How to show open boxes that hide the lines behind

[Ron Mak]

In autocad, we have a block for a set bar which is a box with a whipeout entity over it which hides the lines that to to the center of the bar.

Is there a method to accomplish the same thing in MSCad?

[Glen Cameron]

From what I know the wipeout option is coming to a theatre near you in the near future! A future version of MSCAD will contain this option (as fas as we know now anyways).

Currently we do not have a similar feature.

Richard Whatman may have a work around though as I believe he ran across a method that worked for him, a while back. Maybe he can detail it for you to see if it helps.

Cheers,

[surveyor_06]

Draw a square for the bar.

Draw a solid fill object whose limits are bigger than the bar and use color 255. This is "white" gray shade. Essentially this whites out the lines underlying the solid. The size of the solid can be determined from a few test plots. If it is the same size as the square for the bar you may see the lines sticking inside the bar a little.

The second issue to watch out is that the draworder must be set so that the square drawn for the bar is above (in front of) the solid fill.

I then insert this block into drawings and move/copy to ends of lines. Sometimes the draworder on the line will put it in front of the solid, but this is a simple editting process.

Good Luck.....

[rwhatman]

I changed MicroSurvey blocks ICI.PLP and ICM.PLP

I filled them with the Color 255 and then drew a Polyline with Color 6
around the edge of the block and put a width to the Polyline.

If you don't add a Polyline the color 255 could cover the box.

Also set your print option to print the Color 255

You will have to use drawing Order if you edit the line the block is on.

I have not cut a line in more then 5 years.

It works great for me.

[Ron Mak]

Thanks for the help. At first I thought it may not work because on screen it looks just like the solid box. On print preview it looks grey. But on paper, it's perfect!

Is there an easy way to distinguish between the two symbols on screen?

[rwhatman]

Sorry not sure what you mean.

My blocks look nothing like the original blocks.

Yet they work better.

Make sure now that you turn OFF the option to CUT lines.

Its not needed.

[Ron Mak]

We have two symbols for survey bars to distinguish if there were found (filled in solid) or set (open). Now that my "open" bar is filled with a colour 255 solid, on screen it looks just like a found bar.