Automated
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Plotting in AutoCAD
Overview
Visual aids are important for developing an a user-friendly design manual. The design team has manually created AutoCAD images to help users understand the plant designs of water cleaning systems. One major problem of this task is, however, is that the developers need to regenerate the AutoCAD plots when they change a design of a single object in the system.
The major goal of this project is to automate the process of creating plots professional layout sheets in AutoCAD. A few lines added in the Mathcad scripts generate desired plots after a system is designed in AutoCAD. Furthermore, the plots The generated sheets will include not only images drawings but also such critical information as dimensions. the dimensions and zoom scales of the models and the comments by the developers. Furthermore, the final layouts will be plotted into PNG files. The automation is based on AutoCAD features such as layout, paper spacedimensions, view ports, and dimensions. MtoATranslator is updated; new AutoCAD commands are added in the scriptplots, and etc. More detailed information pertaining to the AutoCAD commands that are used is given in the next section. The MtoATranslator program is updated with new AutoCAD commands. The other AutoCAD design scripts will be renewed according to the updated MtoATranslator.
What are model space and paper space in AutoCAD?
Model space is the drawing space in AutoCAD in which users can model and design an object. The screen appears when AutoCAD is loaded is the model space.
The paper space, also known as the layout space, is the plotting environment in which users can plot and print the object drawn in the model space. This space can be loaded by using layout commands.
Tasks
Updating MtoATranslator
To automate the layout creating process, updating MtoATranslator is necessary. The old MtoATranslator includes basic design commands but layout creating commands. The new commands that will be included in the translator are:
layout, vplayer, plot
Important AutoCAD Commands
Below is the list of the AutoCAD commands required for creating professional layout sheets.
More features will be added as they are debugged.
Achievements
Some of the commands above – layout, shademode, viewports layer, model space, and paper space – are debugged and added to the MtoATranslator. The processes of creating layout sheets, setting shademodes, and switching between model/paper spaces are automated.
Future Goals
The final goal of this task is to produce a paper space shown in the link below with the available AutoCAD commands.
Click here to see the sample drawing 1
Click to see the sample drawing 2
As this project is in the beginning stage, there will be many challenges to confront.
1. The MtoATranslator should be constantly updated as new commands for paper space and plot are found.
2. A method for putting more than one viewport in one layout sheet should be found.
3. The commands that add and edit texts in AutoCAD will be added in the MtoATranslator.
4. The dimension commands will be debugged. This task requires careful calculation to estimate the location of the dimension texts.
5. Following the dimension, the texts will be added.
6. The styles for dimensions and texts will be automatically set.
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