Annotative scaling with Dynamic Block

I have what should be a fairly simple question. Hopefully this is the right thread, as this does involve a dynamic block.

I'm setting up CAD standards for my office (title blocks, tool palletes, dynamic blocks, you know the drill). This should have been done long ago by another employee who makes more money than me, but that is beside the point. (Maybe you know the drill on that front too...)

This is a granite countertop fabrication shop, and I've created a dynamic block containing all the edging profiles we are producing at the moment. Contained in the block are "3D" versions of each profile, both with and without dimensions (for annotation purposes), and a 2D closed polyline showing only the "section" of the profile, to be exploded from the block and used as an extrusion shape when 3D drawings of the finished look of a countertop are necessary.

The issue I'm having is with scaling/annotative scaling. I have created a custom tool pallete with this edge profile block and a couple other dynamic "mark-up" blocks. (See Layout1 in the attached drawing.) What I need is for this edge profile block to insert into model space at "actual zize" (3/4" thick), so when it is exploded and extruded, I'm creating that 3D edge at the proper proportion in my drawing. But for annotative purposes, I want to be able to insert the block at a different scale in paperspace (roughly at the size it is shown in the attached drawing).

I've made it this far without help, but annotative scaling is something I haven't tackled yet. (Only been using AutoCAD for about 6 or 7 months.) I appreciate any insight you might have.

CRYSTAL_TEPLATE01.dwg

I'm playing with it now, and I'm also noticing that my dimension scales are only correct for the first insertion of the block, but when another edge type is selected, the dimensions go haywire. I want those dimensions to display at a consistent scale with the block...

My initial guess is that it's because the block is inserted into Paperspace. AFAIK, annotative scaling doesn't work in Paperspace because there is no scaling in PS. To display/print it at it's actual size, put it in modelspace and use a 1:1 viewport.

Hmm... Doesn't sound like a viable solution for my workflow at this point. As I mentioned, I'm fairly new at AutoCAD, but I intuitively went right to doing all my dimensioning and annotation in paperspace. I prefer to keep my modelspace populated by nothing but clean geometry.

Hi Wintermute, welcome to the forum!

I have changed the title of your thread to something more descriptive.

Hi Wintermute,

Firstly, I seriously recommend that you don't explode your dynamic blocks. AutoCAD will try to apply the dynamic parameters to the whole of your drawing which could easily corrupt your DWG files (This is why dynamic blocks are set to 'unexplodeable' by default).

Secondly, I think that you might be trying to do too much with one dynamic block. Why not split your blocks up and use tool palettes or the design centre to manage all the different types? There's a good tutorial here:

http://www.archblocks.com/archblocks-cad-blocks-how-it-works

Finally, annotative scaling depends on the name of the scale not it's value. So if you came up with a custom scale of 1:1.25 you could call it 'Layout size' and then create annotative dimensions that only appear when the scale is set to 'Layout size'. However, you would need to make sure that this custom annotative scale is in all your drawings for this to work. If you had a single profile in each block, then you could use the 'scale' option in the dynamic block with a visible state for 'Dims on' and 'Dims off' (plus this would work in MS and PS).

let me know how you get on

Paul

Thank you Tiger, and thank you Pablo.

That does help shed a bit of light on things, Pablo. So exploding a dynamic block could lead to problems? I tested it a few times already, and it seemed to behave in the desired way, automatically stripping away everything but the linework for the current visibility state of the block. Nothing seemed to go wrong visually, and the files have behaved fine so far, but when I ran a purge, I did notice that the "guts" of all those dimension blocks spilled out in the background. The reason I was exploding it is that I discovered blocks cannot be extruded along a path to create the 3D model of the edge.

I could separate the edge profile block into two, one for the extrusion shapes in modelspace, and another for annotation in my layouts... I just want to keep things as simple as possible for day to day use. "So simple an idiot could use it."; Because I am dealing with a few at my office.

I also thought about including a scale parameter/grip to manage the visual size of those edge details in my layouts, but I haven't mastered that aspect of dynamic blocks yet. Are you saying a scale parameter won't work with a block that has multiple visibility states?

