Rectangle around an object

Here is a good one, does anyone know how to draw a rectangle around the an object such as a spline or is there a way to find the edge of an object on the top bottom and sides, i know snapping to the object works but on complex objects you have to zoom in alot to find the farthest edge on an object, is there a command to find this

It sounds like you are looking for the minimum enclosing rectangle required to surround an object. Is that correct?

What version of AutoCAD are you using? I know of one lisp routine that will work in older releases of AutoCAD (ex. - AutoCAD 2007). It might work in newer versions too but I know it needs an additional line of code, which I have seen mentioned here, but at the moment I can't recall what it is.

UPDATE.

I do believe I found the answer for making the routine work in a newer release of AutoCAD such as 2012 where I tested it this morning. All I had to do was add one line: (vl-load-com).

I'll post the lisp routine momentarily. But first I must give credit where it is due. The lisp routine BBOX was written by forum member R.K.McSwain and posted to the AutoCAD 2007 Discussion forum on 12-06-2006. I did not write it. With the exception of the one line I mentioned the code is in its original form. I named the lisp routine MinEncBox.lsp (Minimum Enclosing Box). Use the APPLOAD command to load it and type BBOX at the command line to start it.

MinEncBox.lsp.txt

Note: You'll have to edit the name of the file that I uploaded by removing the .txt file extension first.

You can start from this routine.