Autocad project I’m working is being overloaded objects

[goforhenry]

Hi! I’m not sure if this is the correct place to post this but I’m a graduate student working on a project where I have a 11.97 x 11.97 mm box that im trying to fill up with smaller boxes with sizes .002 x .002 mm, .002 mm away from each other in the x and y direction. Ive hit a point now where autocad has slowed down significantly is there any way to get around this? Any help would be appreciated! 

[CyberAngel]

Have you tried the Array command? That way you don't have individual objects cluttering up your main memory and graphics memory. It might be cheating, but I don't see the point in drawing little boxes just to see if they fill up a space. That's a math problem, not a CAD problem.

[Steven P]

Could also make the boxes into blocks, copy and paste them - the geometry is only defined once but displayed many times rather than each individual box being defined. Could also make them into a larger block, say 10x10 squares which will do the same again.

 

Then place them with an array.

 

 

I guess this is a practice exercise to work out the best way to draw these?

[goforhenry]

Yes I used it initially to get the first row and from there I would just copy and paste it above it and then I would copy those two rows and do the same thing until I filled the whole box. The issue now is that I still have so many objects in that box that its causing autocad to lag

[eldon]

Perhaps a hatch would be suitable

[goforhenry]

1 hour ago, eldon said:

Perhaps a hatch would be suitable

What exactly does hatch do?

[eldon]

A hatch gives a regularly spaced pattern.

If your smaller boxes were a fixed size, then a hatch definition file could be written which would show what I image you would require.

It all depends on even more information from you giving exact sizes of the smaller boxes.

[goforhenry]

11 minutes ago, eldon said:

A hatch gives a regularly spaced pattern.

If your smaller boxes were a fixed size, then a hatch definition file could be written which would show what I image you would require.

It all depends on even more information from you giving exact sizes of the smaller boxes.

all the boxes are .002 x .002 mm, .002 mm away from each other uniform through out the bigger box. So does a hatch not fill in the empty space around the boxes?  Sorry in advance for the questions/confusion this is my first time using autocad

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by goforhenry

[eldon]

What size are the smaller boxes? I appreciate the distance between them, but the boxes themselves must have an overall size.

 

A hatch is a regular pattern of lines or can be a solid fill of colour. There are many already in AutoCAD, but a custom sized one is always useful. Try and explore them.

[eldon]

Sorry, I see that your boxes are 0.002mm by 0.002mm with a 0.002mm gap between them.

I will have a go a writing a definition tomorrow unless someone else beats me to it.

[eldon]

OK, you are overloading AutoCAD.

 

Trying a hatch, I get a message that the pattern is too dense. If I try a hatch at 10 times the box and spacing dimensions, I get a picture which could be hatched with a solid fill, but zooming in, one can see the individual boxes.

 

 

[BIGAL]

Eldon a 1x1 plus 1 gap does that work better ? Then scale pattern.

[eldon]

I got a pattern to fill the required 11.97 square using the following definition (which is 10 times the required spacing):

 

*SB, small boxes
0,0,0,0,0.02,0.02,-0.02
90,0,0,0,0.02,0.02,-0.02
*

 

When I tried to reduce the scaling to 0.1, I was not able to as my entered figures of "0.1" were ignored and "1" was substituted. Clearly AutoCAD was having none of it!

 

Pondering on the purpose of filling a square with 2993x2993 smaller boxes (=8958049), I can see no valid reason for it, but someone possibly knows otherwise. Perhaps the point IS to test the limitations.

 

Someone else can have a go at using the correct spacing by replacing the "0.02" with "0.002" in the above definition. My version of AutoCAD does not like it!

Edited July 1, 2023 by eldon

[Steven P]

3 hours ago, eldon said:

Pondering on the purpose of filling a square with 2993x2993 smaller boxes (=8958049), I can see no valid reason for it, but someone possibly knows otherwise. Perhaps the point IS to test the limitations.

 

 

 

Often I take these questions where I can't see a real world solution as a part of a course of some sort - a graduate student and "this is my first time using autocad" also suggests this. So assuming this is a part of a course, got to determine what the lesson is and then that will give the answer..... custom hatches or blocks are my thoughts here

[goforhenry]

19 hours ago, eldon said:

OK, you are overloading AutoCAD.

