how to create a travel distance line?

[Justin Marchiel]

I want a have a line that has a leader head (or some symbol) for the start and end. I am really not sure how to accomplish this. I was thinking that there would be some way to make this a family, but as i tried it become clear that i would probably be better off using a drafted line with detail componants on the ends?

Would this be the same with everyone else? a leader with multiple segements would work much better (or a good old polyline from acad would be cool).

Justin

[neb1998]

I want a have a line that has a leader head (or some symbol) for the start and end. I am really not sure how to accomplish this. I was thinking that there would be some way to make this a family, but as i tried it become clear that i would probably be better off using a drafted line with detail componants on the ends?

Would this be the same with everyone else? a leader with multiple segements would work much better (or a good old polyline from acad would be cool).



Justin

Create a txt style with text at 1/256" and use as a leader, just add a period as the text so it lets you create it.

to small to plot

[dbaldacchino]

Line-based detail component families are of great use for what you're trying to do. You can have nested components for the start and end of the family. It can be used for creating "fire tapes", custom dimensions and other variable-length annotation. They're very powerful and easy to create.

[dhurtubise]

Do you need to shcedule the lenght of the path ?

[tomnewsom]

This has been done - I started a thread on it. Hang on a sec.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=38943

There. It's a model item, not detail, so you have to turn off the visibility in views where you don't want it (it's a new subcategory of speciality equipment)

It's tricky to use as it's not as simple as drawing lines (each segment has to be rotated into place) - but they are schedule-able. I have used them for fire escape paths and they work well.

[Justin Marchiel]

This has been done - I started a thread on it. Hang on a sec.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=38943

There. It's a model item, not detail, so you have to turn off the visibility in views where you don't want it (it's a new subcategory of speciality equipment)

It's tricky to use as it's not as simple as drawing lines (each segment has to be rotated into place) - but they are schedule-able. I have used them for fire escape paths and they work well.


not exactly what i was looking for, but works great! (too bad it is not one line, but the visibilty of the arrow head is money!)

Thanks

Justin

[jtobin.68416]

This was a great thread; I found this just when I needed it, and used the family. It worked good, but got me thinking because of the rotation limitation.

I developed another distance family based on a beam family, because I could then place each end, and even connect them in a chain.
I created some shared parameters - one for length, one for the room each line was serving, and one so I could filter the structural framing schedule so that it only showed Life Safety beams". Each line is 1'-0" off the floor.

Then I created a tag, that rotates in place.

Once beams are placed end to end, you can use the Tab trick to select the chain and type in the room served in single swoop.
I scheduled, and did not itemize every instance, and it worked great.
I'll never do it the old way again!

Of course, the holy grail for this is going to be a detail lien that can be scheduled and tagged, then you won't have to switch off ht objects in each view.

This Forum is really fantastic for this kind of interchange!

John Tobin

[cstanley]

a simpler, more manual way is to draft your travel path with a spline. it will have curves (you can make them pretty tight) and you can select the entire spline, and it's properties will report the distance. unfortunately, i haven't been able to tag it. that's manual...but i can at least get a reliable distance to place in a table.

[Justin Marchiel]

This was a great thread; I found this just when I needed it, and used the family. It worked good, but got me thinking because of the rotation limitation.

I developed another distance family based on a beam family, because I could then place each end, and even connect them in a chain.
I created some shared parameters - one for length, one for the room each line was serving, and one so I could filter the structural framing schedule so that it only showed Life Safety beams". Each line is 1'-0" off the floor.

Then I created a tag, that rotates in place.

Once beams are placed end to end, you can use the Tab trick to select the chain and type in the room served in single swoop.
I scheduled, and did not itemize every instance, and it worked great.
I'll never do it the old way again!

Of course, the holy grail for this is going to be a detail lien that can be scheduled and tagged, then you won't have to switch off ht objects in each view.

This Forum is really fantastic for this kind of interchange!

John Tobin


I guess the big advantage to this is that you can tag the length of the travel paths. with the specialty equipment method yu have to add a manual tag.

Nice solution on the tagging of length.

Justin