SLDDXB (c) URBAN Reinhard 1991 Converts AutoCAD Slides to AutoCAD DXB Files (drawing exchange binary format) Accepts the old (pre Release 9.0) and the new slide format (post Release 9.0). Useful for: ----------- Automatic conversion of view to block. Stores hidden line pictures as blocks, so that you dont have to recalculate the hidden lines at plotting time again, with keeping the color - and therefore the line thickness - information. (in comparison to plotting to DXB) With the right flag in the ACAD.PGP file DXB files are automatically inserted as blocks. Note: ----- AutoCAD slide files inherit only the screen resolution of the actual viewport, typically 1000x980 pixel with an 1280x1024 graphik resolution. The resolution decreases if you tile the viewports. Circles and texts are exploded to linesegments and cannot be read after the conversion. Nevertheless a very useful tool to store hidden lines pictures as internal blocks and you can plot them too. Testing it with a straight 640x480 VGA resolution only small circles degenerate to 8-siders. DXB files inherit the full AutoCAD resolution. With the conversion via SLDDXB of the slide resolution (1000x980) scaled down to a 1x1 square no information is lost. Files in the archive: --------------------- SLDDXB.EXE DOS executable SLDDXB.PAS Turbo Pascal sourcecode SLDDXB.LSP Lisp program for automatic conversion: View -> Block, german version SLDDXB_E.LSP english version SLDDXB.MNU Sample menuline to insert in your menufile. SLDDXB_E.MNU english version SLDDXB.PGP 2 lines to insert in your ACAD.PGP README.ENG english README README.GER german README 2 version to use this program: ------------------------------ 1. manual conversion: Calculate a hidden line perspective, store it as a slide, convert the slide with the command SLDDXB to a DXB, insert the DXB with DXBIN into your drawing scaling it up to your needs. Sample: HIDE MSLIDE persp SLDDXB persp DXBIN persp ZOOM W -0.5,-0.5 2,2 BLOCK Select objects: W -0,5,-0,5 2,2 Blockname: persp WBLOCK persp = ZOOM E INSERT persp F 10 ... 2. automatic Click on your inserted line Slide->Block in your menufile. Your actual viewport is stores as slide with name $SLD, the command $SLDDXB calls the program SLDDXB.EXE with the params $SLD $DXB, the resutling DXB file is inserted into your actual drawing as block with the extends 0,0 - 1,1. Insert the block with the right scaling factor. Installation: ------------- 1) Copy the archive to your support directory, or any other which resides in your ACAD Path, unpack the archive with PKUNZIP SLDDXB 2) Insert the two lines of the PGP file into your ACAD.PGP. Insert the line in the MNU file into your menufile (anywhere in a POP menu eg. 3) Or call the program with (load "SLDDXB) Disclaimer ---------- Copyright (C) 1995 Reini Urban All rights reserved world-wide. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all supporting documentation. COMMERCIAL SALE Any software dealer or library may offer this software for sale, as long as the fees charged do not exceed the media (diskette, CD-ROM) and copying costs, and as long as I (the author) get a free copy of the medium. Author: Reini Urban, Reini Urban *****************************************************************************