RCAD – Documentation

RCAD is a graphic core distributed together with different applications (like RTOPO or VDAFS TO DXF and NC Converter and Viewer).
See:
– Installation
– Commands: File, Display, Format, Draw, Layer toolbar, Modify
– Special keys.

Installation

Requirements:
– graphic card with OpenGL hardware acceleration and 32-bit color depth,
– Windows 98, XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 10 (32 or 64 bits),
– computer administrator account.

Create “C:\rcad” directory.
Unzip “rcad.zip” in this directory.

On Windows 98 and XP:
“Right mouse on desktop”, “Properties”, “Appearance” (“Advanced” on XP), “Item”->”Active Window Border”, “Size”->1, “Apply”, “Item”->”Inactive Window Border”, “Size”->1, “Apply”, “OK”.

On Windows Vista:
Change “Border Padding”, “Active Window Border” and “Inactive Window Border”: “right mouse on desktop”, “Personalize”, “Window Color and Appearance”, “Advanced”, “Item”->”Border Padding”, “Size”->0, “Item”->”Active Window Border”, “Size”->1″, “Item”->”Inactive Window Border”, “Size”->1, “OK”.

On Windows 7:
Change “Border Padding”, “Active Window Border” and “Inactive Window Border”: “right mouse on desktop”, “Personalize”, “Window Color”, “Item”->”Border Padding”, “Size”->0, “Apply”, “Item”->”Active Window Border”, “Size”->1, “Apply”, “Item”->”Inactive Window Border”, “Size”->1, “Apply”, “OK”.

On Windows 8/10:
1) Run the program as an administrator: right mouse on “c:\rcad\rcad.exe”, “Compatibility”, “Run this program as an administrator”,
2) set “BorderWidth” and “PaddedBorderWidth” to 0: “Run” command (move your mouse to the upper right corner until the “Charms Bar” pops out, select “Apps” from the list and type “run” in the search box; click on “Run” from the search results), Regedit, HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics, set BorderWidth 0 and PaddedBorderWidth 0, restart the computer.

Run RCAD.EXE.

RCAD can use up to 4 GB of memory on Windows 64-bit and up to 2GB on Windows 32-bit. If this memory is exceeded, RCAD crashes without any message or the messages “Error-insufficient memory …” or “OPENGL_ERROR …” are displayed and then RCAD ends its execution. In this case you should take measures to work with fewer entities (for example, set ERAse_prev to 1) or you can work without “Flat Shaded” or “LIGhting”.

——————–Settings problems——————

If the graphics card has not OpenGL or the OpenGL drivers are not installed, the image may be upside down or can remain traces on the screen, when you move the mouse.
Similar effects can occur if the color depth is not 32-bit.
If you don’t set the Window Border and Border Padding to 1 and 0, the toolbars appear incomplete or distorted.
If you don’t run the program from a Windows administrator account or as an administrator (Windows 8), the program exits with an error message (privilege violation or the trial version is expired).

——————– SCRIPTS —————————

You can call “rcad.exe” from other programs and can also indicate a file of commands to be executed.
The file must be named “c:\rcad\rcad.scr”. If this file exists, RCAD will execute first its commands.
The accepted commands are:

DXFIN file_name.dxf
STLIN file_name.stl
DXFOUT file_name.dxf
RTRIANGULATION
VOLUME volume_increment_factor
QUIT

For the RTRIANGULATION and VOLUME commands all the entities will be automatically selected.

If the VOLUME command is not followed by “volume_increment_factor” the volume increment will have the recommended value (see Format). If it exists, “volume_increment” will be the product of the recommended value and “volume_increment_factor”. For example, the value of 0.5 means that “volume_increment” will be half of the recommended value.
The volume will be written in the file “c:\rcad\rcad.vol”. If there are not 3DFACE entities or they exist but do not define a body the volume will be 0. At the beginning of the volume calculation “c:\rcad\rcad.vol” will be deleted.

QUIT command ends the execution of the RCAD program.

