Looking For Some Advice...

[Watson]

...on how best to proceed.

 

We are all currently running AutoCAD 2010, CAP, and Worksheet.

 

My company sells monitor array bars as part of our offering. We have PNs and blocks for the array bars, but our customers always want to see their specific monitor configuration applied in our drawings.

 

As most of you know there are a million different monitor sizes out there; in addition to that, in the industry we cater to, it is not uncommon for the user to have a number of monitors of various sizes.

 

For example, I am looking at a project with a stacked array; two 25" monitors over four 22" monitors.

 

We are not selling the monitors so those blocks do not need to be attributed for quoting, just need a quick way to create the geometry.

 

At the moment we are drawing these from scratch, which isn't too difficult, but it can be tedious. There are also five people on my team and we all seem to have adopted similar, but different processes for making these.

 

So, what I am thinking is building a Lisp that will spit out the geometry for us.

 

I'd like a prompt that asks something like (using the quantity and sizes from the example I mentioned above):

 

Number of Monitors Over?: 2

Number of Monitors Under?: 4

Over Monitor Size?: 25

Under Monitor Size?: 22

 

Then, boom, we get something like this:

 

 

...the screen and monitor frame will need to be on different layers so that they will render properly.

 

What do you think? Is a Lisp the right way to go here?

 

Thanks in advance,

Watson

[treaves04]

I would start by making each screen size a block that way it can be called up by the dialog box. Then if the screens go in a circular pattern you can use an array command and it will get the number from your dialog box. You will probably have to also specify the center where the top screens meet the bottom. I hope this helps.