Last updated July 28, 2026
BANK draws the scalloped batter symbol used on site plans to show a slope: a run of alternating arcs between the top of the bank and the toe, with a small triangle marking the high side. Drawing it by hand is fiddly and drawing it consistently across a site plan is worse, which is why routines like this one have been circulating since the early nineties.
This is version 1.2, dated 25 July 1992, by Lawrence Lieberman of Hogan, Schoch & Associates in Sebastopol, California. The header describes it as a rewrite of an earlier routine called SCALLOP.
What it does in practice
You show it two lines: the uphill line, picked near the point you want the batter to start from, and the downhill line, picked near where it should finish. It draws a small triangle at the top, then builds a polyline running down to the toe and applies alternating bulge factors to every vertex, which is what turns a straight run of segments into the scalloped in-and-out shape.
The number of scallops is worked out from the distance and your chosen scallop size, so a long batter gets more of them at the same size rather than the same number stretched out. That is the behaviour you want when the symbol has to read consistently across a drawing.
Everything goes on a layer called slope, created in colour 15 if it does not already exist, and your original current layer is restored when the command finishes.
Scale and scallop size
The routine sizes the scallops as a fraction of your drawing scale, so the symbol plots the same regardless of what scale the drawing is at. It takes the scale from the USERR2 system variable if that has been set to something greater than zero, and asks for it if not — a neat touch, since a site drawing that already stores its scale there never has to be told twice.
A second command, SIZE, sets the scallop size. It offers a tenth of the drawing scale, five hundredths, or a value you type. The first time you run BANK in a session it calls SIZE for you, because it has no size to work with yet; after that the size sticks until you change it. Type SIZE to change it and it re-runs BANK immediately with the new value.
The practical approach is to run it once on a test batter, look at the result against your title block, and adjust with SIZE until the scallops read well at plot size. Then leave it alone for the rest of the drawing.
Command reference
- BANK — draws the batter symbol between an uphill and a downhill line.
- SIZE — sets the scallop size, then runs BANK.
Worth noting that SIZE is a very general command name to be claiming. If you load a lot of routines, check nothing else you rely on uses it — whichever loads last wins.
How to load it
Unzip BANK.zip and load BANK.LSP with APPLOAD, or add it to the Startup Suite if you do site work regularly. There are no support files. Our AutoLISP guide covers loading.
Step-by-step usage
- Draw the top and bottom of the bank as lines first. The routine works between two existing lines rather than free-hand points.
- Type BANK. If USERR2 is not set it asks “Drawing Scale?”.
- On the first run it asks for the scallop size: tenth, five-hundreds, or other.
- At “Select Uphill Line:” click the top-of-bank line near where the batter should start.
- At “Select Downhill Line:” click the toe line near the corresponding point. The symbol is drawn between them.
Where you click matters on both picks — the routine snaps to the nearest point on the line you clicked, so the batter runs between those two positions rather than between the lines as a whole.
Compatibility notes
Dated 1992, so written-for rather than tested-on. One thing to be aware of on a current release: the routine builds its scalloped line by stepping through polyline vertices as separate objects, which is how the older heavyweight polylines are structured. AutoCAD has drawn lightweight polylines by default since Release 14. The routine creates its own polyline rather than working on one you supply, so how it behaves depends on what your PLINETYPE setting produces — if the scallops do not appear, set PLINETYPE to 0 and try again.
It is plain AutoLISP with no dialog boxes and no Express Tools calls, so nothing in it requires the full product; LT users on LT 2024 or later, the release that brought AutoLISP to LT, face the same polyline question as everyone else. See what runs on AutoCAD LT. Try it on a copy first.
Download
| Name: | BANK |
| Description: | Draws top of slope triangle, then alternating scalloped line to toe of slope (as indicated). Use to show batters in plan view. |
| Type: | AutoCAD AutoLISP Routine |
| Author: | Lawrence Lieberman |
| File Size: | 2 Kb |
| Cost: | Free |
| Worked on: | AutoCAD |
| Download File: | BANK.zip |
Related routines
- ROUGHEN — the same idea for rough surfaces rather than slopes.
- VPGRID — a coordinate grid for the site plan the batters sit on.
- COGO bearing and distance label — boundary annotation for the same drawings.