter count command line option allows you to key in the number of instances in the final array, rather than setting this by dragging your cursor on screen. This can be useful if you have a relatively large number of items in the array, and do not want to count the items in the on-screen preview to be certain you have the right amount. The initial default value for the count will be based on how many items are currently in the array based on the cursor position and spacing value. Note that once you set the count number, the command will finish and the array will be created, so be certain to have the desired spacing value and spacing method set prior to using the Enter count command line option.
  • The Clear distance spacing method uses the overall dimension of the arrayed object(s), which may or may not be the "Width" dimension for a Door or Window. If the "Measure to" property of a Door or Window is set to Inside of frame, as my firm does with Doors, then you will need to take into account the additional width of the frame component at each jamb when determining the spacing value when the Clear distance method is used.
The following Screencast shows the command in action.

November 27, 2016

ACA: Interference Condition vs Subtraction in Area Calculations

For all of the work I have done with the Schedule Feature of AutoCAD® Architecture over the years, I have not done much with trying to produce accurate Space Schedules, particularly where Interference Conditions and/or Linework Subtraction is involved.

A question came up the other day about this, and I was surprised to learn that even though an Interference Condition "removes" any visible Hatch Component from a Space in a plan (Top) view, it does not have any effect on any of the reported Area properties of a Space. I did discover that using the AecLineworkSubtract command, the area removed does affect the reported area. I cannot speak to the reasons behind this, but given that an Interference Condition (SpaceInterferenceAdd command) only affects the Floor/Floor thickness of a Space, whereas the AecLineworkSubtract command removes the projected 3D volume of a selected 2D Polygon from bottom to top of a Space, perhaps that would be considered to be "by design".

Some additional notes regarding the use of the AecLineworkSubtract command:
  • As noted in the previously linked article on the AecLineworkSubtract command, associative Spaces are not affected (even though the command will allow you to select them as objects from which to subtract). See below for a partial exception when Manual offset boundaries are used.
  • The setting of the Offset boundaries property of a Space (By style, By Standard or Manual) will affect how the AecLineworkSubtract command works.
  • When the Offset boundaries property is set to By style, if the Space is not associative, the AecLineworkSubtract command will affect all of the reported Area values (Gross, Usable, Base and Net), with the offsets specified in the Space Style (on the Design Rules tab, at the bottom right) applied to the area to be subtracted as well. Depending upon the size of the offset and the dimensions of the area to be subtracted, it is possible that some or all of the area to be subtracted could be negated by the boundary offset, giving the appearance of there being no effect. If the Space is associative, then the AecLineworkSubtract command will have no effect.
  • The By Standard offset boundary option is only offered for associative Spaces, so the AecLineworkSubtract command will have no effect on Spaces with this setting.
  • When using Manual offset boundaries with non-associative Spaces, only the the boundaries that are currently set to be editable will be affected by the AecLineworkSubtract command. You can toggle the editability of a boundary using the round gray grips that appear around the location grip or by selecting the Space, right clicking and choosing Edit Boundary and then the boundary whose status you want to toggle, from the context menu.
    The All option on the context menu, only offered when all are not already enabled, will enable all four boundaries. The Reset option on the context menu will enable just the Base boundary. For an associative Space with Manual offset boundaries, only the Gross, Usable and Net boundaries can be manually edited; the Base boundary is associative to the bounding elements. The AecLineworkSubtract command will have no effect on the area reported for the associative Base boundary, but will be applied to the three editable boundaries.
Note: AecLineworkSubtract and LineworkSubtract are two names for the same command. The autocomplete function only recognizes LineworkSubtract, so if you are going to type the command name, omit the "Aec".

