Hiding objects behind a block that has cut-outs within it....

[JonCAD]

I'm probably being a bit thick to be honest! I seem to have mastered the 'wipout' command way of masking out objects behind a block but it diesn't quite go far enough. I also want the block to recognise the is a thru hole or island withing it so the object behind still appears in that area. For exa,ple placing a block of a washing mashine door over the machine front but still want to see the washing in the machine. Can anyone help? I saw that pendean.com may have the solution but the site is unavailable

[Cad64]

I use a solid hatch with color set to 255 for masking objects underneath a block.

[JonCAD]

Yep- thanks.

I was trying to avoid this thinking niaivily some autolisp dood may have taken the agro out of it, i.e a way of having exactly what you have suggested but with a 'transparent' hatch to make life a lot clearer when working on complex drawings with multiple, overlapping blocks

 

[steven-g]

Use regions for the blocks and give the blocks a Z value or Elevation to place them one above the other. Then use 'shademode' set to hidden.

[JonCAD]

Thanks Steven, you're taking me into new territories which is always a fun challenge!

I'll give it a looksee.

 

My alternative (as there always is with AutoCAD!) is to simply have the hatch in a dedicated layer turned off while working on the drawing in model space and then simply turning it on before plotting/pdf'ing. Bit of a bodge I know but gets the job done. I'm sure your solution is far better...

 

Ta

Jon