Cannot offset this Object???

[cpriedel]

Hey,

I have serched the Forums and couldnt find an answer to my problem. Actually kind of surprising, so if i missed it, please point me to the right thread.

 

Anyway here it goes.

I have a closed polyline. Basiclly its a rectangle with some Radi instead of corners. The Elevation is 0.

When i try to offest this polyline it says:

Cannot offset this Object

Dont know what i am doing wrong. What did i miss?

Any advise is appreciated.

[MaxwellEdison]

If you're offsetting it to the inside, your offset distance may be greater than half the width or length of the polyline, so basically you'd be asking AutoCAD to create a rectangle with a set of negative dimensions.

 

***Assumes bad Scotty voice: Ah simpla canae doot Cap'n. It defies the lawsa physics!***

[cpriedel]

nope, thats not it.

The "rectangle" is roughly 206'x380' and i only want to offset it 1' to the inside. Any other ideas?

[totzky]

JUst a guess: Is this rectangle a block?

[MaxwellEdison]

If it's not a block, select the rectangle in question, and use the WBLOCK command to write it to a separate file and post it here.

[stevsmith]

What size is the radius in the corner?

 

If this is less than the offset distance, it wont offset.

[eldon]

I have come across polylines that refuse to offset. Usually with quite a few nodes, but I haven't quantified that. Offsetting is a mathematically intense operation, and if there are too many nodes (or something else), Autocad refuses to offset.

 

Could you post the offending polyline in a drawing, and let other folk have a go?

[wannabe]

I normally find that z coordinates are always involved when I get the CANNOT OFFSET messagebox.

[cpriedel]

I ended up redrawing the polyline and the offset worked ???. I will review the Threat when ill come across an other one since it happens to me quite often it seems.

[cpriedel]

Thank you all for taking the time trying to figure out my problem

[chrismatt]

I had the same problem - a large amoeba shape with a small offset. To solve the error, I broke into the shape, cut off only the portion that I needed an offset for, and closed that shape temporarily. The offset worked as expected for the smaller more manageable shape.

 

A lot of trouble to work around, but it worked. Maybe there was an "overlap" negative problem in some portion of the amoeba that I cut off, or there were too many nodes. Either way, I took care of it.

[chrismatt]

Afterthought: You don't even have to close the shape--just break it in two places, offset the portion you need to offset (or both halves if you need the whole thing offsetted, then close your original shape back up.