File

New – Delete all existing entities and initialize session.
DXFIn – Load a DXF file; LINE, POINT, ARC (in XOY plane), CIRCLE (in XOY plane), 3DPOLY or POLYLINE (in XOY plane), INSERT (without rotation and INSERT in INSERT), TEXT and 3DFACE are interpreted.
3DMESH entities are also loaded and converted in 3DFACE entities in a layer having the name “3DMESHnumber_name”. “Number” starts with 1 and is incremented by 1 for each new 3DMESH. “Name” is the original layer name of the 3DMESH entity. All the 3DFACE entities of a 3DMESH entity can be selected using the “LAyer” option (see Modify).
If the gauge of the drawing is not within the range (-100000, 100000), the displaying may be wrong because OpenGL (software interface for graphics hardware used by the RCAD core) works in simple precision (six significant digits). In this case, move all entities (with the Move command) between the limits (-100000, 100000).
DXFOut – Save the current drawing in a DXF file.
STLIin – Load a STL ascii files generates by AutoCAD for solids.
PRint – Print the current view of the drawing (representing window) in the rectangle defined by “Paper size” (viewport). Through a dialogue you can set the scale, origin, rotation, sizing or hidden line removal (hide). There are not taken into account the Flat Shaded and LIGhting settings.
ILandxml – Converts a LandXML file type to a XYZ file of points, which can be loaded with Load points (POIntin) command.
LandXML is a file format that serves to exchange data between programs for surveying and civil engineering (eg ARD-Advanced Road Design (Civil Site Design) and AutoCAD Civil 3D).
From LandXML file type will be interpreted Pnts entities of the elements and CgPoint entities of the elements.
It will create a file with the same name as the XML file, but with a TXT extension.
LandXML file type must have newline after each item. If not, load it in Google Chrome (which will automatically add newline), make Copy at everything that is displayed, make Paste in a new Word document and save the document as a new XML file.
OLandxml – Saves the points (POINT entities) and triangles (TIN-“Triangulated irregular network” represented by 3DFACE entities that are displayed) in a LandXML file type.
So you have an interface to other programs for surveying or civil engineering (eg Advanced Road Design (Civil Site Design) and AutoCAD Civil 3D), software that can import LandXML files.
It creates two XML (LandXML) files.
The first file will have the name of the last loaded TXT file, plus “_cgpoints”. It will contain the POINT entities loaded using Load points (POIntin). If you want to save the POINT entities from a DXF file, load first the DXF file (using DXFIn command), create a XYZ point file (of TXT extension) with Extract points (RTExtract) command and then, load the TXT file.
The second file will have the name of the last loaded TXT file, plus “_surfaces”. It will contain the 3DFACE entities that are displayed (resulting from a triangulation or from the loading of a DXF file).
Quit – Exits the program.

Display

Zoom – Enlarges or reduces the display of the active drawing; options: Window/Extents/Previous/. “Zoom Extents” from menu recomputes the drawing limits.
Pan – Move the drawing in any direction by specifying two points.
HIde – Creates a hidden-line view.
VPoint – Selects the viewpoint for a three-dimensional look at your drawing.
LIGhting – Controls lighting; 0=off, 1=on. Lighting is really active if “Flat Shaded” (from VIEW TOOLBAR) is on and exists 3DFACE entities.
HIGhlight – Controls object highlighting for SELect command; 0=off, 1=on. Turn off HIGhlight when you have many entities and you use commands to modify the objects.
GRips – Controls (similar to PDMode command) the appearance of the grips for the CHange command, applied to Line (PLine) entities ; range: 0 to 4, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100. (1=without drawing). The color of the grips is the current color.
GRIpsize – Controls the grip display size (similar to PDsize command). The 0 value specifies a grip size 5% of the drawing height. A value greater than 0 specifies the absolute size, and a value less than 0 specifies a percentage size from viewport.
ANimation – It generates the animation on display by the movement over Line (PLine) entities.
You will first select a Line (PLine) entity. If you have selected 2D PLine, it is advisable to round the vertex using Fillet command. If you have selected a 3DPOLY entity (Line by more than 2 vertex), the results are better if it is interpolated (see PEdit,Spline).
You will then enter “Step” of movement. A higher value would imply a higher speed of movement. The speed that result will be displayed at the end of animation. The movement speed also depends on the speed of the computer.
During execution you can influence the movement by the keys:
– ESC: will stop the execution
– Left arrow: increases the horizontal angle (Hor_angle); the sight is rotated to the left; when the angle is 0 you look in front (after the tangent of PLine entity)
– Right arrow: decreases the horizontal angle (Hor_angle); the sight is rotated to the right; the values will be negative when you are in the right of 0 value
– Up arrow: increases the vertical angle (Ver_angle); the sight is rotated up; when the angle is 0 you look horizontal, parallel to XOY
– Down arrow: decreases the vertical angle (Ver_angle); the sight is rotated down; the values will be negative when you are below the value 0
– Home: increases the length of the window (L_window); you will see more of the drawing; the bottom side will be centered on the current point of PLine
– End: decreases the length of the window (L_window); you will see less of the drawing
– PageUp: increases the height of sight (Sight_height); actually you rise above the current PLine point; for 0 value you are exactly in the current PLine point
– PageUp: decreases the height of sight (Sight_height); the values will be negative when you are below the current PLine point.
“Hor_angle”, “Ver_angle”, “L_window” and “Sight_height” will be displayed in the title bar of the program. The angles are in sexagesimale degrees and the distances are in drawing units.
The animation will be done under current settings for the variables LIGhting (see above) and SPLFrame (see Format) and under the settings “Wireframe” and “Flat shaded” from VIEW TOOLBAR (see Special keys).
To save the animation in a file you need to use specialized programs to capture the image from a window of a program.
——————————————–
LEGend – It controls the drawing mode of the 4D points in POIntin RTOPO command. If it is 1, the 4D points will be colored according to a legend of 20 colors. If it is 0, the 4D points will be colored according to their color.
STOred_points – It sets the number of the 4D points that will be permanently stored, meaning the points that can be modified, saved and printed. The rest of the points of the total points loaded with POIntin, will be drawn temporarily (you can make zoom, pan or orbit, with different values for PDsize), will not be printed and will not be saved in the DXFOUT command. If your computer has 4 GB of memory (the maximum that can be accessed by the program), you can set the STOred_points to about 9200000 (the value depends also of the graphics card performance).