November 12, 2016

ACA: WALL Command

I was asked a question about the various command line options for the WALL command in AutoCAD® Architecture, and was surprised to find that the online Help does not have an article on this command. I suppose that, in recent years, most people use the WALLADD command to add a new Wall, most likely through a Tool Palette tool, Ribbon tool or the Styles Browser, but the WALL command still exists. There are other ways to execute the other options as well. The heyday of the WALL command was most likely back in the early days, before Tool Palettes and the Styles Manager (let alone the Styles Browser), but if it is good enough to remain in the program, it should be covered in the Help.
For ease of future reference, here are my findings on the command line options:
  • Add: This option is the equivalent of running the WALLADD command, and allows you to create a new Wall.
  • COnvert: Use this option to select lines, arcs, circles, or polylines and convert them into Walls. You will be given the option to keep or delete the selected linework. Using this option appears to result in a Standard-style Wall, regardless of what the current drawing's default Wall Style is. You may be better served by right clicking on a Wall tool on a tool palette which references the desired final style and then choosing Apply Tool Properties to > Linework from the context menu. (Applying a style to linework is not available from the Styles Browser.)
  • Properties: Use this option to select one or more Walls and have the Properties palette open (if closed) and display the Wall's properties. Unless you do not keep the Properties palette open all the time, this option is fairly worthless. Even if you keep it closed, selecting the Wall, right clicking and choosing Properties from the context menu is faster than typing WALL and choosing the Properties command option. It is a relic from the bad old days before the modern Properties palette, when each AEC Object had its own Properties dialog.
  • Styles: Opens the Style Manager, filtered for Wall Styles.
  • CLeanup groups: Opens the Style Manager, filtered for Wall Cleanup Group Definitions.
  • Dimension: Allows you to select one or more Walls and have AutoCAD Dimensions (not AEC Dimensions) added to it/them. The dimensions will be oriented parallel to the first Wall selected, so choose wisely.
  • Interference: Allows you to add or remove a Wall interference. If you are going to add an interference, you will need to have the AEC object(s) that will be the interfering objects in the drawing and selectable prior to executing the command. Likewise, to remove an interference condition requires that the AEC Object(s) doing the interfering are selectable when the command is run, so if any are on layers that are Off or Frozen, you will want to turn those layers On and/or Thaw them and your display settings need to have an active Display Representation that has visible graphics for those objects.
  • Reverse: Reverses the direction of one or more selected Walls. More easily done for individual Walls with the flip grip in more recent versions of the program, but if you had a reason to reverse the direction of a large number of Walls at once, do not want to maintain the location of the justification line, dislike using tools on contextual ribbon tabs or right-click menus and would rather not click on all those flip grips, one by one, the Reverse option of the WALL command is the way to go.

November 05, 2016

Off Topic: SEPTA Strike, Work Week 1

The union representing the City Division of the local transit agency, SEPTA, went on strike at midnight, Monday, October 21/Tuesday, November 1, leaving me with a six-mile walk to get to work each morning and again on the return trip. I usually try to get 10,000 steps in every day (weather and schedule permitting), but the strike has me over that before I even get to the office each morning.
Both sides in the negotiations have been feeding at the public trough for so long that they have forgotten that most of the people who provide the money that pays for their salaries and benefits through fares paid and tax-payer funded subsidies make quite a bit less in total compensation for equivalent levels of education and experience, and that those very people are the ones hurt most by their grandstanding and inability to compromise. Drive enough people away from using public transit, and there will not be any money to argue over.

October 30, 2016

ACA 2015 & 2016: Missing Tools in Layer Properties Manager

If you are using AutoCAD® Architecture 2015 or 2016, you may find that the New Property Filter, New Group Filter, New Standards Filter and Layer States Manager tools in the Layer Properties Manager are missing from the tool bar at the top.
As noted in this Autodesk Knowledge Network article, if you collapse the Layer Filter Tree, the missing tools will appear.
You can then expand the Layer Filter Tree, and the tools will remain visible.

Here is a brief Screencast showing this in action.

10/31/2016 UPDATE: The same issue can arise in the 2017 release, and the same workaround will bring the missing tools back there, as well.

October 26, 2016

Autodesk Answer Days

Another Autodesk® Answer Day is scheduled for October 27, 2016 (tomorrow!). This event will be held in both English and, for the first time, German. Autodesk staff will be scouring the forums for the included software, focused on product design, and providing answers to questions posted.

The German event covers AutoCAD and Inventor and takes place between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm Central Europe Time.

The English event covers AutoCAD, Inventor and Fusion 360 and takes place between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm US Pacific Time.

Read more about the event here.

