AutoCAD – Dynamic Blocks Part 1

Do you struggle with getting the most from the Dynamic Blocks feature in AutoCAD 2020? Maria our Application Engineer will show you how she created a dynamic block of two basic shapes and applied linear parameters and a stretch action to ensure the outer square can be resized while the circle maintains its size and position in the centre. Now, let’s do what we do best and make this as easy as possible for you so we will go through this feature step by step!

• Firstly, to create a dynamic block, you are going to first convert the object to a block and open it in the block editor.
• Then while making sure your authoring palette is turned on, you need to apply the perimeter to this object, in this case a linear which you are going to apply to the bottom and apply also on the side.
• Once this is done, you need to delete the grips that you no longer need.
• Next you just need to delete the grips that you no longer need.
• Then you need to apply an action to these perimeters – in this case a stretch.
• So, following the command line you need to select the perimeter first then the grip that you are going to stretch from.
• Following on from this you are going to select the side of the object that you want to stretch, then select the object and the other perimeter and the reason you do this is because you want that grip to move with it as you stretch.
• Then you need to apply the same action to the perimeter on the right-hand side.
• You want to keep the circle in the centre of the square as we stretch it so you need to apply the move action for this.
• By selecting the grip and the object, opening the properties box and changing the distance multiplier to 0.5 so that it keeps it in the centre of the box as you stretch.
• You will also need to apply the same action to the perimeter on the right-hand side because you want the circle to stretch with that perimeter also.
• Once that’s done you can close the block editor saving your changes, clicking on the grip and you can see as you stretch it, the circle stays in the centre.
• The next dynamic block we are going to create is a scale so applying a linear perimeter again, deleting the grip that is not needed and then we are going to apply the scale action.
• So as before, selecting the perimeter but in this case, you are just going to select the object and once you enter you see you have perimeter applied.
• We are also going to scale the circle, so we are going to do that by selecting the grip and then selecting the object and you see its applied so closing and saving and selecting the look as you move the grip you see it scales accordingly.

Hope you found this quick tutorial beneficial, come back next week for Part 2!