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ScoJoh · Joined: 12 Jul 2010 Posts: 8

Good Morning!!!

My company has been using CAD 2004 for years........ They've finally decided to upgrade to CAD LT 2009 in order to "save" on the cost.

In upgraded we've also invested in an LT Extender so we can use our customized LISP routines and some ARX programs that we've developed in the past.

I've gotten nearly everything from our old package up and running, but..... we use extruded poly lines all the time for various reasons and have even created time saving buttons and features that auto select and extrude various poly lines that are created during our standard work procedures.

As I'm sure everyone here knows....... LT has no extrude functionality....

Does anyone know of an app or lisp routine or ARX program that can be used to do anything similar? This is needed more than just a little bit and my boss seems to think it should be as simple as grabbing a file or two from our old CAD 2004 install that isn't part of the LT package and poof it should all just work.

So Now I'm looking for anything even remotely similar so that we can do simple extrusions. It's the ONLY feature for 3D modeling that's needed as all our 3D files are created in MAX and converted into DWG format.

Anyone out there have any ideas?

CarlB · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 121

You could give the polyline a "thickness", it at least appears 3-d.
As to getting LT to extrude when it's not built in - NO I highly doubt it.

ScoJoh · Joined: 12 Jul 2010 Posts: 8

Giving the poly line a height doesn't even remotely accomplish the same thing as extruding a closed polyline. Extruding turns the entire thing into a 3D Surface.

For example I can use a pline to draw say... an entire sidewalk layout for a park or whatever have you. I then extrude it and have the entire sidewalk that can now be assigned a concrete or asphalt texture for rendering.

Simply giving that pline a width and height simply makes the line thicker and taller and doesn't give me a surface at all.

As for getting LT to do something "that isn't built in", well the LT extender does just that and there are lots of other apps that add things into LT as well. Hence the reason I was asking if anyone knew of anything or had come across anything that had the same of similar functionality as extrude.

CarlB · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 121

Not sure you understood what a "thickness" is, you came back snarkily talking about "height" and "width" which are not the same.

There's no question an object with a height is not the same as a 3dsolid in AutoCAD. But some others found some use for using height in LT:
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/AutoCAD-LT/Simple-3d-under-LT/m-p/1919136#M71688

cadopolis claims to add 3d objects to LT-
http://www.cadopolis.com/autocad/autocad-lt-3d-modeling-2d-tools.shtml

ScoJoh · Joined: 12 Jul 2010 Posts: 8

Sorry, didn't mean to be snarky. I did attempt to apply a thickness, but it didn't accomplish the effect I need. Still didn't show up in the render app. I'll look over that 1st link a bit more. I'm intrigued by the one fellows model with polylines.

The 2nd link is exactly the extender tool we're using Smile

Yes it does add some modeling ability to CAD and is actually quite a snazzy piece of software. Even allows you to create and use profile swapping, which was a huge boon for my project.

The only downside I found is that our previous process with the extrude command was macro'd to a button so a monkey could do it. The 3D tools in Toolbox LT aren't that simple and trying to train our current staff to do that..... ugh I can't imagine the migraine I'd have before I could even get partway through that! Did I mention Monkeys? Yeah.... quite a few of them haven't had a lick of CAD experience, as we've automated our work process so much that they don't really need it. They just need to understand how the product goes together and really that's it. Everything else is menu driven and customized to the point where we could turn off any and all built in CAD menu's, toolbars, ribbons etc and as long as the custom ones are up, they can still do their job. Unfortunately, that means the fellow (IE: Me) who creates all that has to figure out how to automate it all Smile

Wasn't so bad when we were still on the full version of CAD, but in a market where money is tight all over..... higher ups like to cut costs and just tell you to make it work......

I think I may have worked out a solution, but we'll see.

Thanks again, and sorry for being snarky, didn't mean to be.

I think I may have found a new word Smile

CarlB · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 121

Glad to hear you may have worked something out. Sounds like a tough assignment, automate for cad monkeys but using LT. Let us know how it goes..

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