My Shadow Analysis macro is now pretty much ready for release, so starting to look seriously at my next project ...
I am proposing to write an updated Sweep macro (although I will probably refer to it as "Extrude" to avoid confusion with an existing Bill D'Amico macro). I considered writing such a macro many years ago (before I was even aware of Bill's macro), and an updated Sweep macro has been suggested to me as a worthwhile project by a couple of people who contribute regularly to this forum.
I don't have Bill's macro , but recall seeing a video demonstrating it in the past (which I assume was the one that Mark Madura made for the Training Videos section of this forum, but the link to the actual video appears now to be broken ). I don't remember that much of how it worked so don't have a lot of preconceived ideas about how the new macro should behave.
I am seeking feedback from people who have particular wishes or ideas about how a new sweep macro should work.
My current thoughts on the macro's functionality are shown in the bullet points below, but it is very early days so now is your chance to provide feedback that may influence the final design.
I am proposing to write an updated Sweep macro (although I will probably refer to it as "Extrude" to avoid confusion with an existing Bill D'Amico macro). I considered writing such a macro many years ago (before I was even aware of Bill's macro), and an updated Sweep macro has been suggested to me as a worthwhile project by a couple of people who contribute regularly to this forum.
I don't have Bill's macro , but recall seeing a video demonstrating it in the past (which I assume was the one that Mark Madura made for the Training Videos section of this forum, but the link to the actual video appears now to be broken ). I don't remember that much of how it worked so don't have a lot of preconceived ideas about how the new macro should behave.
I am seeking feedback from people who have particular wishes or ideas about how a new sweep macro should work.
My current thoughts on the macro's functionality are shown in the bullet points below, but it is very early days so now is your chance to provide feedback that may influence the final design.
- You would define a "pattern" from a single existing entity which could be one of a variety of types (circle, arc, polygon, polyline). The macro would view that "pattern" in plan view and any z values ignored (this horizontal 2d pattern would then be rotated in 3d to be perpendicular to the path). There is the possibility of also allowing the specification of a circular pattern by the user entering the radius without selecting an existing entity
- In association with the pattern entity a "reference point" will be selected (this is the point that would follow the defined "path", with the pattern relative to this point).
- The option to save a pattern and its reference point for future use would be useful (probably saved as a symbol), but perhaps this need not be included in the initial version? (without this option you could still use a symbol, but you would need to explode it to the drawing in order to select the pattern and reference point from it).
- A "path" can be defined either using an existing polyline or defining a polyline within the macro (not added to drawing) .
- If the polyline defining the path has a non-zero z-size (i.e. different z-base and z-height) then there would be 3 options: use z-base, use z-height, or start at z-height and end at z-base (for an inclined result ... obviously the polyline itself may already be inclined relative to the z-y plane, but the progression of the path through the inclined polyline would start at one side and finish at the other side).
- The ability to specify a z-shift so that the actual path shifts z values along the polylines length (regardless of any difference in the polylines z-base & z-height).
- Is there a need to allow a path to be defined that is in multiple planes??? (e.g. a "chained" group of 3D lines/arcs that could twist and turn in any direction).
- The result would be formed out of polygon entities. There would be an option to include end-caps or not.
- Ability to specify number of circle divisions for both pattern and path. I could limit this to the 128 that DataCAD allows and I think that would be sensible although not absolutely necessary (as the macro would construct the result using polygons it would not necessarily be limited to 128 divisions).
- I am a little uncertain how 'sharp' corners in the path should be handled. My inclination is to 'mitre' them, but there would also be the possibility of having a sharp corner at the inside of the bend and curved on the outside. Comments on this would be welcome.
- Is there a need to be able to rotate (or twist) the pattern along the length of the path? I think I saw this in a demo of sweep functionality in a different cad program, but I'm not sure how useful it would be in an architectural environment ...
David Henderson
dhSoftware - Add-on Macros for DataCAD
dhSoftware - Add-on Macros for DataCAD