How to draw radiant heating pipe layout efficiently?

[GUSTAF]

I am dealing with a problem for work, so it is not a technical problem but work related. Anyway, I work for a radiant heating company. We get house plans from architects and then design our pipe layout. I am in charge of switching us from hand-drawing to CAD. The problem that I am currently working on is how to efficiently draw the pipe design on VW. I've experimented with using various grid symbols, but that was rather cumbersome. If there was a way to determine the distance from an object without having to use a measuring tool, I think that this would be best. Our design calls for pipe spacing of either 6, 9, or 12 inches from objects or other pipes. Is there any kind of proximity distancing tool that calls out a preset distance, much like the 30 or 45 degrees of the constrained line? What I would like to do is, when in the polyline command, move near a wall, for instance, and be told when I am 6, 9 or 12" away from the wall. Is this possible?

Thanks!

gustaf

[ccroft]

Have you looked at "snap to offset" in smart edges in the constraint palette? (double click the icon of a square with a diagonal touching one corner)

Of course the ultimate solution would be to write some vectorscript along the lines of the "batt" example in the custom solutions book. Trouble is, in the time would take to figure this out you could have hand drawn a thousand lay-outs.

[GUSTAF]

Thanks for giving a reply. I realize that this is an odd one, but it is a very big problem for us. I will try the "snap to offset" suggestion, however I think that ultimately we might need to have a custom program written to truly solve this problem.

gustaf

[ccroft]

Gustaf

During some rare idle time I gave your problem some thought. I'm not very familiar with the fine points of radiant heat layout and I don't know if you've already tried this but this is what I might do:

Create an "s" like symbol that would connect end to end to make a zigzag and select convert to group in options in the symbol creation dialog. This allows resizing with either the Object Info Palette or by dragging hangles.

Use the offset tool to place the symbol at the required distance from a wall.

Use duplicate array on the group to fill the room.

Group the array and resize as needed.

Hope this gives you some new ideas.

[ 08-24-2002: Message edited by: ccroft ]