Drawing Organisation

Structure

The Library files are made up of groups of Blocks combined into a one or more drawing files to conserve disk space by reducing file overheads and judicious use of nested blocks. Using a composite Library drawing file also simplifies and speeds loading Library items into the receiving drawing. The Library files are easily combined with other Libraries to make bigger libraries. By using the supplied components LST file, the Libraries may be reduced to selected individual Drawings by your own automated WBLOCKing function.

Layers

Drawings consist of three layers each prefixed with the "$" sign to allow rapid identification as AZCAD Symbol Library layers within your own drawings.

The layers are as follows;

• $COUTLIN Layer color 3 (green), pen number 3. This layer contains the silhouette or outline of the vehicle.
• $FOUTLIN As above, but containing the outline for figures only.
• $CDETAIL Layer color 1 (red), pen number 1. This layer contains detail lines that fill in the outline.
• $CTEXT Layer color 0 (white), pen number 7. This layer contains text components of certain library items. Note that display lettering within the library is drawn with PLINEs, therefore having no requirement for fancy fonts.
• $FDETAIL As above, but containing the detail for figures only.
• $KWIKDR Layer color 0 (white), pen number 7. This layer contains the Block name in text and a rectangle block enclosing the vehicle to show its location and approximate visual mass. It is useful to have this layer on and the other two off to save time when doing lengthy regens. This layer and the information it holds as described above is only provided in orders shipped in DWG format.

Using the Library

To use the Library, insert the supplied Library drawing file into your own work drawing and respond with Ctrl-C to the Insertion point: prompt.

Checking the listing of blocks in your drawing at this point will reveal an extensive list of new imported blocks. Because some of the Library Drawings also contain blocks, there are many blocks listed with names that have no apparent relevance. Use either the list in the manual or the screen menu where provided to select the block name of the item you wish to use.

To simplify the insertion process, three utilities are provided.

DRAWLIB Command
On the release disk is a file named DRAWLIB.LSP. This file contains an AutoLISP routine that when executed, creates a new command "DRAWLIB", available from the AutoCAD Drawing Editor. On entering the DRAWLIB command, you are prompted for the Library you wish to load (INSERT) and it is then loaded along with its corresponding menu.

The installation batch routine includes the option during its execution that will append this file to your ACAD.LSP file, which then ensures that the DRAWLIB command is available whenever you are in the Drawing Editor.

Note: DRAWLIB as supplied will load load the Library and menu files provided they are located on a subdirectory \DWGLIB on the default drive. If you have chosen to use another drive or subdirectory you will need to edit DRAWLIB.LSP to search in the correct location.

Library Menu
Each Library is provided with a .MNU file to assist in the easy selection of a particular view.

There are only two sections to this file, ***BUTTONS and ***SCREEN.

The ***BUTTONS section is provided with the default allocation, that is 1-PICK, 2-RETURN, 3-OSNAP, 4-CANCEL, 5-SNAP, 6-ORTHO, 7-GRID, 8- COORDS, 9 ISOPLANE, 10-TABLET. If you have customised the ***BUTTONS section of the menu you usually use, or if you have a puck with more buttons, you will probably want to edit the menu to suit yourself.

The ***SCREEN section is a bare bones set of screen menus to give you access to all the drawings in the Library, control of Library layers and rudimentary editing and display controls using some simple macros.

The top label of the each of the menus pick either the previous menu or Main Menu, depending on context. A line of asterisks accesses the OSNAP menu.

To select the drawing to INSERT, pick DRAW from any menu with this option. Then pick the view, either FRONT, REAR or SIDE elevations or PLAN, from the next menu. The menu after displays the drawing choice.

