spacelin - Geometrical Construction Lines for Autocad

Manual page Complete reference and user guide.

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spacelin 1.0 for Autocad R11/R12 on sun sparc solaris 2.x (SunOS 5.x) (76889 bytes)
spacelin 1.0 for Autocad R11/R12 on sgi IRIX 5.x (89939 bytes)
Beta version 1.1b1 for Autocad R14 on WindowsNT/95

What is Spacelin

Spacelines/Flatlines are an Autocad extension to create auxiliary construction lines on a special layer.

You can place lines at absolute positions in space or in positions relative to other entities in your drawing.
Every entity that has straight edges, including the vertical edges of extruded entities (by thickness), entities within blocks and edges within acis solid models, can be selected as reference.
The simplest ways to place lines are in absolute positions parallel to an axis of the current UCS, or at a specified angle (right hand or left hand) parallel to one of the main planes of the current UCS.
Angle references can be selected from existing edges, and relative to any main axis of the UCS.
Other methods to place lines include positions relative to other edges in the drawing, like parallel, normal (perpendicular), interpolated, and shortest distance (perpendicular to two edges).
Extent of lines is limited by a 3D frame, which extends the concept of drawing limits to three dimensional space. There is a seperate set of frame extent values maintained for each modelspace and paperspace.
Most functions exist in each a 2D and a 3D version. In 2D, points and selected edges will be projected to the current elevation before processing. In 3D, you have complete spatial control.

More details:

You can create lines in the following ways:
- Parallel to X/Y/Z Axis of UCS.
- Parallel to X/Y axis on current elevation.
- With angle parallel to XY/YZ/ZX plane of UCS.
- With angle parallel to XZ/ZY plane of UCS.
- With angle to XY/YX plane on current elevation.
- Parallel to a vector in space/on current elevation.
- Along two points in space/on current elevation.
- Parallel to an edge in space/on current elevation.
- Normal (perpendicular) to an edge in space/on current elevation.
- Interpolating edges in space/on current elevation.
- Normal (perpendicular) to two edges in space (shortest distance).
Multiple lines are created as:
- Grid on current elevation (ignore frame).
- Rectangle on current elevation (ignore frame).
General utility commands offer to:
- Set/show 3D limits.
- Switch layer ZZ_SPACELIN on/off.
- delete visible construction lines.
- List available commands in 2D/3D.

Currently supported platforms

	Sun Solaris	(R11/R12)
	SGI IRIX	(R11/12)
	WindowsNT 4.0	(R14) beta!
	Windows95	(R14) beta!

If you miss your favorite platform here, please contact me. We might figure out a way to support your platform too, provided you are able to compile ads/arx applications for it.

Warning

This program will not replace the power of your spatial imagination, it can only try to enhance it. It is designed as an auxiliary tool to help the (more ore less experienced) user to locate points in space that would be even more difficult to find without. Some of the functions require a significant amount of geometrical and mathematical understanding to be successfully applied in all variations. But of course, this should not keep you from trying!

"Support"

I expect the program and the manual to be self explanatory for users who have some experience with Autocad and 3D modelling in general. If you still have questions cannot be answered neither with the manuals of Autocad, nor with the included documentation (particularly sections "Diagnostics", "Caveats" and "Bugs and Limitations") nor by the local guru, you might try to reach me by mail through the link below.

Georg Mischler

Copyright

  Spacelin 1.0  Copyright (C) 1995 Georg Mischler.
  Spacelin 1.1  Copyright (C) 1998 Georg Mischler.
  All rights reserved.

  Permission to use and  copy this  software  for any  purpose and
  without fee is hereby granted provided that the  software is not
  altered in any way,  both the above  copyright notices  and this
  permission notice appear in all supporting documentation and the
  full documentation is included.
  Commercial distribution of this software is permitted,  provided
  that it is distributed  unmodified  and in its  entiety with all
  documentation, and the price charged is not significantly higher
  than the cost of copying and distributing this  software and its
  documentation.

  THIS  SOFTWARE  IS PROVIDED  "AS IS"  WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
  WARRANTY.  ALL IMPLIED  WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR
  PURPOSE AND OF MERCHANTABILITY ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED.

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