Format

COLor – Establishes the color for all entities that you draw after you choose the command.
LAyer – Creates named drawing layers and assigns color and linetype properties to those layers. Also sets the current layer, locks/unlocks (unused in this version), rename and turns layers on/off. In “Rename”, you can choose a filename having RLN extension, which can contain multiple items with two layer name. First layer name of the article will be renamed with the second name. “Rename” will run automatically for all items in the file.
Using the “Dialog” option you can open a window dialog for setting the layers.
Linetype – Defines linetypes (sequences of alternating line segments, dots, and spaces).
APerture – Sets the selection area for snapping to entities.
LOGFILEON – Writes all commands in RCAD.LOG file.
LOGFILEOFF– Stops writing the commands started with LOGFILEON.
LTscale – Sets the scale factor you want to apply to all linetypes within the current drawing.
PDMode – Controls (like in AutoCAD) the appearance of the POINT entities; range: 0 to 5, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100. 0 value means a pixel irrespective of PDsize, 1=none, 2 a upright cross, 3 a rotated cross, 4 a upward line, 5 means a point and must be used for the case where there are many points. For the value of 5, PDsize means pixels. If at the values 1-4 it will add 32, a circle will be drawn in addition. If at the values 1-4 it will add 64, a square will be drawn in addition. If at the values 1-4 it will add 96, a circle and square will be drawn in addition. The most favorable value (in terms of speed and memory) is 5. Then, 0, 2, 3, and 4. The cases with 96 and 32 are the worst.
PDsize – Controls the point display size. The 0 value specifies a size 5% of the drawing height. A value greater than 0 specifies the absolute size, and a value less than 0 specifies a percentage size from the drawing height. For PDMode = 5, PDsize means pixels.
PIckbox – Specifies the target height for entity selection.
SPLFrame – Controls the display of invisible edges of 3D faces; 0= Does not display, 1= display.
SPLInesegs – Sets the number of line segments to be generated for each segment of interpolated 3DPOLY.
CONcat_prec – Sets the concatenation precision of the commands Join, SEParate, 3DInt and SMooth. Two end points of the segments are considered identical if the distance between them is less than concatenation precision!
ERAse_prev – Controls the permanent erasure of entities immediately after the use in some commands; 0 = “off”-without erasing, 1 = “on”-with erasing. It is useful to free the memory to process as many entities. The UNdo command will not restore the deleted entities! An example of command affected by ERAse_prev is RTRIangulation (are deleted the point entities before the generation of 3DFace entities).
3DINt_type – Controls the mode of work of the 3DInt command.
If the value is 1, 3DInt will generate only 3DPOLY of intersection.
If the value is 2, 3DInt will generate only the division and concatenation (the joint) of 3DFace entities, along the intersection.
If the value is 3, 3DInt will generate both (3DPOLY and division and concatenation).
CUrvature – represents percents with possible values between 5-100, used to establish the curvature (the inverse of the radius of the curvature) for the commands PEdit->Spline, SMooth_3dface and ISolines. The smaller “Curvature” is the larger flattening.

