Linetypes and Text readability

[CCarleton]

Looking to see if anyone can shed some light on this with linetypes and text readability.

These below two examples of linetypes that are experiencing different things in 2017. A CAD user just called me saying that he has his viewport set to north as facing left/west and that the ROFA linetype was upside down. After some investigation we discovered CAD really doesn't appear to like having north face west or south as far as text readability goes with linetypes, you can't even draw left to right and get it to come in a readable format. So my next idea was to tell him to reverse the linetype, but not even that worked. The ROFA linetype refuses to flip and be readable. I grabbed a different linetype, a 4" storm linetype, and test it myself and it flipped just fine. Comparing the two linetypes I see nothing different that should make any impact.

*A-ROFA,Runway Object Free Area ----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA--
A,4.0,-.05,["ROFA",EXIST,S=.8,U=0.0,X=0.0,Y=-.04],-.27

*U-ST-04,4" Storm Line ----4"ST---------4"ST---------4"ST-------
A,1.0,-.07,["4''ST",EXIST,S=1,U=0.0,X=0.0,Y=-.04],-.33

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Tom Beauford]

From AutoCAD help - About Text in Custom Linetypes:
Rotation
The rotation angle of the characters to be displayed in the linetype. The rotation angle must be prefixed with U=, R=, or A=.
U= specifies upright or easy-to-read text.
R= specifies relative or tangential rotation with respect to the line.
A= specifies absolute rotation of the text with respect to the origin; that is, all text has the same rotation regardless of its position relative to the line.

For Civil 3D work where views are generally always Twisted setting the rotation with U=0.0 as in the examples above is problematic as you can see. I use A= instead to define rotation in all of my linetypes.

[CCarleton]

That's cool and all, but what I don't get is why I can reverse the 4" ST and I can't reverse the ROFA linetype and that's my main gripe right now. If I face North to west in the viewport and then draw a line both lines have upside down text. I run the reverse command and the storm line cooperates, ROFA doesn't. Ultimately I could build a bridge and get over this issue if the reverse command was working the way I expected it to, but it's not.

As for the A variable while that's interesting to learn of, I'm not quite sure how that solves anything unless I create a multiple linetypes and then I wouldn't even be able to join the lines as the area the user is trying to showcase is a closed polyline. I guess that's an option, but seems like a lot of work if you're managing a moderate to large linetype file.

U has always worked fine for me, but I only work in North being North or East. The way I always understood it was to steer clear of R entirely.

[Tom Beauford]

Linetypes are stored in the drawing. Try reloading the linetypes from your *.lin file. They should behave as expected.

[CCarleton]

Linetypes are stored in the drawing. Try reloading the linetypes from your *.lin file. They should behave as expected.

Yeah, I understand that. Still no dice, we've reloaded the linetype multiple times while playing with the settings. I even copied the 4" ST linetype, replaced the text with ROFA and tried to reverse that and it wouldn't flip.

[Tom Beauford]

The lisp here: http://forums.augi.com/showthread.ph...l=1#post876542
will return the definition of the current linetype to the command line.

Make U-ST-04,4" Storm Line the current linetype and run the lisp or attach a drawing with just those two lines in it and I'll check it out. If you can reverse it the linetype definition cannot match what you have posted above.

[CCarleton]

Thanks for your help, I'll look into that Lisp at some point and report back. I dinked around with it again yesterday and, much to my chagrin, the ROFA linetype was flipping. I'm not really sure what's going on since both of us were seeing the same problem and then when I went to go look at it again I stopped having the problem. Sometimes I loathe CAD.

[Tom Beauford]

Try using

(findfile "acad.lin")

and

(findtrustedfile "acad.lin")

(substituting whatever linetype file you're using) at the command line to make sure you're looking at the same linetype file those linetypes are loading from.

My offer to look at a drawing with just those two lines in it still stands if you attach one. Just to keep the attachment size down.

[CCarleton]

Hi Tom,

Used the LISP

*A-ROFA,Runway Object Free Area ----ROFA----ROFA----ROF
A,4.0,-0.05,["ROFA",DYNMODEExist,s=0.8,y=-0.04],-0.27

*U-ST-04,4" Storm Line ----4"ST---------4"ST---------4"S
A,1.0,-0.07,["4''ST",DYNMODEExist,s=1,y=-0.04],-0.33

For ease of reference this is how the lin file is setup

*A-ROFA,Runway Object Free Area ----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA----ROFA--
A,4.0,-.05,["ROFA",EXIST,S=.8,U=0.0,X=0.0,Y=-.04],-.27

*U-ST-04,4" Storm Line ----4"ST---------4"ST---------4"ST-------
A,1.0,-.07,["4''ST",EXIST,S=1,U=0.0,X=0.0,Y=-.04],-.33

I see that the LT_THF routine doesn't show the u=0.0 aspect. Not sure why that doesn't show. I can say that if I'm upright viewport or modelspace that the lines draw the way I expect them, if I twist the viewport to north is east or west then I run into problems. However, again, I'm suddenly able to reverse both linestypes when we were first trying to play with this and we couldn't. Could be drawing specific I suppose?

[Tom Beauford]

Hi Tom,

Used the LISP
I see that the LT_THF routine doesn't show the u=0.0 aspect. Not sure why that doesn't show. I can say that if I'm upright viewport or modelspace that the lines draw the way I expect them, if I twist the viewport to north is east or west then I run into problems. However, again, I'm suddenly able to reverse both linestypes when we were first trying to play with this and we couldn't. Could be drawing specific I suppose?

Sorry, old lisp. My offer to look at a drawing with just those two lines in it still stands if you attach one. Has got to be a simple explanation, but without any of us being able to see it not much we can do.