Expert: Bill DeShawn - 12/3/2007

Question
Hello Bill,
I am trying to angle a viewport. I have been in contact with JB as well however, I don't understand. Does the vp connect with the polyline to form an angle?
Can you angle viewports?
Question   QUESTION: How do I angle a viewport? I am wanting to add break lines in paper space and for this reason I would like to beable to angle the viewport.
Thank you,
Chantale

ANSWER: Chantale, you can't really rotate a viewport (unless its polygonal) & the objects rotate accordingly. You have to rotate the objects inside the viewport manually. To do this, ensure you're in paperspace & double click inside the viewport to port you to model space. Use the 'DVIEW' command & select objects you want affected or rotated (in your case type 'ALL'), then type 'TW' for the twist option & indicate the rotation angle desired (so its ideal to figure out the angle first). Hope this helps, let me know!

-JB

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi JB,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. Unfortunately,
I don't want to rotate the drawing. I want to beable to draw a break line in paperspace because I want to show a close up of a plan. By doing this close up it cuts off the plan and looks unfinished. What I was trying to achieve is to angle one of the lines on the viewport. For example I tried to explode the viewport (don't think it works) and wanted to angle one viewport line to mimic the angle of the break line. The reason I want to do this is so that I don't have to erase any of the plan in model space as I am using that plan for two tabs. I hope I am clear. Let me know if this is possible or if there is another way. I could copy the plan and start over however if there is a quicker more efficient way that would be great as I have a lot of drawings. Hope to hear from you soon.
Chantale

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Answer   Ok, im assuming you currently have a typical rectangular viewport & that all corners are constrained only to move orthographically. 2 ways you can approach this.
On top of your existing rectang. VP, create a 'Closed Polyline' (create as many verteces as you want but 4 should give u enough flexibility) overlapping w/ edge of your break line. Invoke 'VPCLIP' command, select rectang. VP, then the closed pline u created. Grip stretch new VP if needed.
2nd way is to create closed pline, '-vports' command & 'O'. Then select the pline. Fix VP scale then grip stretch if needed.
Hope this helps, let me know.

Regards,
Jory Borge



ANSWER: Chantale:  It doesn't matter which one you use, XCLIP or MVIEW; Polygonal.  The result is the same.  You get a clipped viewport.  The viewport is bound to the closed polyline.  You can't have the viewport without the polyline.  By the way, JB is doing a great job of helping you with this problem  After you draw the viewport, the breakline can be put collinear with one of the sides of the irregular or regular polygon.  Be sure to put the viewport and polyline on a non-plotting layer.  You can use either DEFPOINTS or another layer that you have configured to be non-plotting.  I've done it many times, and it works great.  The only drawback of using a polygonal viewport is that the file size is greatly increased.  But for most modern systems, it's no big deal.  

Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks Bill. Yes I agree JB did a great job answering my questions. The reason I asked you for the follow up is because I couldn't get through to JB...I guess he was busy. In any case I think the problems is that I have the LT AutoCAD version. I don't think that I can make the viewport go on an angle. Am I correct?


Answer
Dean Saadallah (a well known expert on LT) says you can't do that in LT.  So, if you can't do that and you can't do XCLIP, then you can't create one.  But if someone created one for you in Full AutoCAD, then you could use it.

Food for thought


Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net\~bdeshawn