AC11: IE Marker

[Laura Yanoviak]

I'd just like to verify something before I embark on another GDL adventure...

It doesn't look like the Marker I want (see attached) is possible with the provided IE Markers in AC11 -- true? Typically, we will want to have one common Marker for each IE group, the Drawing ID being inherited from "The first placed drawing of the viewpoint" (all elevations of a room treated as a single drawing).

With the "One common Marker..." selected, the choices are limited to "Outer Text" and "Inner Text"; only with "Individually..." selected do you have the choice of "First Row Text" and "Second Row Text" (I do realize these are two different Marker objects). Am I missing a setting somewhere, or am I going to have to create my own Marker???

[Anonymous]

I think you are in for some GDL editing. I will be working on some of these myself next week so I may be able to help you out a bit. The firms I work with reference the IEs by room number rather than drawing number but it should be adaptable to using the drawing number of the "first" elevation in the group. It may require a dynamic hotspot to tell the marker which elevation is "first". There may be other tricks but I can't think about it until next week. (I'm making stairs right now.)

[TomWaltz]

I had the same problem. I ended up writing my markers almost from scratch. (all 3 of them, one for "single", one for "individual", and one for the elevation tool to link similar rooms to the same IE since GS decided we don't need to do that)

I used one of the AC variables to figure out which one was IE #1 in the set of elevations then labeled that A (#2 was B, #3 was C, and so on).: These are a few snippets:

	TextArray[1] = AC_MarkerText_3	! Top
	TextArray[2] = AC_MarkerText_5	! Right
	TextArray[3] = AC_MarkerText_7	! Bottom
	TextArray[4] = AC_MarkerText_9	! Left

It's an array because I have a FOR/NEXT loop that places each of the 4 arrows with the text, and the counter is used in the array index.

The real magic:

	sInnerText1 = "<MARKERDRAWINGNUMBER_R>" + AC_DrawingGUID_1
	sInnerText2 =  "<MARKERSHEETNUMBER_R>" + AC_DrawingGUID_1

The real pain is that the IE can have its number and names set on the fly, so you almost have to enforce serious standards in which fields are used in the IE tool. The parameters are slightly different depending on which one you use.

[Laura Yanoviak]

Thanks, guys. I'll give it a go and see how far I can get -- LJY.

[Anonymous]

TomWaltz wrote:
I ended up writing my markers almost from scratch.

I find it is always easier to write markers from scratch. The ones the come in the library are so complicated (and uncommented) that they are a real pain to edit. I find that a custom symbol or marker that does just what I want it to takes only a few dozen lines of code, compared to a few hundred for the all purpose GS parts. This also makes for MUCH easier maintenance in the future.

Remember to comment your code well!!! What seems obvious as you write it will become mysterious when you reopen it a year from now.

[Laura Yanoviak]

Another issue, still with the IE Markers as provided with AC11:

When grouping less than 4 (or more than 4) elevations with a single marker, the arrows from the marker head disappear!

[TomWaltz]

Yeah, I noticed that. According to Tech Support, they could not find a good way to make a single marker with off-orthogonal views.

[Laura Yanoviak]

More Observations (still with the IE Markers as provided with AC11 -- I managed to create my own Marker object (fairly easily) by customizing this one `Interior Elevation 1 11`-- and still regarding the "One Common Marker..." option):

The "Inner Text" will display as either one entity or two entities ("First Row" and "Second Row"), depending on what (and how many) text parameters are turned on.

[Laura Yanoviak]

Note that if you have all 3 text parameters turned on, the first 2 are combined on the "First Row":

[Laura Yanoviak]

The last 3 AutoText options do not seem to affect the "Inner Text" settings -- they only affect "Individually..." placed Markers and the individual Viewpoint names within the Project Map.