October 20, 2016

Revit Families: Yes/No Parameter Defaulting to No

When you add a Yes/No parameter in a Revit® family, the initial default value is "Yes" - the box in the Value column is checked. If you only have one Type in your family at the time, it is easy enough to uncheck the box if you want it to be set to "No" and to have the value be "No" for any other Types created while that Type is current.

But there are occasions, such as for visibility parameters, where a family may get created, with multiple Types, and then later edited to add a new Type that requires a new Yes/No parameter that should only be turned on for the new Type. It is tedious to set each existing Type current and uncheck the newly added Yes/No parameter if there are more than two or three existing Types. Unfortunately, there is no way to specify the initial value for a newly added Yes/No parameter. Thanks to this post in the Who's afraid of the Big Bad BIM? blog, I have worked out a way to quickly get all types set to "No". I believe that what follows is the full intent of what the original article posted, but the article stops short of clearing the formula so that one or more of the Types can be set to "Yes" and therefore also does not note the need to change to a different Type when clearing the formula, so that all Types remain unchecked. [Perhaps that was not necessary in whatever version Erik was using in the summer of 2012 when the article was written.]

  1. Add a new Yes/No parameter to a Revit family with multiple Types, in which you want most of the Types to be set to "No".
    Note that all of the Types will be initially set to "Yes" (checked).
  2. In the Formula column for the newly added Yes/No parameter, type 1=0, and then press the ENTER key. Any expression that evaluates to false will do.
    Note that the toggle in the Value column is now unchecked, but it is also grayed out and locked, because it is being controlled by the formula.
  3. Set a different Type to be the current Type.**
  4. Delete the formula for the newly added Yes/No parameter.
  5. All of the Types are now set to "No". If you want any to be set to "Yes", set each one current, in turn, and select the toggle to check it.
The Screencast below shows the above steps in action. It also shows a second Yes/No parameter being added where the formula is deleted immediately after it was added, with the result that only that one Type is set to "No".
** - In Revit 2016, I found that if I deleted the formula in the Type in which I originally placed it, immediately after placing it, that only that Type remained set to "No", and the others remained checked. If you want, you can change to another Type and then change back to the original to do the deletion. There may be other actions which will "set" the "No" values for all Types.

September 02, 2016

ACA/AMEP: PASTEBLOCK Observation

I have been working on files that were created by others recently, and they contain a large number of Block References created using the PASTEBLOCK command, and left with the random name that gets assigned to the Block Definition by the PASTEBLOCK command. The names all start with A$C, followed by eight characters that appear to be a hexadecimal number. I find this very annoying, as you have no idea what is in any of these blocks, whereas you might if a meaningful name had been given.

Part of my current task required me to find things inside these annoying Block References, so I have been WBLOCKing them out to separate files and then opening those files to view the contents in isolation from all of the other things in the original file. I made an interesting discovery: when opening these files, the file name does not appear in the title area of the AutoCAD window and, in AutoCAD Architecture 2014 and 2016 (and, I suspect, all other versions that have File tabs), a file tab is not generated for these files. They are listed by the Switch Windows tool on the View ribbon tab, on the Windows panel, and they also appear in the Application Menu's Recent Documents list. So why do they not have drawing tabs or have their names in the title bar?

I thought there might be something wrong with my installation, so I did some admittedly brief searching on the Internet and in the online Help, and did not find any mention of this "situation." Surely I cannot be the first person to try this; perhaps I am the only one who thought it was odd.

It does not appear to be anything inside the WBLOCKed file itself. If I save the file under a different name, that does not follow the format of A$C followed by a hexadecimal number, and open that file, the file name will appear in the title area and a drawing tab will be generated. If I manually create a file and save it with a name that does follow that format (the length of the hexadecimal number does not appear to matter; so long as all of the characters that follow the initial A$C are taken from the numerals 0-9 and the letters A-F), when opened, the file name will not appear in the title area and a drawing tab will not be created.

This is not that big of a deal; I am writing this so that when I come across this in five years, having forgotten about it in the mean time, there will be at least one Internet source that discusses it.

