Autodesk AutoCAD: Dynamic Blocks and Tool Palettes Tutorials
Dynamic Blocks - Roundup / Exercise: Door pt. 2
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Subtitles of the Movie (Autodesk AutoCAD: Dynamic Blocks and Tool Palettes / Dynamic Blocks - Roundup / Exercise: Door pt. 2)
We're now in Part 2 of Exercise 1 and as I said, we're going to change the description there of the Distance 1, the linear parameter and we're going to change that there to Adjust Door Width. Now, what you'll notice as well is down here in the Value Sets you'll see that we have a Distance Type of None. Now, ideally what we want there is a distance type of increments so we go there Increment like so. Then we want a Distance Increment in here of 50. So I'll put 50 in there like so. Again, beware, look. I've moved the crosshair off the Properties Palette. AutoCAD has brought up Dynamic Input there thinking I'm typing in 50. That's incorrect. Delete that, hit Escape once and then select your Distance Parameter again. Sometimes that happens. Just be careful there. It does happen; you can drift off the Properties Palette. So I'm just going to scroll down again and what we need there is Increments, a Distance Increment of 50, a Distance Minimum of 600 and a Distance Maximum of 900. You can see the increments here on the actual block in the Block Editor itself. Now, the number of grips I'm also going to change here at the bottom. I'm going to change that to one. We only want the one grip on this door and that's going to be this grip over here. Now, when you think about this, it's sensible. The alignment parameter is here. I only need this grip to stretch out on that distance, don't I? I don't need a grip on this side. I'm not going to be stretching that hinge of the door. So what we're going to work on now is a scale action. So I'm just going to close the Properties Palette now and go to Actions on the Block Authoring Palette here and I'm now going to select the Scale Action here and come into the drawing area in the Block Editor and the parameter that I'm going to select is the Distance Parameter here, this one; the Linear Parameter. It then prompts me to select objects. Now, the objects I'm going to select are actually going to be the Flip State and the Arc. Those are going to be scaled. I'm then going to press Enter to end that selection. What I'm going to do now is I'm going to set a stretch action this time. So I go to Stretch here on the Actions Tab again and it asks me to select a parameter again. I select the Distance Parameter again here. It now asks me to specify a parameter point to associate with that action. It's going to be this side here, this end point here. It then asks me to specify the first corner of the stretch frame. Now, the stretch frame is going to be over here, this point here. So I'm going to select these two points, left click there, drag the stretch frame, left click there like so. I then need to select the objects that are actually going to stretch. Now, that's going to be the rectangle that's going to stretch there going upwards as this arc goes out to the right and makes the doorway bigger. So what I do there is I press Enter now to end that selection. Now, the only one that does not have any action applied with it is the flip at the moment. Don't worry about that. We'll do that in a moment. What we're going to do now is select the stretch action itself so I'm going to select the Distance like that, right click, Properties like we did before, press Escape to deselect that and then what I'm going to do is select my stretch here. I'm going to change the Distance Multiplier and the Angle Offset here. Now, the Distance Multiplier is coming as a default of one. That's great. But the Angle needs to be in there 90 degrees so that we always stretch at 90 degrees when we stretch the door. So I'll do that there and I'll close the Properties Palette again. Hit Escape to deselect that stretch action. Now, the last thing I need to do now is add a flip action. So I click on Flip and what I'm going to do is select the parameter that I'm going to apply the flip action to. Well, that's easy. It's going to be that flip state there, select the object, everything and then right click to confirm. You'll see there's no exclamation marks anymore. So what I'm going to do now is go to Test Block in my AutoCAD 2010, select my door. I can flip it like so and I can stretch it using the increments like so. You can see that there on the screen. If I zoom in a bit, can you see the door getting bigger and smaller there as I move along the increments? Yeah? And the arc getting smaller as well and scaling. So I hit Escape there to deselect, click on Close and close the Test Block Window. You can see how important that Test Block Window is in AutoCAD 2010. What I'm going to do now is close and save the changes to the door. So I now have my dynamic block in my drawing like so. What I'm going to do is click on the Alignment Parameter here, align it with my wall. Look; when I move it around, can you see? It aligns with each wall but I'm going to align it with that midpoint just there and look; it fits this particular instance. So let's just zoom out a little bit and I can flip that door in the doorway if I need to. But what happens now if I need another block in a smaller doorway? Well, what I do there is I use this block here, I select it, right click, copy selection. If I zoom in and use that point there as the base point and then drag across there to this point here, you can see the door is way too big. But if I click here and click here on that Linear Increment, I can bring it back and it fits that doorway there nice and snugly. Also as well, I can flip that door as well if I need to. So you can see there these doors work extremely well. If I click here and click on the Alignment here and then take it up to here say, look; and click there. I can align it with that doorway there if I need to. So it aligns itself with every opening in every wall for me and I can also resize at will using my dynamic block of a door.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Autodesk AutoCAD: Dynamic Blocks and Tool Palettes |
| Author: | Shaun Bryant |
| SKU: | 34055 |
| ISBN: | |
| Release Date: | 2009-11-13 |
| Duration: | 6.5 hrs / 85 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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