Dynamic block arrays

In the past week I have noticed a couple issues come up dealing with arrays, or truthfully trying to do advanced handling of these arrays within the dynamic block itself.

Unfortunately Autodesk has some work on creating equations and variables inside the block editor so you could do some what ifs and such.

You could try and create visibilities to handle different scenarios that you are trying to accomplish - but this can get into a management issue of your block and size constraints and manual operations to select the correct visibility.

You could get into creating a separate dynamic block of the array in question and inserting it as a nested block. If these are small blocks that will be inserted multiple times, this may not be a suitable option. Nested dynamic blocks work best on large dynamic blocks that are inserted 10 times or less into a drawing.

There are a couple approaches that I feel should be taken or at least looked at:

Event:
One is creating an event that will watch for changes in your dynamic block and then change the array parameters in question. This is not best suited for real time changes and you would see the changes after you are completed.

• This would require creating a list of all the potential blocks to watch and what you want to do with it
• Creating a standard, so the list can be appended by the Cad manager - not hard coded

Jig:
Another is using what is called creating a jig - using dot net. You can set up using a jig to see real time activity. As you make changes to the dynamic block you can see the array changes in real time. From the user and the interaction with dynamic block, this might be the best approach.

• The best approach here would be to create a command that will allow you to insert the dynamic blocks - this can be set up to handle all of your dynamic blocks and put the parameters right on the screen next to the block as you position it.
• Create another command that would allow the changes and see them real time.
• This would require creating a list of all the potential blocks so you know which blocks have the arrays to manipulate
• Creating a standard, so the list can be appended by the Cad manager - not hard coded

Dynamic blocks have brought some power of parametric's to the AutoCad user but still has some limitations. When you combine it with dot net, the power increases 10 fold and allows you to do so much more.

Let me know what you think or feel free to contact me.

Patrick K. Johnson

Nested Dynamic Blocks

Nested Dynamic Blocks

Since dynamic blocks have become available, it has changed how you create, manage and use blocks within your drawings. It also has some limitations that need to be dealt with.

Creating Dynamic Blocks: There is a lot of data out there for creating dynamic blocks and I do not want to become redundant on this issue. Just searching dynamic blocks will point you to quite a bit of information on creating dynamic blocks.

Managing Dynamic Blocks: The creation of dynamic blocks can help with the reduction of files in your block library –which is good. Some of the managing of these blocks now turns to the creation and what is inside these blocks. How complex do you make a block before making another block? Making a dynamic block too complex has its own issues when it comes to managing these blocks, the time to create, the time to make changes, and the amount of time for the user to select and make changes to the parameters.

Limitations of Dynamic Blocks: The one limitation of dynamic blocks is the ability to nest dynamic blocks. Right now if you were to nest dynamic blocks would require the user to explode each level to make changes to the buried dynamic blocks. This really defeats the purpose of dynamic blocks. This is why I created the BlockEdit+ tool to allow the user to make changes to the buried dynamic blocks and keep the integrity of the block itself.

The creation of nested dynamic blocks allows you to create more complex blocks that I believe are easier to manage from a creation point, not to mention the ability to reuse these nested blocks in other blocks – thus you are not recreating geometry.

There are other limitations of dynamic blocks when dealing with nested blocks, that I believe scare users including the idea that users will lose their dynamic properties under certain situations without warning, not to mention the ability to change the nested properties. However, with a little planning and understanding of how you want to use them in your drawing you can take what is out of the box and make it even more powerful and greater potential. Currently our BlockEdit+ tool handles a dynamic block with nested dynamic blocks.

Imagine the ability to have a nested dynamic block within a standard block. The potential is the limitation of your imagination and the ability to manage your drawings.

I look forward to your comments.

Protect Dynamic blocks

This I have seen brought up quite a few times in the past and wondering how many people find this necessary or would like to have something like this?

The best approach I believe would be to put your dynamic block inside of an empty block and then have a tool that would update your dynamic properties inside of this block. This would also require you to not allow exploding on the empty block.

Will this keep everyone away from getting at your dynamic blocks – no, nothing is fool proof. It will keep the majority of the users from getting at them. If it is not in front of most users, they would not even try to get at it. With standards and processes in your company, it would protect from users at your company making changes and other things could be put in place to protect them even more.

Our block edit tool was designed to work with nested dynamic blocks from the top level down. However with a few changes, this could easily be switched to read the dynamic block inside of an empty block and allow you to change your properties.

I will be doing some testing to make sure there are not any issues of having multiple instances of the same block in your drawing file. Right now I do not see an issue with this.

Feel free to make your comments about this, if your for it or not and give any feed back.


Thanks

Patrick Johnson
President
Cad Enhancement, Inc