 

Trying a hatch, I get a message that the pattern is too dense. If I try a hatch at 10 times the box and spacing dimensions, I get a picture which could be hatched with a solid fill, but zooming in, one can see the individual boxes.

 

 

Im not sure how to use hatch, I tried using it by typing in hatch and clicking in between the squares but all it does is it begins to highlight each individual square until it highlights the whole row then it makes the rest of it white. 

 

My project as it is already looks like what you posted above when i zoom in and out (this is before doing hatch)

 

The squares are a part of a research project im working on, we are going to etch away Si that is exposed through the tiny boxes and grow Ge on the “towers” that are left over from the etching

[eldon]

Hatching is a process that fills up a blank space with a pattern.

 

There are inbuilt patterns included with AutoCAD, or custom patterns can be written.

 

My thoughts about your project would be to create all 8 million or so of your boxes within a blank rectangle of 11.97mm square using a custom written hatch pattern. Obviously if you have drawn the small boxes, then hatching would be of no help to you now. When you give AutoCAD a lot of work to do, it gets very sluggish, and drawing 8million boxes is a lot of work.

 

I have an old version of AutoCAD, and it has just run out of memory trying to hatch the larger box - announcing a FATAL ERROR. So trying a hatch may not be your best way forward.

[goforhenry]

I dont mind starting over, so would it be better for me to start over and use a custom hatch pattern? 

[eldon]

As you are unfamiliar with hatching, I think it might be too much in this current situation. I have found out that my version of AutoCAD cannot handle the amount of data, but have no knowledge of how the latest version would handle it.

You would have to copy and save my hatch definition in the correct folder to use it. Perhaps this is a step too far at the moment.

[Steven P]

For the research project I'll assume that the etching process uses something other than AutoCAD, and CAD is just the tool to draw the pattern to be etched? It might be useful to find out if the etch process will accept an AutoCAD hatch as a pattern to use - might be that it will only want more traditional shapes such as lines and so on - then the hatch solution will be a problem.

 

Can you describe the process you will follow in a bit more detail?

 

It is possible to amend a drawing outside of the graphical interface using the AutoCAD core console - though this will need some script to do but it might get you round the limitations of CAD itself.

 

I think the script will need 2 nested off loops 2992,  one to draw a row of boxes, and another to move to draw the next row, something like this:

 

You'll need to read up on running the core console to get this to work in there but copy and save this LISP as a text file with the extension *.lsp - plenty of advice out there, this will draw a 10x10 grid of rectangles just to test (got to go, apparently dinner time)

 

(defun c:drawrects ( / x y )
  (setq pt (getpoint "Select Start Point")) ; can program this in for a script, example (setq pt (list 0 0 0))
  (setq y 1)
  (setq x 1)
  (repeat 10 ; for Y axis. 10 as an example you want 2992?
    (repeat 10 ; for x axis, 10 as an example you want 2992?
      (entmakex (list
        '(0 . "LWPOLYLINE")
        '(100 . "AcDbEntity")
        '(100 . "AcDbPolyline")
        '(90 . 4)
        '(70 . 1)
        (cons 10 (Mapcar '+ (list (* 0.002 x) (* 0.002 y) 0) pt ))
        (cons 10 (Mapcar '+ (list (* 0.002 (+ x 1)) (* 0.002 y) 0) pt ))
        (cons 10 (Mapcar '+ (list (* 0.002 (+ x 1)) (* 0.002 (+ y 1)) 0) pt ))
        (cons 10 (Mapcar '+ (list (* 0.002 x) (* 0.002 (+ y 1)) 0) pt ))
      )) ; end entmakex
      (setq x (+ x 2))
    ) ; end repeat (x)
    (setq x 1) ; reset x axis to original x
    (setq y (+ y 2))
  ) ; end repeat (y)
); end defun

 

[BIGAL]

Saved HB.pat, hatch custom scale 1, ok my Bricscad said exceeded number allowed, but reset to some 100000000 etc then hatch appeared.