CAD Symbols

Symbols Video 

Symbol Definitions  

Blue Stars represent the location of the Symbol Origin, Geen represents handles. 

 CAD Symbols Menu

Any Symbols placed on a drawing will be generated honouring the current Layer, Colour and Lock settings. Note that the colour of the symbol will only match that of the Layer it is on if the Symbol was defined with the Layer Colour (ByLayer) attribute set.

• One Point Placed - Having Selected this option the following dialog will appear.
  
  If the required symbol is not listed, then they can be loaded from disk by pressing the Load button to view the contents of the symbol Library. Once the required symbol is selected, enter an appropriate Scale and Angle (if needed), and press Ok. An instance of the symbol will then be placed where ever a location is indicated by the user.
• One Point Angled - This works in exactly the same way as the above One Point Placed, however in this case the Angle box is not available.  Instead, the Angle is defined after the symbol is initially placed, by moving the mouse about the insertion point to set the orientation as required.

• Two Point Aligned - This option allows a two-point symbol to be positioned and angled exactly by pointing the first handle point towards an indicated location.
• Two Point Stretched - This option allows a two-point symbol to be positioned and then scaled along its X-Axis towards the second point.  In this case, the X-Axis is defined as a line connecting the Origin and the first Handle Point. 
• Two Point Scaled - This option allows a two-point symbol to be positioned and then previewed as both the scale (equal in both axis) and rotation is specified by the user moving the mouse and clicking on the intended location to fix its position and orientation.
• Three-Point Placed - Allows a symbol defined with an origin and two handle points to be added to the drawing.  Having selected it from a list of three-point symbols which pops up, the first indicated point locates the origin. The second defines the orientation and scale along the X-Axis. While the third defines the scale of the symbol in the opposite axis.

• Create Symbol by Rectangle  - Creates a symbol from all CAD objects found wholly within a selection rectangle.  To create a new symbol follow these steps...
  1. Draw all the necessary CAD elements which make up the new symbol.
  2. Select the Create By Rectangle option from the Symbols menu.
  3. Indicate a selection rectangle that completely covers ALL the required entities.
  4. Using appropriate Lock modes, indicate the location within the entities which is to be used as the insertion point.
  5.  If the symbol is only intended to be a one-point symbol right-click the mouse to proceed.  Otherwise, making use of the Lock modes, indicate the second and third handle points if they are required.
  6. Enter a name for the symbol in the box provided.  One that does not already exist in the project
  7. Decide if the colours and line styles should be fixed as they are, or assigned by the layer the symbol is inserted onto.  Click Yes to allow the styles of all elements within the symbol to be set by layer.  Or, click No to fix the styles of the entities as they currently are.
  
  The entities will all then be incorporated into a new symbol of the given name.
• Create Symbol by List - Works the same as above, except that the selection of the elements that are to make up the symbol are defined as those currently in the CAD list, and not by a selection rectangle.

Symbol handles

• Show Selected - Highlights the origin and any handles of a selected symbol. Handles are identified with a smaller blob than then origin. 
• All - Highlights all the origins and handles of all the symbols in the current drawing or CAD model.
• Move - Allows an identified symbol handle to be moved\dragged to a new location.  So for two-point and three-point symbols, the scale and rotation can be altered long after the symbol has been located.

Modify

• Explode - Converts an instance of a selected symbol back into its constituent elements. All new elements will be placed onto the current layer.
• Scale - Allows a selected symbol to have it's X and or Y scale factors modified.
• Angle - Allows the angle of a selected symbol to be modified by manually entering a new angle to control its orientation.
• Align - Allows the angle of a selected symbol to be redefined by indicating a second point to orientate the symbol to point towards.
• Replace - Allows an instance of a symbol to be replaced with another.  Having selected this tool and the symbol to replace, the Project Symbols dialog appears and prompts the user to select the new replacement.  Having made the selection and pressed Ok, n4ce will change the symbols over.

Symbols 

• Project Symbols - Displays a list of all the symbols currently loaded into the project.
  Note:
  1. This is also the place to Save any symbols that may have come in via a DWG or DWF file.
  2. Pressing Load pops up the Library symbols dialog below.
  3. Symbols should only be deleted if they are no longer required.  Purge is a safer option to use as it only removes symbols that are not in use anywhere in the project.
  4. Star symbols are anonymous blocks in AutoCAD. They are usually used for dimensions and tables etc... Depending on the imported CAD data there could be a larger number of them.  So they can be hidden from the list if so desired.
• Library Symbols - Displays a list of all the symbols saved to the Symbols folder on disk.
  Note:
  1. if a symbol is required to be present when n4ce starts up, then the Always Loaded tick box must be checked for those particular symbols.
  
  
• To Project - Takes a temporary (* symbol) and makes it available as a normal symbol.  Results Tables are one example of a symbol which exist in a project, but are not normally available to be inserted manually.
• Purge - Displays a list of any and all symbols within a project that can be deleted because they are not in use in any way.  To stop a symbol from being purged, select it and click Don't Purge.   Otherwise, all listed symbols will be removed from the project when Ok is pressed.
  

• Backcloth Copy - Copies an indicated symbol from a backclothed CAD model into the current one.