I will look into the design center option as well. That's another thing I haven't approached yet. Thanks again for the warm welcome.

EDIT: I just took a peek at Design Centre. Is it pretty much what it looks like? An internal directory that treats individual .dwg files as a "folder" in the hierarchy, allowing you to pluck blocks, dim styles etc. from any file? That could certainly come in handy for me once I start building a library of our commonly repeated geometry, but I think for the blocks already discussed, I'm looking for something I can plant on my tool palette. I need those to be very much a "point-click" affair.

Yep, that's right - the design centre is really good for when you have too many blocks to manage them with tool palettes.

Exploding your un-dynamic blocks on insert shouldn't create any problems - only the dynamic ones.

Don't get confused between visibility states and annotative scaling. Annotative scaling is handled semi-automatically by AutoCAD. Visibly states are something that you build into your dynamic blocks yourself. The idea of mixing them gives me a headache!

If you built a scale parameter into your current block, you would then need to apply it to every piece of geometry - some task!

I get your point about simplification, but lets face it - your colleges need to do something for their money

They keep having babies.

I'm stumped on this one. My dynamic "work order" block keeps creating "baby" nested blocks within itself. (At least, I think they are nested. They are invisible to the PURGE command and the BLOCK command, but they show up in the BATTMAN list. Once the "parent" block is exploded, the undesired baby blocks become accessible, but they seem to be pregnant as well. (Upon saving/reopening the file?) This is also happening with my "MATERIAL TAG" block, which is essentially the same set-up as the "FABRICATION ORDER" block. Additionally, one of my block attributes "W.O." seems to want to keep duplicating itself as well, even after it is removed via BATTMAN.

This is annoying, to put it mildly.

Suspected causes:

-Before I created the blocks, I used the GROUP command to organize certain objects into groups. Then I just went ahead and created the blocks without exploding/deleting the groups. Bad move?

-At some point, I exploded another dynamic block in my drawing, and am now reaping that drawing corruption I was warned about.

Suggested solutions: ?

Note:

-A lot of work went into these blocks with visibility states and lookups. I definitely do not want to start from scratch if it can be avoided. EXPLODE, PURGE, start over = "The Nuclear Option".

-The desired blocks are named appropriately. The "anonymous" ones are obviously the random alpha-numeric.

CRYSTAL_TEPLATE02.dwg

Dynamic blocks do procreate every time it's changed from it's original state. Even if you don't alter the dynamic block, I'm pretty sure you have to use the anonymous name in BATTMAN, not the original name. I think the original block name is merely a stored copy of the original block definition/parmeters, the "real" block in the drawing is the one with the anonymous name.

You can use LIST to verify this, as it will list both the original name, and the anonymous name.

Dynamic blocks do procreate every time it's changed from it's original state. Even if you don't alter the dynamic block, I'm pretty sure you have to use the anonymous name in BATTMAN, not the original name. I think the original block name is merely a stored copy of the original block definition/parmeters, the "real" block in the drawing is the one with the anonymous name.

 

You can use LIST to verify this, as it will list both the original name, and the anonymous name.

Thanks, Nestly. That does shed some light on it. So this "procreation" should only happen when I modify something within the block, say, in the block editor? I was definitely doing that quite a bit, as I was trying to iron out the wrinkles. It shouldn't happen when I double-click the block and edit my attributes though, right?

Also, why do the "baby" blocks come out scaled way down? I created the blocks as "unitless", because I though they might be used in both metric and imperial drawings. Should I have chosen one or the other?

Every time you use the dynamic properties of a dynamic block an anonymous block definition is born (When you are using the Dynamic block in in AutoCAD - not editing it in the block editor).

If (During your block building process) you exploded the resulting anonymous dynamic block and then built the resulting nested anonymous blocks into your new dynamic block... well I can imagine that that would get confusing...

With regard to the unitless thing - the geometry in the blocks should still be full size, however if you insert a unitless block that you drew up 'thinking' in mm, into an imperial drawing it might me smaller than you expect.