August 24, 2016

Dropbox and Open/Save Issues in AutoCAD and Revit

Like many others, I experienced the problem with the 8.4.19 (8/16/2016) build of Dropbox. In my case, Revit® 2014 would display the whirlpool of death when selecting Open > Project from the Application Menu or selecting the Open link under Projects in the Recent Files window. I did not have any problems with AutoCAD®.

I just forced the current build of Dropbox to install (8.4.21), and I no longer have that issue.

For the record, here are the Autodesk Knowledge Network articles related to this issue:
AutoCAD becomes unresponsive when opening or saving files
Revit: Hang when clicking Open after recent Dropbox update

August 14, 2016

Dynamo - Element Parameters

If you are relatively new to Dynamo and not intimately familiar with the Revit API, like me, you may find this relatively simple graph of use.
The Select Model Element node at the upper left allows you to select an element in your Revit model and will report back, through the two Watch nodes at the right, the available instance parameters and their current values. These are the parameters that work with the Element.GetParameterValueByName and Element.SetParameterValueByName nodes. This can be helpful in identifying the parameter you need to access for a particular task.

The Element.Parameters node generates a list of these parameters, the Element.Name node takes that list and turns it into a list of the parameter names, as strings, and the List.Sort node sorts that list alphbetically. The left Watch node displays this sorted list; the list is also fed into the Element.GetParameterValueByName node, which generates a list the values for those parameters, for the selected element, and displays them in the right Watch node. My experience has been that the Element.Parameters node will list the parameters found in what seems like a random order that makes it hard (for me, anyway) to track them from element to element. The description of the Object.Identity node states that it passes out what is passed into it, doing nothing, which, I suppose, it true, but I included it here because by locking the Data Preview of the node in the open position, it shows the element category as well as the element ID number, whereas the Select Model Element node only shows the element ID number. Seeing the element category helps me be sure that I selected the desired element correctly.

Here are two screen shots of this graph in action, one with a Wall selected, and the other with a Dimension selected.
As always, you can select any of the images to see it full size.

July 29, 2016

ACA/AMEP: "BIND" Bound External Reference Named Object Naming

Whenever possible, I try to avoid binding External References with the BIND option; I prefer to use the INSERT option when I cannot leave the references as external. In cases where the "root" layer (for example, A-Door) has the same layer attributes and is treated the exact same way, whether as a "live" layer in the host file or a layer within one or more external references, using the INSERT option simply combines all of the various layers with the same root name into one layer (A-Door in the example here). But there are times when one has to work on a project done by others (perhaps, many others, over a long period of time), where the various layers with the same root name (A-Door, External01|A-Door, External02|A-Door, etc.) are not treated the same way, in particular, with regard to on/off, freeze/thaw and/or viewport freeze/thaw status. If A-Door is on, thawed and viewport thawed, External01|A-Door is globally frozen and External02|A-Door is viewport frozen, using the INSERT option of the BIND command will not preserve what is seen in the sheet. (Or, maybe it does, if nothing on that layer is visible in the viewports on that sheet - but if you are tasked with preparing hundreds of files for turnover at the end of a project on which you did not work, including disciplines other than your own, you will likely not have time to carefully note what is visible in each viewport on each sheet and then reproduce that.) Using the BIND option of the BIND command may be the best course in this case.

I have been involved in such an effort lately, and in the course of that have come to a clearer understanding of how named objects are renamed when using the BIND option of the BIND command. I knew that the named objects in each external reference were renamed, using the external reference name as a prefix, with the vertical bar (|) delimiter being replaced with, typically, $0$. So, External01|A-Door would become External01$0$A-Door. A long time ago, when all this was new to me, I (erroneously) thought that the "0" in the delimiter was the layer name on which the external reference resided, as back then most, if not all, of our external references were placed on Layer 0. At some point, I did a "bind-bind" on an external reference on a different layer, and still got $0$ as the delimiter, and realized that the "0" was not the layer name on which the external reference was at the time of binding, but did not give it a whole lot of additional thought.

