CAD Software Forum

I am evaluating CMS IntelliCAD 6.4 Standard Edition Demo 6.4.23.1 to possibly replace
my much older versions of IntelliCAD from a different vendor. However, I have encounterd
a major usage problem of copy and paste between drawings. The behavior is pervasive
and afflicts CAD software based on IntelliCAD from at least four different vendors. A
extensive search on the web does not solve my problem. Here's a summary:

Old behavior-must have this to be useful in my application:

1. Highlight a polyline in the source drawing
2. Copy the polyline to the clipboard
3. Select another drawing using the Window menu
4. Paste the polyline into the current drawing.
5. The polyline is placed at exactly the same position as
in the source drawing. Just what I need.

The new behavior:

1. Highlight a polyline in the source drawing
2. Copy it
3. Select another drawing
4. Paste the polyline into the current drawing:
Here the trouble begins. IntelliCAD wants to
know an insert point!!! I have no idea what the
value should be--I should not need to know.
One item on the web claimed that a response of
0,0,0 would give me the result I wanted. FALSE!
It does not. If I use 0,0,0 my polyline is about a
million feet off!

As an example, I have a polyline with 897 vertices that represents
the river-mile line for about 37 miles of a river I am modeling.
The very first vertex on the polyline in the source drawing
has the coordinate (1215725.3561, 653637.4226,0.0).
This is the easting and northing values in the State Plane
Coordinate System for the north half of Washington state.

When I copy, and paste with an insert point of (0,0,0), the first
vertex is at (446.0746, 0.0363, 0.0). How IntelliCAD got those
numbers is a mystery to me.

Question: Is there a way to set a variable, an option, or a drawing
setting to get the old behavior. I understand fully the goal of the
new behavior but that does not serve my purposes at all! I need
the old behavior back. In order to get the proper result, I have
to type in an insert point of (1215279.281, 653637.3862, 0.0).
Not something pretty, considering I will have several hundred polylines
to copy and paste in the course of my work! Plus, it is quite time
intensive figuring out what the insert point should be!

I hope I'm missing something really simple.

Any suggestions?

dfranz,

: _COPY
Select entities to copy:
Entities in set: 1
Select entities to copy:
Multiple/Vector/<Base point>: 0,0,0
Displacement point: 0,0,0

This works ok
The only issue is you have to type 0,0,0 for the base point and 0,0,0 for displacement point.

If you do a lot of these i'm sure this could be automated with Lisp (standard version) or VBA (professional version only)

John, Thanks for the quick response.

I gave this a try and got the polyline copied. However, when I did the paste from
the menu or _PASTECLIP from the command line, IntelliCAD gets all confused.
It goes into an endless loop of

: Unable to recognize command. Please try again.
:_PASTECLIP
: other stuff that goes by too fast to recognize

The computer is essentially disabled--I have to use Task Manager to
kill the process.

I tried this with IntelliCAD from another vendor and the same thing happened. Switched
to a different source drawing--same result. IntelliCAD seems to have some bug
deep with in it for what I want to do.

Also it appears that I have to type: 0,0,0 three times> twice during the copy process
and once during the paste process, if it ever gets there.

I wonder why it works for you but not for me! Am I still missing something? I can't
believe I'm the only one who wants to copy/paste this way!

dfranz,

I think there are two methods at work here.

The IntelliCAD Copy command:
This is an internal command that allow you to select the entities in a selection set which is saved within the drawing database along with a base point. You can locate copied entities from the displacement point.

Windows Copy/Paste command:
Windows (operating system) has a built-in copy and paste where the copy data is placed in a clipboard and then pasted where the cursor is located.
Paste will try to place what ever is in the clipboard into the aplication calling the paste.

ICAD may be crashing by trying to paste into a drawing some data that is incompatiable with CAD and OLE (Object Linking & Embedding) is crashing. I believe you are safer with the IntelliCAD command as you never know exactly what's in the clipboard and Windows can now store multiple data.

Regarding the three 0,0,0 - Press F2 and copy and paste your copy commands so I can see what you are doing - I may be able to help you.

Thanks for the reply. However, I have found that Bricscad 8.1.14 does what I want
with a minimum of relearning from an earlier version I was using. They have maintained
a simple cut/paste operation that requires only the enter key as the response to
the insert-point request during the paste. Thus I am planning to upgrade to
their 8.1.14.