Annotate points, based on Layer Name
Today I want to take few minutes reviewing another tool that I have found invaluable in CADPower over the years. This tool can be found on the Annotation / Blocks ribbon panel and can also be started from the command line by typing CP_ANNOPOINTS.
Why use this tool?
There can be several reasons why you might want to use this tool. For example, do you work with mapping and you capture the street furniture from orthographic images? Most likely you insert each item as a POINT entity or a INSERT symbol.
When you find yourself in the above situation you then have the problem of adding annotation to your map for those features you captured. It would be a nightmare to add the text manually! Not to mention tedious and error prone.
This tool can help you deal with all of these issues.
Overview of Features
The following window is displayed when you start the command:
From here you can manage all of the features that you need to annotate. This is how you use the tool:
- Begin by pressing the Select button.
- This will display a popup window of all the layers in your drawing.
- Choose the layer that you want to annotate and click the OK button.
Did you know?
It is also acceptable to simply type in the layer name in the edit box if you already know it.
You now need to set the properties for the annotation to be created for this POINT feature:
- Key-in the text you want displayed next to the POINT.
- Select the text style from the drop-down list.
- Specify the height of the text.
- Optionally provide an offset in X / Y (relative to the POINT origin).
These properties need to be set for each layer that you want to annotate.
The next step is entirely optional. However, in most cases it will advantageous to create the annotation on a different layer. This way you can isolate the text very easily.
To explain, in this example the layer is POST. And we have specified a suffix of _TXT. Therefore, all text elements will be created on layer:
Click the Add / Update button when you are ready to add this entry to the list.
You now repeat steps 1 to 4 for all the other layers that you want to annotate. Press OK when you want to proceed.
Additional Toolbar Buttons
There are several toolbar buttons at the bottom of the window that can you use as required:
- OK — Press this button to add the annotation to the drawing.
- Cancel — Press this button to abort the tool. All information typed in will be lost.
- Add / Update — Press this button to add an item as a new entry in the list or update an existing item in the list.
- Remove — Press this button to delete the selected item from the list.
- Edit — Press this button to make changes to the selected item. It will populate the edit controls with the current values for you to adjust as required.
- Save — Press this button the save the list of layer mappings to a INI text file. For example:
[ANNOTPOINTS_LAYERMAP_START] POST P ROMANS 1.000000000000000 GATE Gate ROMANS 1.000000000000000 [ANNOTPOINTS_LAYERMAP_END] [ANNOTPOINTS_START] TEXTHEIGHT=1.000000000000000 SPECIFY_ANNOT_LAYER=Yes LAYER_SUFFIX=_TXT OFFSETX=0.5000000000000000 OFFSETY=0.5000000000000000 [ANNOTPOINTS_END]
Using the Save / Restore feature is very useful as it allows you to maintain a set of layer mappings for different clients.
- Restore — Press this button to read in an existing text file which will then be presented in the list.
After pressing you will be presented with the familiar Build Selection Set Window where you can select which entities you would like processed:
I opted to use the Scan entire drawing button. When you are ready you press the Apply button to complete the process. Once complete, you should find your elements annotated:
Hopefully this article has shown you how powerful the Point Labelling and annotation tool can be because it can turn very repetitive tasks into simple ones that work in a fraction of the time.