In my current effort, I am writing AutoLISP code to help automate certain processing tasks which involve being able to specify layer attributes for the root layer name, and have those applied to all variations of that root layer name, whether or not the layer has a prefix/delimiter from having been "bind-bound". I wanted my code to be able to identify the final delimiter in a layer name, so that the root name could be extracted. I made a very brief attempt to find something in the Help that described how the delimiter is determined, without any success. (It may be in there, and I just did not have enough patience to find it.) So I played around with some test files, with a very small number of layers, to figure out if the delimiter could ever be anything but $0$. As it turns out, it can, but, at least for the way we work, it will almost always be $0$. Your experience may vary, as your workflow may differ from ours.

When you bind-bind an external reference, AutoCAD® will create unique names for all of the named objects in the external reference, whether or not there is a named object of the same type and name in the host file. It does this as previously noted, by starting with a prefix that is the same as the external reference name (which may or may not be the same as the external file name), adding a delimiter consisting of a $ character followed by an integer followed by a $ character, and finally the root name of the named object. The first time you bind-bind an external reference of a given name, that integer will be 0. Should you later add an external reference of that same name (having renamed the bound block -OR- exploded the bound block and purged the definition), and then bind-bind that reference, AutoCAD will see that there already are named objects using the $0$ delimiter, and will increment the integer to "1" - $1$. Do all of that again, and the delimiter will be $2$. Do it eleven times, and the delimiter becomes $10$.

Armed with that knowledge, I was able to write code that would examine the layer names character-by-character, starting at the right end, and would collect the root name in a variable. Once a $ character was found, if it is preceded by one or more integers and then another $ character, that delimiter was saved and the routine then had both the root layer name and the last delimiter in the layer name, allowing the routine to be able to process things accordingly. (If you externally reference a file that has itself had an external reference bind-bound, and then bind-bind the reference, you can get named objects with multiple delimiters, such as External01$0$PreviouslyBound01$0$A-Door.)

June 28, 2016

ACA: AEC Modify Tools, Part 7, AEC Crop

First post in series [AecLineworkExtend]
Previous post in series [AecLineworkMerge]

The AecLineworkCrop command can be found on the Home ribbon tab, on the Modify panel flyout, by selecting the Crop tool from the Obscure/Crop flyout. If the Crop tool is not displayed on the Obscure/Crop flyout, select the right side of the split button (down arrow icon) to deploy the flyout and choose the Crop tool. Or, with no command active, you can right click in the drawing window, and choose AEC Modify Tools > Crop from the context menu.

The AecLineworkCrop command is used to modify the extents of closed Polylines, Circles, Hatches, AEC Polygons, Mass Element Extrusions that have an embedded profile and Spaces, as well as Block References which contain any of these objects by "cropping" the original object to a boundary defined by one or more other objects. In lieu of selecting one or more objects to serve as the crop boundary, you can also specify a rectangular area by selecting its opposite corners. You will be given the option to erase any object(s) selected to define the crop boundary; the default is No, which leaves the crop boundary object(s) in the drawing file.