Layer display is controlled by picking LAYERS from any menu with this option. The Layer control options are;

• CARS-FRZ Sets Layer 0, freezes all Car layers($C*)
• CARS-THW Sets Layer 0, thaws all Car layers
• FIGS-THW Sets Layer 0, thaws all Figure layers($F*)
• FIGS-FRZ Sets Layer 0, freezes all Figure layers
• OUTLINE Sets Layer 0, thaws outline layers ($COUTLIN and $FOUTLIN), freezes detail layers ($CDETAIL, $FDETAIL and $CTEXT) and $KWIKDR
• DETAIL Sets Layer 0, thaws all Library outline and detail layers, freezes $KWIKDR
• KWIK-ON Sets Layer 0, freezes all Library outline and detail layers, thaws $KWIKDR layer
• KWIK-OFF Sets Layer 0, freezes $KWIKDR.

The Main screen menu offers an END option. Picking this item goes to a submenu that has two options;

• SAVE-ALL Ends drawing session and saves everything, unreferenced blocks etc included.
• DEL-LIB Checks "EXPERT" system variable and if set to 0 or 1 prompts to ensure you really want to WBLOCK the drawing then quit the session. On affirmative answer (default Yes), or without prompting if "EXPERT" is set to 2 or greater, the current drawing is WBLOCKed, purging all unreferenced Block definitions (ie unused Library), Layers, Shapes, Styles, Linetypes.

Most users will want to finish a session with the AZCAD Menu DEL-LIB selection to eliminate all the unreferenced Blocks. However, some will also have Layers, Styles, and Shapes etc. that they do not yet want to eliminate from the drawing.

This can be achieved by saving your drawing twice before using the DRAWLIB command to load the Library Drawing. Aswell as ensuring that you have your base drawing safely stored in both DWG and BAK files before the large Library is loaded, you will also have a means to eliminating all unreferenced blocks and restoring your required unreferenced Layers, etc..

To restore Layers, Shapes, etc. lost through using DEL-LIB menu selection, a double SAVE operation must have been carried out before initially loading in the Library. Having ended the editing session using the AZCAD Menu DEL-LIB, copy the BAK file of the drawing just finished (AutoCAD Main Menu, 6-Files, 5-Copy) to a temporary file with another name with .DWG extension (e.g. WORK.DWG). Re-enter the Drawing Editor to edit the default drawing. INSERT the new temporary drawing and enter Ctrl-C at the Insertion point: prompt. All the unreferenced items will have been restored to the drawing, which then may be saved and the temporary WORK.DWG file deleted.

Editing and drawing display menus are variations on the AutoCAD menu incorporating some simple macros .

Insertion Routine
Using the screen menus to INSERT Library Blocks involves the use of an AutoLISP function called IR (Insertion Routine). The IR function is included in the DRAWLIB.LSP file and is invoked on the selection of a Library item from the screen menu.

The drawings were created using Decimal units with a single unit value representing one millimetre. Insertion of a Library Block into a drawing where a single unit value represents an inch will result in an inaccurate scaling of the Block. It is assumed that a drawing using Engineering, Architectural or Fractional units would most likely use the unit value to represent an inch. On this basis, IR reads the units system variable and sets the insertion scale as 1 for Scientific and Decimal and as 0.039370078 for Engineering, Architectural and Fractional. If these scales are inappropriate for your unit representation, then you will need to change the scaling factors in this function by editing the program file.

Selecting Drawing Library to Load from the AutoCAD Menu

To enable you to pick a selection from your screen menu that will eliminate keyboard entry of the DRAWLIB command, you will need to insert a line in ACAD.MNU, the AutoCAD menu file.

It is suggested that Drawing Library menu be selected from the DRAW sub-menu. Familiarise yourself with customising menus by reading Appendix B in to AutoCAD Reference Manual and after being sure you have a backup copy of ACAD.MNU, have a look around inside this file with EDLIN or your word processor (in non-document mode).

When you feel comfortable with the menu format, go to sub-menu **DRAW and find a blank line. On the blank line, being careful not to add any extra lines, enter;

[DRAWLIB:]^C^C^CDRAWLIB;

This line will display DRAWLIB as a selection on the screen menu when you select DRAW in the AutoCAD drawing editor.

If you have chosen not to include the DRAWLIB.LSP functions in your ACAD.LSP file, then a Menu line you could enter in your usual menu file is described under Hard Disk Preparation in the Installation section above.

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