Incremental Block Numbering

Hi all. I'm new on this forum, but old to AutoCAD - hopefully I can help as well as learn - but first, I need your help. Here is the scoop:

I work for a company that installs sub-sea cable (fibreoptic). Anyway, at the end of the job, I get a route that we have determined that the cable lies upon. From that I make charts in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009. There is a block that I have to insert every kilometer along that route called a "KP", or Kilometer Post. It is a simple block that contains an attribute displaying how far from the beach the cable is. What I am doing now to place these blocks is using the DIVIDE command, and cutting it up at each kilometer. Pretty simple, but because these charts are alignment charts, meaning that they are not "North UP", I have to rotate the blocks based on the line rotation on which they sit. The cable route is not a straight line, so the viewports that I create for each chart are rotated based on the line....clear as mud?

Anyway - I am wondering if anyone has a script or an idea that could help me automatically place the blocks upon this line, at a specified increment, rotate them based on the line rotation, and autonumber them at a specified increment. I don't ask for much do I? I have tried to use the "block" argument in the divide command, but it will not bring in the attribe of the block, nor do I have any idea how to incrementally number them. I sometimes have 1600 blocks that I ahve to do by hand, and it is getting ridiculous!

Any help would be appreciated greatly!

Thanks!

Chris In Canada :wink:

look at the similar threads listed at the bottom of this page

Chris, I do telecommunications fiber optic cable. Same deal here, but my ticks are usually 100' intervals. Try the MEASURE command.

First make sure the block is inserted in the drawing. Then start MEASURE. Pick your pline, then B for Block, enter the block name, Y to align it on the pline, specify the length of the segments and the blocks are there.

In Map there was an express tool called TCOUNT that would quickly replace or modify all the attribute text. Can't help you there (left the job and Map in January 09).

FYI, there may be a problem with current versions of AutoCAD. I'm using LT 2010, and MEASURE strips the attributes off the blocks. I saw another post about it happening in AutoCAD 2009 (I think).