If you select multiple objects at the first prompt, the AecLineworkCrop command is applied to each of those independently, using the objects selected at the second prompt on each of those selected at the first prompt.
Here are some additional notes regarding the AecLineworkCrop command:
  • Open linework (Lines, Arcs, open Polylines) can be selected as objects to be cropped. If they extend beyond the crop boundary, they will be trimmed to it, but will remain open items of the same object types as the pre-cropped objects.
  • Closed objects, including Circles and closed Polylines, can be selected as objects to be cropped. If a Circle is modified by the AecLineworkCrop command, the result will be one or more closed polylines.
  • MText, Text, Ellipses and Ellipse Arcs cannot be selected as objects to be trimmed, but they can all be used to define the crop boundary. For MText and Text, the bounding box of the text is used as a rectangular crop boundary.
  • Mass Elements with a shape other than "Extrusion" and Mass Element Extrusions that have an external Profile can be selected as linework to be cropped, but will not affected by the AecLineworkCrop command. These types of Mass Elements can be selected as an object to define the crop boundary.
  • If a Block Reference is selected as an object to be cropped, only those nested objects within the block on which the AecLineworkCrop command works will be affected.
  • Attributes within a Block Reference will not be affected by the AecLineworkCrop command.
  • If a Block Reference is selected as linework to be cropped, it has nested elements that can be affected by the AecLineworkCrop command and it is the only instance of that Block Reference in the drawing, then the original block definition will be redefined to include the effects of the crop. If at least one instance of the Block Reference remains unaffected by the crop, then the original block definition will remain unchanged and the affected instance(s) will become instance(s) of new, anonymous block definition(s).
  • If a Block Reference is selected as linework to be cropped and it has multiple nested elements which can be affected by the AecLineworkCrop command, the crop will be applied to each of those elements independently.
  • Multi-View Blocks can be selected as linework to be cropped, but will not be affected by the command.
  • If the active View Block of a Multi-View Block contains linework or objects that can define a crop boundary or part of a crop boundary, it can selected as such.
  • Selecting an associative Hatch as linework to be cropped will result in a non-associative Hatch, regardless of whether or not the boundary of the Hatch is also selected as linework to be cropped the same AecLineworkCrop command.
  • Associative Spaces, Walls, Doors, Windows and Door/Window Assemblies can be selected as linework to be cropped, but will not be affected by the command. These objects can be used to define a crop boundary. Non-associative Spaces can be modified by the AecLineworkCrop command when selected as linework to be cropped.
  • Selecting a single line as the crop boundary will result in no change to the linework to be cropped. You will see this message at the command line: Failed to create a crop boundary from the selected objects. Selecting two lines, even if parallel, will allow a crop boundary to be calculated and applied, but the results may be unexpected.
  • The object(s) defining the crop boundary do not have to form a closed loop. If multiple objects are selected, they do not have to meet endpoint to endpoint, although the results may be unexpected if there is overlap or a gap.
  • Use a closed boundary (or a series of objects forming a closed boundary) for more predictable results.

There are object types and combinations of objects within a Block Reference that I did not test. When using the AecLineworkCrop command in a situation that you have not previously encountered, you may want to use the Mark option of the UNDO command, so that you can easily UNDO Back to the point before the command was used if you get unexpected results.

Next post in series [AecLineworkArray]

May 30, 2016

Dynamo - Filter by Type Parameter

I created another custom node for my fire/smoke rating Detail Item placement graph, previously discussed here and here. The previous two nodes gave me a list of all of the straight Walls visible in the current plan View, whose Base Constraint matched the level of the current View. In order to apply the correct Detail Item to each fire/smoke rated Wall, that list needs to be filtered, based on the fire-resistance-rating and whether the Wall is a smoke partition or smoke barrier. This information is stored in a type-based parameter for the Wall Types. I needed to repeat this multiple times in this graph, and since it also seemed to me that this was something that will have use in future projects, I created a custom node.

The custom node takes three inputs, one for the list of Elements (Walls) to be filtered, one for the name of the Parameter that is the basis for the filter and one for the value of the Parameter that will determine which Elements are "in" and which are "out".

The filtering is done in a similar way that the straight Walls were filtered, except this time, instead of using the fact that an empty string would be returned as the value for an instance-based parameter that was not present on the straight Walls, the Element Type of each Wall needs to be retrieved, using an Element.Type node, and then the value of the filtering parameter obtained from that by an Element.GetParameterValueByName node. An == (x equal to y) node is again used to generate a Boolean Mask list of trues and falses.

The Boolean Mask list is then used in a List.FilterByBoolMask to put the Elements that match the parameter in the "in" output and those that do not in the "out" output.

The entire graph of the custom node is shown below.

May 26, 2016

Dynamo - Filter Straight Walls

As part of the Dynamo project for which I developed the Active View Walls at Plan View Level custom node, I also needed to be able to operate on straight Walls and radiused Walls separately. I ended up making a custom node to handle this, to both make the main graph easier to read and so that I could easily reuse the "code" should I need to do this in a different graph in the future.

The graph of the custom node is fairly straightforward, as you can see in the image below. (Click on any reduced-size image to see the image full size.)
A brief description of the various parts and what they do follows.

While my current application passes this node a list of Walls, I decided that may not always be the case in future graphs, so the first set of nodes uses a RemoveIfNot node to strip out any element in the list that is not a Wall.


