Use of zero length entities

We just had a situation here where a heavy polyline
wouldn't extend due to a zero length segment found
at the end. Seems to me that zero length segments
are useless.

Anyone actually use a zero length entity for anything?

Speaking with a co-worker, he thought one could
use something like this to attach xdata (as an example)
but basically obscure it from the users view.

Just curious what others thought about it.

 

I use zero length segments in some plines to get the type of fit curve I
need. If you ask me to reproduce, I'll just deny this posting. <vbg>

--
R. Robert Bell


"Jason Piercey" <Jason AT atreng DOT com> wrote in message
We just had a situation here where a heavy polyline
wouldn't extend due to a zero length segment found
at the end. Seems to me that zero length segments
are useless.

Anyone actually use a zero length entity for anything?

Speaking with a co-worker, he thought one could
use something like this to attach xdata (as an example)
but basically obscure it from the users view.

Just curious what others thought about it.

 

That's exactly what I <used> to use zero-length segments for...controling
fit curves in plines. However, as per my plea agreement and witness
relocation program, I can't discuss the matter any further. ~

 

I once used a zero-length line in a title block as something you could snap to the ENDPOINT of. You could use a POINT entity and snap to NODE, but if PDMODE is set to zero the POINT will not appear, or alternatively it could appear as a plus sign or an "x" when all you want to see is a little dot.

I did want the little dot to appear in the drawing, because we had our HP plotter set to conserve paper; even if you told it to plot, say, a 24" x 36" sheet, it would eliminate all the white space on the top, bottom, left and right of the plotted image. By putting a zero-length line at the corners of the page, it would force the plotter to print the page with the white space. (Well, the white space wasn't perfectly white, it had a one-pixel ink dot at the corners.)

 

Ancient history -- I did a similar thing, but without the zero-length line.
I used a defpoints-layer pline representing the sheet edges. This forced the
extents to be where I wanted them, but didn't plot.

 

Let's try to keep any reproducing off of this group..... ;-)

 

I wondered if anyone would pickup on that pun. <esg>

 

Alternatively, you could use a POINT object on the Defpoints layer, which
doesn't respect the PDMODE system variable. It always displays as a little dot,
and gives you the proper extents.

Matt

 

yeah, entities on the defpoints layer move the extents of the drawing over, but that's not what I was trying to achieve, the idea was I _did_ want the plotter to print that one-pixel dot. In "paper-saving" mode the plotter shifted the inked area to the corner of the paper if there wasn't that one-pixel _printed_ dot to anchor the plotted image.

 

Yes, exactly what I have done for years. Recently I discovered that I could
simply screen the dots. This way, they are hardly visible on the plot, but
the plotter "sees" them.

 

And a "screen" of 1 would make them extremely hard to notice.

--
Don Reichle
"King Of Work-Arounds"
Barghausen Consulting Engineers
Kent, WA USA
LDT3 - SP1/CD3 - SP1
On WIN2K SP4
Dell 1.6 Ghz P4
512MB RAM
NVIDIA 32MB AGP