AutoCAD 2004 - Finding non-connecting lines for hatches

[malik641]

Hey guys & gals

If you try to hatch an area via "Pick Points" and it is not a valid area because the point is not closed, is there a way to...maybe put a circle in each place where AutoCAD finds these "holes"?? Is there a way to find out where these "holes" exist?

It would be a nice feature instead of me zooming in at every single corner and hunting down where the break is.

Thanks

[mdmackillop]

I'm looking forward to seeing the coded definition of a "hole"

[malik641]

Maybe I should've went with "break"...

[Tommy]

Hi Joseph,

When picking the hatch button on the toolbar it should bring up a dialog box. Pick the advanced tab, at the bottom pick ray casting, then pick pick point, if the boundry is "broken" there will be a message box that opens up that ask "ok" or "Look at it". If you pick look at it the boundry will be "selected line type".

Now what I do when that happens: I get mad and enclose it with a closed pline and see if that works My right click sends osnaps (INT,END,MID,QUA,CEN,INS,NOD) so it is real quick & easy to draw primitives. (verses 3d)

[malik641]

I see....

But is there a way to tell where the break is??? I can't find it unless I zoom in on every single "connection".

[mdmackillop]

I'm not an Autocad person and this may not suit your problem.
Is it possible to select the boundary lines and returm the end points to an array. Analysis of this might be a way to a solution.
Regards
MD

[Tommy]

Md,
The way Joseph is doing it is selecting a point in the middle(hand grenade method close counts ). The boundries could be anything anywhere, another problem is that the boundry could also be off screen.

Joseph,

Are you drawing with the snap on? If so what is your snap set to on what scale? Will you post a drawing to look at?
I am looking into doing a hatch via VBA to see if there is a way to determine the boundries, but it is going to be just a quick look. I will be back soon.

[Tommy]

I can find how to create the hatch but you have to add the boundries (outerloop). Otherwise the hatch has to exist before you can get to the boundries. So so far as I can tell - No there is no way to tell where the boundries are not intersecting without zooming.

[malik641]

No snap here Tommy....and I already found the break to my original post, so a sample drawing isn't all that necessary. Just make a simple rectangle (polyline or non-polyline) and break a corner just a little bit (and not break at point, BTW).

And all I would like is to just make a macro to ask the user to select the area and if it is closed, it will say so, but if it is not closed, I would like to make some kinda of notation as to where the "breaks" are.