Making Blocks, Text and Hatches match the Panel orientation in Paper Space Charts

In my previous Blog post (some time ago) I discussed the new Paper Space Charting capabilities of AutoChart and mentioned the use of Annotative Blocks and Text within xreffed data rather than having to use Cut data to rotate objects to read horizontally within the chart plan panels.

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.

However, what I omitted was how to actually set up Blocks and Text to have the 'Match Orientation to Layout' property enabled, so today I'll address this omission by covering the processes involved.

With Text entities, the easiest option to have the text match its orientation to the layout is to create a new text style and turn on the Annotative and Match text orientation to layout options for that style:

It's then simply a matter of using this annotative text style for any text entities you want to have rotated to read horizontally within each Plan panel.

Alternatively, you can set the Annotative and Match Orientation to Layout options in the Properties pallette for selected text entities that don't use an annotative text style:

When the Data drawing is Xreffed into the Charts, the text will display North-up (i.e. horizontally) in the model view, but will also display horizontally within each Chart Plan panel viewport no matter the angle of the panel. For any Text you don’t want to be shown rotated (i.e. keep the original rotation from the Model Space), then just make sure it uses a non-annotative text Style and its annotative property is disabled.

Blocks are a little more tricky to sort out – although there is an AutoCAD drawing variable (ANNOTATIVEDWG) that you can set to make a dwg annotative when it is inserted as a block, currently there is no way to set the ‘Match Orientation to layout’ option for that annotative block.

For that reason, the easiest method is to insert the Block symbols as normal, e.g. using Import Block Data, with a 'North-up' orientation. Once the blocks have been created for the various targets, type BLOCK at the AutoCAD command line to start the Block Definition dialog. Choose the appropriate Block Name from the drop down list and then change the Behaviour settings to turn on Annotative and then turn on Match block orientation to layout:

Click OK and then AutoCAD will prompt you to redefine the Block:

Select the Redefine block option and then all targets using that block symbol will be made annotative. Repeat the operation for all other block symbols in the data drawing that you want to rotate to read horizontally within each Chart Plan Panel. For any Blocks that you wan to retain their model space orientation (i.e. those that represent and actual real-world direction), just make sure that they are not annotative.

To make a Hatch entity match its orientation to the layout, you simply need to create the hatch pattern as Annotative. An annotative hatch will always be rotated to maintain its orientation within the layout viewport so there's no 'Match Orientation to Layout' option.

Alternatively, you can turn on the annotative property of an existing hatch by setting it in the properties palette for selected hatch entities.

By Making Text and Blocks (and Hatches if required) annotative, you don’t have to use the AutoChart Cut Data command to rotate the entities when they are added to the charts. Instead, you just use the Xref Data command to add the entire data drawing to the charts.

The Xref is added to the model Space of the chart drawings so that it can be seen through the Viewports on the Chart Layout Tabs. A Viewport freeze is applied to the Panels you don’t want the data displayed in, so for example, in the above situation, the Geo Interpretation data Xref is hidden in the Top Plan boxes by VP freezing the Layer in those viewports.