While poking around in the properties that were available on the Walls in my test project, I noticed that radiused Walls have a parameter called Center Mark Visible, while straight Walls do not. When getting the parameter value for Center Mark Visible, straight Walls will have an empty string value, while radiused Walls will have a value of 0 (center mark not visible) or 1 (center mark visible). I chose to use this as the way to determine if a Wall was straight or radiused. The next set of nodes generates a list of Booleans (true or false) that parallels the list of Walls. The corresponding Boolean will be true if the Center Mark Visible parameter value for the Wall is an empty string (straight Wall) or false if the value is not an empty string (radiused Wall).


The list of Booleans generated by the previous set of nodes is used as a "Boolean mask" by a List.FilterByBoolMask node and applied to the list of Walls to generate two separate lists. The "in" list contains all of the Walls with a corresponding Boolean of true, or all of the straight Walls. The "out" list contains all of the Walls with a corresponding Boolean of false, or all of the radiused Walls.


The in and out lists are connected to the Straight and Curved outputs of the custom node, so that the main graph has access to the two filtered lists. This custom node was developed in Dynamo 0.8.2, but has been successfully used in the 0.9.1 and 1.0.0 versions as well.

April 30, 2016

ACA/AMEP 2017: Styles Browser Enhancements

Several enhancements have been made to the Styles Browser, first introduced in the 2016 release of AutoCAD® Architecture and AutoCAD® MEP.

Add Directory to Content Library
For reference, the image below shows the Content Drawings Library dialog, as it appears in the 2016 release.
When adding files to the Styles Browser Content Drawings Library, instead of specifying individual files, you can specify a folder, and all of the files within that folder will be included in the library.
As always, you can click on an image to see it full size.

Once a folder is added, you can choose whether or not to include all of the files within any subfolders of that folder as well.
The big advantage here is not in saving a few clicks when setting up the Styles Browser Library (you can add multple source files in one operation), but that once a folder is selected, you can add a file to it at a later date and that file will be included in the Styles Browser Content Library automatically. That will save a lot of effort in a firm with more that a handful of users. One note of caution, including a large number of files in the Content Browser Content Library can result in slow performance as the Styles Browser generates preview images. That applies whether or not you are adding folders, but, particularly with the subfolders option checked, it is easier to add a lot of files, perhaps without even realizing it.

Object Type List Auto Scroll
In 2016, when working in the Object Type drop-down list, expanding a category at the bottom of the list did so, but you would then often need to scroll the list to see some or, in some cases, any of the items under the expanded category.
In 2017, when expanding a category at the bottom of the list, the list will automatically scroll to show the items in the expanded category.
A small, but welcome improvement for those making frequent use of the Styles Browser, particularly for MEP users, as they have more categories and the number of items in those categories is greater than the Multi-Purpose Objects category.

MEP Enhancements
  • Additional Objects: Panels, Devices, Schematic Symbols and Plumbing Fittings, which previously used the "old" Select Style dialog, are now integrated into the Styles Browser.
  • Additional Categories: The addition of the previously noted objects has prompted the replacement of the 2016 all-in-one MEP Objects category with five separate categories: Electrical Objects, HVAC Objects, Piping Objects, Plumbing Objects and Schematic Objects. These five categories remain grouped together, after Multi-Purpose Objects, rather than arranging all categories alphabetically, which would place Multi-Purpose Objects between HVAC Objects and Piping Objects.
  • All System Definitions are now selected in the Styles Browser, rather than the two methods used in 2015 (some objects in Styles Browser, some in the Select System dialog).
  • Routing Preferences for Conduit, Duct and Pipe have been added to the Styles Browser, and a single Routing Preferences content drawing has been provided with the out-of-the-box content as the source file. This will allow these routing preferences to be omitted from template files, and imported only as needed from the source file.

Closing Styles Browser
A new command, STYLESBROWSERCLOSE has been added to allow closing the Styles Browser from the command line. The Styles Browser ribbon tool (Home ribbon tab, Build panel, Tools split button drop-down list, Styles Browser tool) now toggles the display of the Styles Browser. If closed, the tool opens it; if open, the tool closes it. In 2016, the tool only opened the Styles Browser (and, if docked or auto-hidden, deployed it).

This Screencast demonstrates some of these new features, in AutoCAD Architecture.