OSnap – Specifies running object snap modes, which remain active until you set them NONE; options: ENDpoint, MIDpoint, CENter, QUAdrant, NODE, NEARest.

LIst – List information about selected entities. For Line/Pline, Arc or Circle entities the length is also listed.
DIst – Reports 3D distance between 2 points.
ID – Lists the X, Y, and Z values of the specified point.
VOlume – calculates the volume and center of gravity of a set of bodies or between surfaces composed of 3DFACE entities. 3DFACE entities from BLOCKs are not considered.
First, the user will have to select 3DFACE entities. The end of selection is indicated by pressing ENTER.
You must enter then the volume increment. The recommended value for 100 MB of used memory will be displayed.
The calculation of the volume is based on the intersection with vertical lines of the rectangular gauge (in XOY plane) of the set of 3DFACE entities. The step on X and Y of these line is the increment of volume. The volume will be considered for a line if there is an even number (2, 4, 6 …) of intersections. The total volume will be approximated with the sum of the parallelepipedic volumes (with a square base having “volume increment” as a side) between the intersections 1-2, 3-4 and so on, upwards of Z of each line. So, the bodies may have holes! If on a line exists only one intersection (or none) is not considered a volume on that line. The vertical 3DFACE entities are not taken into account (they may not exist) when calculating the volume! If you decrease the increment, the accuracy and computing time increase!
If you have a surface consisting of 3DFACE entities for which you want to calculate the volume to a plane of given Z, describe manually a 3DFACE entity (higher than the XOY gauge of the set of 3DFACE entities), its points having desired Z.
The volume and the coordinates of the center of gravity will be displayed. In the center of gravity will be generated a POINT entity.
AREa – Calculates 3D and 2D area for a set of 3DFACE entities. 2D area corresponds to the projection in XOY plane of the 3DFACE entities.

