AEC Welding Symbols

[jsnyder.68308]

I have a user who "discovered" a routine for drawing welding symbols that was buried in the Detailing section of the Sample Palette Catalog - Imperial tool catalog in the Content Browser (whew, that was a long one). He placed the tool for this routine on a palette and started using it, but with some mysterious results. The routine brings up a seemingly comprehensive dialog box that will insert the weld symbol(s) of choice along with some descriptive text and dimensions if needed. The text shows up as attributes in a block, but the inserted text is not matching the text entered in the routine's dialog box.
If he enters "3/16" as the dimension for the weld he gets a "~3". There is no help section for this command (the command is "AecDetailsWelding"), and Google doesn't even return any results. Has anyone ever used this routine, and does anyone know what variables might be affecting these results?

Thanks.
James Snyder

[Beau.Turner]

James,

Interesting as I am unable to duplicate this using either the english or metric templates (using ADT 2006, sorry only think on this machine).

Two things:

1. Are you able to duplicate this on another machine, using the same "weld setup" values?

2. If you select the generated block for the weld symbol, what value is shown for the attributes?

[cholmes]

The ~3 is used in a special font, which will look like a stacked 3/16. The special font is likely not installed, or not set up in your current font. To be quite honest, I don't know how to get it to use something else for the default font (it usually uses the current style in the drawing in my case) I will do some digging around and see if I can figure it out. You probably don't want it to use this stacked font, because it will be messed up on other computers (we ran into this a bunch several years ago. We would even have drawings get printed with a bunch of tildes. Very annoying!)

[cholmes]

Ok, I don't remember if this is it or not, but, check in the following location ( C:\Program Files\Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2005\Welding ) for a lisp routine
called "AecDetailsWeldCMD.lsp"

If you open this routing and scroll all the way to the bottom, there should be two section that have lines that look like either this:

(defun aecrcp_zz_fracToSpec (frac)
(setq
frac (vl-string-subst "1/16" "1/16" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "1/8" "1/8" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "3/16" "3/16" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "1/4" "1/4" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "5/16" "5/16" frac)

or this:

(defun aecrcp_zz_SpecToAscii (frac)
(setq
frac (vl-string-subst "1/16" "~1" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "1/8" "~2" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "3/16" "~3" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "1/4" "~4" frac)
frac (vl-string-subst "5/16" "~5" frac)


I am thinking, in that first set, it used to have the ~1, ~2 etc, but I changed it to be just the fraction. I think what it's doing is taking what you entered in the dialog box (3/16 for example) and converting it to ~3 in the output. by changing it, it's making the output 3/16 instead of ~3, if that makes sense?!?!

Anyway, take at look at those two sections and see if they are the same as I'm showing, or if in fact the first set is different. If so, simply change them like I have, and I believe it will work.

[jsnyder.68308]

Chris, that was it. I don't know much (anything) about welding symbols, but that part of the routine substitutes the fractional values entered into the dialog box with the tilde values. Maybe its some kind of welding/fabrication shorthand. When I replace the tilde values with the actual fractions in the LSP routine, it works like I think it should (values in the dialog box match those that appear in the weld symbol block).
Thanks for the help. One more mystery solved.

James Snyder

[david_peterson]

As a structural guy, I've reviewed many a steel shop drawing.

I have never seen a ~ in front of a weld symbol. I've never seen an engineer mark up a detail with a ~ in front. My guess is that it's an out right error.
unless its ment to be used with the metric templates that way. I've never looked a overseas shops (metric) so I wouldn't know on that one.

[cholmes]

No, the tilde ( ~ ) is doing kind of the same thing as when you do a %%C for circle diameter symbol. It's creating a symbol in a certain font, which is a stacked fraction, in 16ths (~1 = 1/16, ~2 = 1/8, ~3 = 3/16, etc).

[david_peterson]

No, the tilde ( ~ ) is doing kind of the same thing as when you do a %%C for circle diameter symbol. It's creating a symbol in a certain font, which is a stacked fraction, in 16ths (~1 = 1/16, ~2 = 1/8, ~3 = 3/16, etc).

So what you're saying is that if you leave the ~ in, you can just enter in you weld size as a function of 16"? ie putting just a 3 in the box would yeild a 3/16 on the symbol?

[cholmes]

Well, not exactly. When you type in 3/16 in the dialog box, it converts it to ~3, which in turn stands for a symbol that looks like a stacked 3/16. Back before mtext, and autostack and all that, this was a way to have a stacked fraction in standard text. It is basically just a symbol. It would get rather annoying though at times here. The guy that was the structural cadd guy before me liked to use stacked fractions all the time. All of his drawings would have it. Then, somebody else would open a drawing that didn't have the font, or the path would get messed up or whatever, and they would plot the drawing, and you would have all these stupid ~3 or ~5 or whatever, all over the place.

[david_peterson]

You have to love legacy.