April 20, 2016

Autodesk Answer Days

The next Autodesk® Answer Day will be on May 18, 2016, from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm U.S. Pacific Time. Unlike previous Answer Days, this one will not apply to just one featured software; Autodesk team members will be scouring the AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Revit, Inventor, Vault, Maya and 3ds Max forums.

Read more about the event here and mark your calendar.

April 08, 2016

ACA 2017: CReate type Command Option

Another new feature that some may find of use is the addition of a new command line option, CReate type when adding Walls, Curtain Walls, Railings, Slabs, Roof Slabs and Roofs.

Selecting the CReate type option results in a new command line prompt. The default action is to create a Rectangle shape (by picking the opposite corners of the rectangle). Other shape options are Circle, POlygon and PLine.
Command prompts for those options follow those of the AutoCAD object commands of the same name. While you may not have many occasions for wanting to draw Walls along the lines of a regular polygon, do check out the PLine option, particularly for the object types that do not offer Arc as a command line option (Railings, Slabs, Roof Slabs and Roofs) in the "regular" Add command. For Walls and Curtain Walls, the PLine option makes it much easier to create arc segments that are tangent to the previous segment. And an added bonus when creating Slabs and Roof Slabs, you do not have to explicitly close your shape, as you do when drawing segments under the "regular" Add command. Finally, when using the PLine option when creating a Roof object, you can use object snap tracking to align the next vertex with previous vertices, which you cannot do in the "regular" Add command. This makes it easier (possible) to align your last vertex with the starting vertex on initial placement, rather than having to edit it afterwards.

April 03, 2016

ACA 2017: Grip Editing of a Roof Object Outline

It is that time of year again, when the new releases of Autodesk software come out. One of the new features you can look forward to in AutoCAD® Architecture is the ability to grip edit a Roof Object's outline, allowing you to modify it after the original placement.

As you can see in the image above, in 2016, all of the grips on a Roof are single-function square stretch grips. In 2017, the grips on the Roof outline are enhanced, multi-function grips. Hover over the round vertex grips or the rectangular mid-segment grips to get a pop-up menu offering several grip-edit options.

Vertex Options
For a vertex grip, the Move option is the equivalent to the grip behavior in 2016 and prior. Moving the corner grip moves just the corner point; the other vertices remain in place.

The Remove option does just that, it deletes the vertex.
Of the two roof edges that are deleted, the resulting roof edge will assume the properties of the lowered numbered edge. To see what those properties are, on the Roof contextual ribbon tab, on the Modify panel, select the Edit Edges tool and select the edges on either side of the vertex you plan to remove. The properties in the top row (edge "0") will be applied to the resulting roof edge when you remove that vertex.

The Offset Edges option also allows you to move the vertex, but, unlike the Move option, when you use the Offset Egdes option, the two adjacent edges will remain parallel to their original orientation, and the vertices at the far ends will move as required to allow that.

Mid-segment Options
The Offset option offers the equivalent of the 2016 and prior stretch grip. Selecting this option will allow you to move the entire edge, which will remain parallel to its original orientation. The vertices at either end will move as needed, maintaining the line of the adjacent edges.

To add a new vertex to the Roof, choose the Add Vertex option. The two new Roof edges will inherit the edge properties of the edge they replace.

The Convert to Arc option will convert that roof edge to an arc, and the arc edge of the Roof will be approximated by six straignt segments with the segment endpoints on that arc. (You will not get a conical Roof.)
The arc segment will continue to be treated as one Roof edge; if you desire a different number of segments on the arc, on the Roof contextual ribbon tab, on the Modify panel, select the Edit Edges tool and select the arc edge. In the Roof Edges and Faces dialog, change the value in the Segements column to the desired number of edges.

As with other enhanced grips, in addition to selecting an option from the pop-up menus as noted above, you can select the grip and then, before selecting a new point, tap the CTRL key to cycle through the available options. Preview graphics will show the effects of the currently active option, and, for the mid-segment grip, with ORTHO or POLAR active, if you stop moving the cursor, you will get a tool tip with directions for the current option and a listing of the other options. (For POLAR, a tracking vector must be active for the tooltip to show.)

The brief Screencast below shows the various Roof Object outline grip options in action.