flat pattern command

Hi,

Im struggling to find a solution and the right terminology to explain.

Most of the drawings, that was started by others or been modified by them, i find that most of the time, the UCS origin is not set to 0,0,0 or a few lines are not set to "0" on the Z-Axis when going to properties.

Can this happen because some colleagues in the company have ACAD LT 2D and some have full version ACAD, that can change or influence the Z-Axis on the specific drawing?

Someone told me to use "flat pattern", find that it doesn't exist in ACAD LT only in the full version. Is there a way to overcome this problem or an alternative way?

Many thanks for any advice.

I usually use the CHANGE command for this.

CHANGE > Select everything you want to affect > then P (for PROPERTIES) > then E (for ELEVATION) > 0 (for the elevation of zero which I want) >> (meaning hit ENTER twice at the end).

This will flatten all elevations to elevation 0, for entities which are currently parallel to the X,Y plane.

Thanks Dadgad,

Will try it. It becomes a real annoying pain when you clean up a drawing and still have to change lines individually or selecting a small group of lines every time.

Dadgad, i have selected everything and tells me "specified opposite corner: 154521 found. 261 were not parallel to the UCS." Does this tell me that 261 lines are not on the 0 Z-Axis?

That is telling you that 261 of the items were ineligible for this approach, as it only works on elevations of entities which are parallel to your current plane.

They are not flat, if you will, which is worse than if their elevations only are incorrect. There are lots of threads on the forum about this problem.

I will look for one for you, but because you are using LT, lisp solutions are not an option.

In that case you could select everything and set the START Z elevation & the END Z elevations to 0, as shown in the screenshot, in your Quick Properties palette, or in your PROPERTIES. Just click into either of the END Z values and set to 0, and that will flatten all those crooked (meaning Delta Z not equal to zero) lines.

You don't really need to use Quick Select to define them as a selection set, you could just select all of the lines instead, but it is an option if you need to.

I also found allot of threads regarding the UCS... unfortunately most using 3D programs. Ill watch out for your reply, Dadgad.

I added some information into the previous post, looks like you might not have seen it yet.

154000+ objects?

What type of drawing is this?

I look at it now. Your first option im doing the whole time, selecting a group of lines and change it, which becomes annoying cause there are too many lines to check. I tried your second option and that is more or less something im after. Selecting everything and make sure no line is out of place. Will try it again when i find a troubled drawing.

Hi ReMark,

A drawing you have checked for me long time ago, it had to do with trim and extend problems. Then the subject moved to using blocks. Last week one of the guys was working on the clear story drawing and had experienced the same problem with moving multiple of lines to line up with another glass line. He asked my advice and found that the Z-Axis was out.

Just do a crossing window of the whole drawing, then select LINES, and reset both the START Z & END Z values to zero, all at once, and you are done.

Have done it, i use this drawing as a guinea pig to see what happens, so for future drawings do the same. Thanks Dadgad.

But you need to remember that the CHANGE command works for everything else which is not askew from your current X,Y plane.

Glad I could help you.

Sorry Dadgad,

It didnt work. Please see the link. We have tried End, Start and Delta Z. The green and red vertical lines did not change.

This is the drawing giving hassle.

3http://https://www.dropbox.com/s/3floeuxbqkig0xk/Drawing2.dwg?dl=0

You sure that Dropbox link is correct?

I got it!! Would have like if i could have selected the whole drawing and change it at once.

Thanks.

Will check ReMark

Can you open the detail ReMark?

I think one reason for the z-axis being incorrect, might be that we copy the details from other drawings that were never cleaned. What bothers me is that each elevation on each job is different, no copying will take place. But when someone else in the company is opening your drawing make some changes, by the time the architect returns with comments about the elevation needs to be changed, you might find that the elevation lines are not set on "0" on the z-axis (sometimes not all the elevations are affected in the same drawing). Might it be that colleagues using ACAD 3D somehow have an influence on some lines or perhaps the whole drawing?

Now that I see the drawing, things look a bit different.

Somebody who worked on this drawing has drawn some elements in 3D.

They are not modeled in 3D, but drawn so as to represent edges of 3D elements, some of those are perpendicular to the current UCS.

They are not crooked, which was how I took your earlier descriptions of the varying z values.

I am able to flatten everything using the process I described earlier though.

You don't need to enter the DELTA Z value as zero, just enter zero into the Start Z & End Z, and the software will calculate the Delta Z value as 0.