Draw

Line – Draws one or multiple lines (3DPOLY in this case). You can use coordinate filters (.x, .y, .z, .xy, .xz, .yz) to specify points.
PLine – Executes actually LINE command.
Point – Draws a point. The PDMODE and PDSIZE system variables control the appearance of the points.
3Dface – Draws four-sided surface anywhere in 3D space; option: invisible edges
Circle – Draws a circle parallel to XOY plane; options: center point and ray/diameter, 3P, 2P, Ttr
RTRIangulation – Generates a triangulation with required links for a selected set of closed Line (PLine) and POINT entities.
Line (PLine) entities must define an external contour and possibly more interior contours. The contours must be closed (use PEdit command for that)! The contours edges are the required links for the triangulation! If there are reversion points (at 180 degrees) on the contours or the contours are intersected, the triangulation may be wrong!
If there are POint entities, the command will consider only those points located between the exterior and the interior contours!
It will generate 3DFace entities that will fill the surface between the exterior and the interior contours! If no contours, 3DFACE entities will be generated on the convex hull of the points.
If ERAse_prev variable is 1, are deleted the point entities before the generation of 3DFace entities.
If triangles with intersected sides will result, the triangulation will resume automatically with maximum checks, but with a lower speed. This situation can occur if there are points with small deviations from a line, near contours or convex hull of the set of points.
RTRIangulation is useful for topography, for the generation of triangular finite elements or to define the separation plan of a mold (in combination with SEParate command).
You can simulate the break lines in the following way:
– define Line/PLine entities, passing through existing points (using OSNAP NODE)
– generate additional points on Line/PLine using MEasure command with a step smaller than the smallest distance between the existing points
– enter now RTRIangulation command
FTRIangulation – Generates a triangulation, 3 times faster. It is recommended for a large number of points (maximum 2 million), with a relative uniform distribution, but not with a constant step. If it doesn’t work for the given set of the points, it will resume automatically using the TRIangulation command. You can interrupt FTRIangulation with ESC.
SMooth_3dface – Interpolates a set of 3DFACE entities. For each 3DFACE entity is determined a quartic (of degree 4) triangular surface patch of Bezier type. It provide a continuity of type G1 (the continuity of the tangent plane along the common edge of two 3DFACE entities). The surface passes through the initially vertices of the 3DFACE.
Each initially 3DFACE will be replaced with more 3DFACE located on the surface, according to the user setting for “number of subdivisions” (the number of edges of new 3DFACE on every edge of initially 3DFACE).
If ERAse_prev variable is 1, the initially 3Dface entities are deleted.
You can control the curvature of the surface, setting in advance the CUrvature variable with a values between 5 and 100. A lower value indicates a greater flattening (vicinity to the plane).
It can result one or more zones that consist of 3DFACE entities that are in contact (with CONcat_prec accuracy). Each zone will have another color. Coloring is from 1 to 1 starting with 1 color.
The 3DFACE entities that will result will be in the “smooth_3dface” layer.
MEasure – Generates POINT entities, at a given distance, on one or more LINE (PLINE) selected entities.
It will be indicated:
– “Line_step” – the step used for the generation of points over a straight line
– “Chord_arc_Deviation” – admitted chord-arc deviation, whence arise the number of the points on the arcs
– “Minimum_Arc_step” – the minimum distance between 2 consecutive points generated on the arcs; the distance between 2 consecutive points generated on the arcs will be maximum of “Minimum_Arc_step” and the step resulting from “Chord_arc_Deviation”.
– “Polyline” – with values 1 (yes) or 0 (no) ; for 0 will be generated points; for 1 will be generated a PLINE entity passing through calculated points.
– “Continuous” – with values 1 (yes) or 0 (no); for 1, the points will be continuously generated with constant step “Line_step” measured on PLINE; for 0, the points will be generated in the end of the line or arcs and between ends, with the steps for lines or arcs.
– “Single_layer” – with values 1 (yes) or 0 (no); for 1 will be generated points in a single layer, having the name “measure”; for 0, the points will be generated in a layer that is formed from the PLINE layer name, plus a number that begins with 1 and is incremented by 1 for each new PLINE having the same layer.
DIVIde_3dface – Divides each of the selected 3DFace entities in triangular 3DFace entities in accordance with the indicated step “Length or number of segments”.
If the value entered is > 0, it represents a distance that is the step of division of the longest edge of 3DFace. It could result in this case adjacent triangles with unequal edges in contact (this case is unfavorable for the concatenation from the 3DInt command).
If the value entered is < 0 (favorable case for 3DInt), it represents the number of segments on each edge.
The command must be executed before the 3DInt command, to increase the accuracy of division.
3DInt – Intersects two sets of 3DFace entities.
If the 3DINt_type variable is 1, 3DInt will generate in the “3DINT” layer only 3DPOLY (LINE) entities representing the intersection. They will be colored from 1 to 1, beginning with the color 1. The joints in 3DPOLY of the intersection segments will be made according to CONcat_prec variable.
If the 3DINt_type variable is 2, will be made only the division and concatenation (the joint) of 3DFace entities, along the intersection. A quadrilateral 3DFace will be decomposed into two triangular 3DFace. A triangular 3DFace can be divided only in two pieces, along the intersection of two of its sides! If a triangular 3DFace is intersected several times, the results will be inaccurate! After division, zones will be generated, by concatenation of 3DFace which will receive the same color. A zone is formed by 3DFace entities that are placed on the same side of an 3DPOLY of intersection and in contact with common sides (respecting CONcat_prec accuracy).
The zones will be colored from 1 to 1, beginning with the color 1. If it results bad zones, divide first the large 3DFace entity with DIVIde_3dface command (see above) and/or increase the value of CONcat_prec. The 3DFace entities located in zones will be in their original layers. You can select a zone using the “COlor” option (see Modify).
If the 3DINt_type variable is 3, will be generated 3DPOLY of intersection and the division and concatenation of 3DFace entities.
TABSurf – Generates a set of 3DFace entities by moving of one PLine entity along a vector. The set of 3DFace entities actually defines a 3DMESH entity.
You must select a Pline entity and then, you need to give a direction vector by two points. The arcs in Pline are considered line segments. You can approximate the arcs using first the MEasure command with “Polyline” option (see above).
The 3DFACE entities will receive the current color and will be located in a layer having the name “3DMESHnumber_name. “Number” starts with 1 and is incremented by 1 for each new 3DMESH. “Name” is the original layer name of the PLine entity. All the 3DFACE entities of a 3DMESH entity can be selected using the “LAyer” option (see Modify).
REVSurf – Generates a set of 3DFace entities by rotating of one PLine entity around a vector. The set of 3DFace entities actually defines a 3DMESH entity.
You must select a Pline entity and then, you need to give a rotational axis vector by two points, the included angle and the steps number. The arcs in Pline are considered line segments. You can approximate the arcs using first the MEasure command with “Polyline” option (see above).
The 3DFACE entities will receive the current color and will be located in a layer having the name “3DMESHnumber_name. “Number” starts with 1 and is incremented by 1 for each new 3DMESH. “Name” is the original layer name of the PLine entity. All the 3DFACE entities of a 3DMESH entity can be selected using the “LAyer” option (see Modify).
Offset – Generates an equidistant Pline from a selected PLine. The equidistance will be on the right if the distance is positive and on the left if the distance is negative. The sense of the PLine can be seen using PEdit command.
The selected Pline may be 3D. Z of an equidistance point will be the Z of the corresponding point of the selected Pline.
The arcs of the selected Pline will be considered as straight lines. If you still want offset for arcs, generate first a polyline that approximates the arcs by line segments, using MEasure command (see above), with 1 option for “Polyline”, 0 for “Continuous” and the appropriate setting for “chord_arc_Deviation” and “minimum_Arc_step”.
Due to an excessive number of points with small distance between them and small deviations from straight lines, can result an offset which intersects itself. Use in this case the MEasure command , with 1 option for “Polyline”, 1 for “Continuous” and a distance greater than the distance between points. Thereby you obtain a PLine with a smaller number of points. Make offset to this last PLine!

