[SML] AutoCAD -- Blocks

[e-mail frank.wood95]

Back when I was an active lighting designer, I used to do my lighting
plans in AutoCAD's baby brother, AutoSketch. In an area of the screen
outside the print area, I had a set of the atandard CIE symbols for
the various luminaires, each set as a group. Each type of luminaire
was in eight different orientation. To put a luminaire on the plan,
all I had to do was to pick up the symbol with the mouse, and use the
COPY command to put it where it was to be rigged. One had to be rather
careful about layers and colours, but those were the only problems.

I say colours, because these were used to code additional information.
The exact type of luminaire, the circuit/dimmer, the patch were all
coded with characters in different colours. I then saved it as a DXF
file. Then I wrote a pascal programme to extract information from the
DXF file and load it into Excel. With this, I could extract all the
paperwork I needed, including a brief note as to the purpose of the
luminaire, sort it, and print it out. I even made it do a phase
balance calculation, and warn me of a potential overload.

This was slightly wrecked when some fool decided to re-draw the
theatre plan in metric units. I sat 'fool' quite deliberately. The
theatre, for which the programme is specific, was built to Imperial
measurements, and opened in 1964. The forestage is 24' wide, in 6'
square modules. NOT 7315.2mm. Putting the set plan down involved a
silly grid interval, and click intervals.

On 27 April 2015 at 21:49, Phil Haney via Stagecraft
<stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
> And if you're using Visio, anything can be made in to a symbol, saved into a
> library of symbols, and inserted into any drawing...
>
> -Phil
>
> "Quini, quidi, quici" - I came, I saw, I played a little quidditch.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 9:01 AM, PATRICK MCCREARY via Stagecraft
> <stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:
>>
>> Everything you draw in Autocad can be inserted into another drawing as a
>> block. Any drawing is automatically available to be a block.  Save it with a
>> name, a location, etc. and you've got your library.
>>
>> Patrick
>>
>> On 4/27/2015 11:11 AM, Jason Haislet via Stagecraft wrote:
>>
>> Greetings List
>>
>>
>>
>>                 Does any know how to create blocks with AutoCAD.  I am
>> spending way too much time drawing to same thing over and over again, and
>> cutting and pasting.  Is there a way I can create blocks and import to
>> drawing from a library?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank You
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Jason Haislet
>>
>>
>>
>> 513-831-6650 Office
>>
>> 937-701-9931 Cell
>>
>> 513-831-6681 Fax
>>
>> 1001 Tech Drive
>>
>> Milford, Ohio 45150
>>
>> www.beckstudios.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> G. Patrick McCreary
>> Technical Director
>> Department of Theater and Dance
>> Indiana University of Pennsylvania
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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-- 
Frank Wood