AutoChart Version 2010.00.09 was released at the beginning of November. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, I've not been able to write a blog post about some of the major changes until now. But, with the adage of "Better Late than Never", here's a quick roundup of the two major changes introduced in this version.
- Paper Space Charts option
- Use of Paper units and Plot Scale for Text Heights/Tic Lengths/Line widths, etc.
Firstly, AutoChart has been modified so that it can now create and fully work with 'Paper Space' charts - i.e. the Model Tab just contains the real-world plan data (as Entities, Blocks or Xrefs) and each Chart Drawing (with Profile/Cross Profile/Events panels) is created on a Layout Tab. The option to continue working in the usual AutoChart manner with Charts created in the Model space still remains and for most operations, the procedures involved are identical whether you are working with model space charts or paper space charts - the only real difference comes in the Create Charts dialog and consequently how the Chart Base and Template drawings are set up.
Secondly, as part of this change to allow Paper Space charts within AutoChart, the entries for Text Heights/Tic Lengths etc. in the various dialogs have been changed so that the User should enter the required Height/Length at the appropriate printed size rather than in 'real' units at the required scale as per the previous AutoChart procedure. A plot scale (either entered in the 'Current Drawing' dialog or saved to the Charts as part of the Create Charts command) is then used to scale these 'Paper height' values to the correct 'real-world' size for the specified chart scale.
For Paper space charts, the Create Charts command now contains an option to either create Model Space charts (as in the normal AutoChart process) or Paper Space charts. The Number of Layouts per drawing file can be specified, so multiple Charts can be created (as Layout Tabs) within a single drawing.
When creating Paper space charts, the Template drawing should be drawn as a Layout Tab at the required paper size. The Base Drawing should be drawn in 'Paper units' in the model Tab of the Base Dwg File. The Base drawing can then be manually Xreffed into this Template Layout Tab (and scaled to fit if necessary) and the 'Use Base Drawing Xref' option disabled, or otherwise specified as a separate drawing (drawn at the appropriate Paper size in the Model tab) in the Base Dwg Xref File in which case it is xreffed into each Chart Layout as part of the Create Charts Process.
Note that the Plan Panel Origins are set to Paper Space coordinates (i.e. the position of the origin should relate to the plotted size of the chart). The Panel entities in the Panel drawing should be created in 'Real-world' units in the Create Panels command (i.e. the appropriate size of the Plan box at the required Chart scale). The value entered for the Chart Scale in the Create Charts Dialog will then be used to scale the panels down to the appropriate Layout size.
Once the charts have been created, the other relevant Chart Series commands (such as Create Grids, Create Profile, Create Cross Profiles, Create Events, etc.) take the chart type into account and automatically add the data to the relevant model or paper space layout. All Plan data is added to the Model Space and the display within the Chart Plan Panels is controlled using a Viewport Freeze of the appropriate layer names for each plan panel. Note that the use of annotative Text, Blocks and Hatches with the 'Match Orientation to Layout' option enabled in an Xref Drawing could be used instead of the normal Cut Data and Insert/Xref Cut Data procedure to provide 'horizontally reading' entities within the charts.
The longitudinal profile, cross profiles and events panels are created directly on each Chart Layout tab.
All Text Height/Tic lengths, etc. in the AutoChart Dialogs should now be entered as the plotted paper size rather than the 'scaled real-world size' as was previously the standard in AutoChart. i.e. Previously, for a 1:10000 chart, if the Text Height was required to be a plotted size of 2.5mm, the User would have to set the Text Height in the Dialogs as 25 units. With this latest modification however, the Text Height would be entered as 2.5mm and the Plot Scale set to 1:10000.
For all 'Chart Series' commands, the Plot Scale is read from the Chart Scale value set during the Create Charts Process so the Dialog entry is grayed out.
If you run Chart Series commands on Chart Drawings that were created in a previous release of AutoChart (and so do not have the Chart Scale Information embedded within them), the command will prompt you to enter the appropriate Chart Scale for the Chart Series:
This will then save the entered Chart Scale value to the drawings so that subsequent commands can read the value directly from the charts.
When you load an existing (pre AutoChart v2010.00.09) project that hasn't had the Plot Scale set within it (i.e. the Text Heights are real 'scaled' units), AutoChart will prompt you to enter the required Plot Scale:
All Text heights within the acp file will then be updated to the appropriate Paper space height and the Plot Scale set within the appropriate dialogs. A copy of the original acp file will be made in the same location with a ".old" extension.
An Event Box ini file created with a previous version will similarly be automatically updated to use plotted paper heights for the Text based on an entered Plot Scale value. When you load an Event Box ini file using the Create Event Box ini command or through the Create Event Box - Current Drawing or Chart Series commands, AutoChart will check to see if it has been created or modified with the latest version and if not the User will be prompted to specify the appropriate Plot Scale:
The Text Heights will then be scaled to the appropriate plotted Paper Units. Note that the Line Width setting for Line Events has also been changed to use a percentage value rather than real units. All Line Events Line widths will be set to 0 and should therefore either be manually edited to the required percentage of the Event Strip Height in the Create Event Box ini command or the ini file should be used in the Create Event Box (Chart Series or Current Drawing) command which will update the Text Heights, Strip Width values (if used) and the Line Event Linewidths, based on the entered Plot Scale and the specified extents of the Events panel.
I'll finish the roundup of the other new features in AutoChart 2010.00.09 next time, but if you have any questions on any of the above changes, please let us know.
