Externally setting a block of text in AutoCAD

Hi,
I have never worked with AutoCAD, but now a client needs me to develop
an application that involves handling DWG files. What I need to do is
open AutoCAD with some kind of template file and automatically set its
label (which I understand is just a block of several text fields) to
content provided outside.
My question is: What is the smartest (and easiest) way of doing this?
I understand AutoCAD has OLE Automation features. Can I manipulate a
drawing from an external application through OLE? Another option
might be AutoLISP. How could that work for me?
I would really appreciate any helpful hint from someone who handles
the programming aspect of AutoCAD rather than "just" the user's
perspective.
I've only been provided a standard user manual of AutoCAD (by the way,
the version is 2000i), but that doesn't seem to cover these advanced
features.
Thanks,
Michael.

 

You are asking a tall pile of questions, Michael,
while giving only a rough sketch of the context.
Better get familiar with the application a bit,
check in the online Help under Customization,
then come back to the group when you've got
something put together.
I don't know OLE at all but what you want may be
possible through LISP and a script. You have to
get way more specific.

 

Mike

OLE is Object Link and Embedment, where you might
copy a section of a word docymnet or excell document.
It a Windows function

Sounds like he wants to fill in a drawing title block that
has been created as a block with attributes from an
external source.....

I suggest he looks at blocks and attributes and then
passing information form and two the drawing from
an external source via LISP.

I wrote an application for a company that did this to
create a bill of materials taking information from basic
symbols with attributes. The reversed engineered it so that
they could run a lisp to create a drawing based on a
TXT or CSV file of information

Alan

 

I've got my own guess as to what he wants too, Alan, it
closely matches yours. However he may also want other
stuff, or something else. It sounds like he hasn't got to
recognizing entity types yet, hence my comment.
If that's so, it's a long road.....

 

First of all, thanks, Michael and Cadalot for your attempts at aiding
me, in spite of my obvious cluelessness.
In the meantime, I've advanced somewhat on the topic, so I think I can
try to be a little more specific with my request.

I have a drawing that contains several annotation objects (text
entities?) which are grouped together in a block. Together they
represent a label that is supposed to hold detailed information about
the drawing, such as title, author, codes of all sorts etc.

What I need to do is to programmatically set the values for these text
objects. It would really help if any of you could tell me which
AutoLISP instructions I need to access that block and the text objects
within.

Thanks for your help.
Greetings,
Michael.

 

There are two ways that text entities can be in a block:

1) Plain old MTEXT or TEXT
2) Attributes

You access these differently. It sounds like you are trying to
edit a title block. Many people use title blocks containing ATTRIBUTES,
though
some people like to split up the ATTRIBUTES in a separate BLOCK,
and leave the other linework, logos, etc in another BLOCK.

Enter the following at the command prompt in a drawing with one of your
title blocks:

(entget(car(entsel)))

then hit enter and pick the titleblock. What do you see?
--


MichaelB
www.michaelbulatovich.com



MichaelB
www.michaelbulatovich.com

 

According to what I was told by the people who made the file, the
block consists of Attributes.

Here's the output of what you requested:

Command: (entget(car(entsel)))
Select object: ((-1 . <Entity name: 259a4a8>) (0 . "INSERT") (330 .
<Entity
name: 259ac10>) (5 . "78D") (100 . "AcDbEntity") (67 . 0) (410 .
"Model") (8 .
"1") (100 . "AcDbBlockReference") (66 . 1) (2 . "ROT1") (10 20900.0
125.0 0.0)
(41 . 25.0) (42 . 25.0) (43 . 25.0) (50 . 0.0) (70 . 0) (71 . 0) (44 .
0.0) (45
.. 0.0) (210 0.0 0.0 1.0))

"ROT1" is the name of the block, so I assume I did it correctly.
Otherwise, the above honestly doesn't tell me much.
I could provide a sample file if that's helpful.

Thanks,
Michael.

 

There are a couple of routines on my site that access and manipulate
attributes.
You could examine them and you should be able you figure out how to
access yours through lisp. I right fairly clunky but easy to follow
code, and I annotate it quite a bit to keep it straight in my own mind.
You are welcome to them.

The basic trick to getting at attributes is that you have to look for the
*next* item in the database after the block that contains them.