AutoLISP Routines

MOONPHASE works out the phase of the moon for today or any date you give, reports it, and draws the moon at that phase. What MoonPhase does The drawing is the novelty. The calculation is the substance: it finds the times of the new moons either side of the date by summing periodic terms in the moon’s and sun’s mean anomalies, and interpolates between … [Read more...] about MOONPHASE LISP: Calculate and Draw the Phase of the Moon

MINEXPLODE breaks a MINSERT — a block inserted as a rectangular array in one object — into the separate block references it stands for. What MinExplode does AutoCAD will not do this. EXPLODE refuses a MINSERT outright, and always has. So a drawing that arrived with its grid of columns, its car parking bays or its ceiling tiles as one MINSERT cannot be … [Read more...] about MINEXPLODE LISP: Explode a MINSERT AutoCAD Refuses To

MATCHROT turns a selection so that one line in it ends up parallel to another line you point at. No angles to work out and none to type. What MatchRotate does For squaring a detail up to a wall that is not on a round number, lining a note up with a pipe run, or setting a north point to a site boundary. ALIGN does something related but not the same — … [Read more...] about MATCHROT LISP: Rotate a Selection to Match Another Line

MACHFEAT draws the machined features that fill a mechanical detail, at any diameter, depth and rotation: drilled, tapped, counterbore, countersink, a tapped hole in plan, and a dowel pin with chamfered ends. FINISHMARK places the surface roughness symbol, which AutoCAD has never had a native equivalent for. What MachineFeature does Three layers are created on … [Read more...] about MACHFEAT LISP: Draw Machined Hole Features in Section

LINEMERGE finds lines that lie along the same straight and joins them into single lines. A wall drawn in eight pieces because it was trimmed round doorways becomes one. Fragments left over from a scan trace, a bad DXF import or years of editing collapse into what they were meant to be. What LineMerge does Gaps are bridged up to a tolerance you set, so a run broken … [Read more...] about LINEMERGE LISP: Merge Collinear Lines Into One

ISOPROJECT takes a flat orthographic view you have already drawn — a front elevation, a plan, a side — and projects it into the left, right or top isoplane of an isometric drawing. What IsoProject does AutoCAD has isometric snap, which helps you draw in isometric. It has nothing that converts an existing view into one. That is the gap this fills: draw … [Read more...] about ISOPROJECT LISP: Project Flat Views Into an Isometric Plane