DB grips disappear if UCS <> World

[michael.12445]

We're trying to use some dynamic blocks with Array actions to create patterns indicating wall ratings on floor plans. I made a series of blocks 1" high, with the idea that they could be inserted and scaled to the width of a wall (i.e., SF = 3.5 for a 2 x 4 wall), then stretched to the length of the wall using the dynamic block grips.

This works great, except I've noticed in some cases the DB grips disappear after the SCALE command is used on the block. In other threads I saw this could happen if the X, Y, and Z scale factors are not equal, but when I checked, I found they were equal. The problem seems to occur when the current UCS is not the World UCS. Unfortunately, because we need to align our plans with those we get from civil engineers, our plans are very often drawn with a UCS other than World. Is there some workaround to get DBs to work regardless of which UCS is current? (Let me know if I should post a sample.)

BTW, I do know that an approach commonly used to create these kinds of graphics is custom/complex linetypes. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, but for a whole series of reasons, that method isn't working well for us.

Thanks in advance,

Michael Evans
Togawa Smith Martin Residential, Inc.

[NEaton]

You mention you "checked the scale" but did you actually change the scale even though it looked correct? I have had blocks that say 1:1:1 and the grips disappear so I retype the XYZ scale and the grips appear. Seems to be a rounding issue.

I haven't had a problem with DB's and UCS <> World.

Nancy

We're trying to use some dynamic blocks with Array actions to create patterns indicating wall ratings on floor plans. I made a series of blocks 1" high, with the idea that they could be inserted and scaled to the width of a wall (i.e., SF = 3.5 for a 2 x 4 wall), then stretched to the length of the wall using the dynamic block grips.

This works great, except I've noticed in some cases the DB grips disappear after the SCALE command is used on the block. In other threads I saw this could happen if the X, Y, and Z scale factors are not equal, but when I checked, I found they were equal. The problem seems to occur when the current UCS is not the World UCS. Unfortunately, because we need to align our plans with those we get from civil engineers, our plans are very often drawn with a UCS other than World. Is there some workaround to get DBs to work regardless of which UCS is current? (Let me know if I should post a sample.)

BTW, I do know that an approach commonly used to create these kinds of graphics is custom/complex linetypes. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, but for a whole series of reasons, that method isn't working well for us.

Thanks in advance,

Michael Evans
Togawa Smith Martin Residential, Inc.

[michael.12445]

You mention you "checked the scale" but did you actually change the scale even though it looked correct? I have had blocks that say 1:1:1 and the grips disappear so I retype the XYZ scale and the grips appear. Seems to be a rounding issue.

I haven't had a problem with DB's and UCS <> World.

Nancy

Nancy,

No, I didn't go beyond just looking at the X, Y, and Z scale factors as shown in the Properties palette. So I'll try retyping them explicitly, entering the same value for each, when I get back to work on Monday. Thanks for the tip!

Michael Evans
Togawa Smith Martin Residential, Inc.

[michael.12445]

I had a chance to try the suggestion to retype the X, Y, Z scale factors in the properties palette to restore the grips to a dynamic block insertion, and it worked. It appears you're right, even though the appearance of the numbers in each field is identical before and after retyping them, there must be a rounding error that the dialog does not reveal.

In the drawing where this occurred, the UCS is rotated an odd amount (about 5 degrees) off of the World coordinate system. This appears to be yet another example of AutoCAD's poor handling of angular calculations.

Thanks again for the tip!

Michael Evans
Togawa Smith Martin Residential, Inc.