Layer toolbar

LAyer – Open a window dialog for setting the layers.
MOLc – Make object’s layer current.
LAYIso – Isolate object’s layer.
LAYOFf – Turn object’s layer off.
LAYAll – Turn all layers on.

Modify

Erase – Erase selected entities.
COpy – Copy selected entities. The two points you specify define a displacement. You can use coordinate filters (.x, .y, .z, .xy, .xz, .yz) to specify points.
Move – Move selected entities. The two points you specify define a displacement. You can use coordinate filters (.x, .y, .z, .xy, .xz, .yz) to specify points.
ROtate – Rotate selected entities in XOY plane or about a three-dimensional axis.
SCale – Scale selected entities uniform or proportionally in the X, Y, and Z directions. The base point you specify identifies the point that remains in the same location. You can specify the scale using one or three different SX, SY, and SZ values. Specifying negative value you can make mirror.
Fillet – Round the vertices of a 2D PLINE entity. You can indicate a radius or you can choose between the rounding of one point (Vertex) or rounding all vertices (Polyline). You can round only the vertices that are between 2 straight lines!
PEdit – Edit a Line (PLine) entity.
The options are: Next, Previous, Insert, Erase, Break, CUrvature, Spline, Decurve, Close, Open, eXit or the modification of the current position of the point.
“Erase” delete the current point.
“Break” break PLine in 2 parts and the editing will continue with the first part.
“Spline” will interpolate according to the SPLInesegs and CUrvature variables.
“Decurve” eliminate the intermediate points under the current setting of SPLInesegs.
“CUrvature” represents percents with possible values between 5-100, used to establish the curvature of the interpolated lines. The smaller “Curvature” is the larger flattening (vicinity to the straight line).
Grips will be displayed according to GRips and GRIpsize variables (see Display).
If the segments containing the point of the LINE (PLINE) are arcs, they will be transformed into a straight line.
You can use coordinate filters (.x, .y, .z, .xy, .xz, .yz) to specify the destination point.

Join – Joins the Line (2D or 3D) or PLine entities selected to form a single PLine entity. The joint will be made according to the CONcat_prec variable (see Format). Any arcs will turn into straight lines. It starts from the first Line/PLine entity of the selected set. At its ends will be repeatedly added other Line/Pline entities having common ends. It will result a single new PLine having the color and layer of the first segment.
MJoin – runs repeatedly Join command, joining all Line/PLine of the selected set. It results more Pline entities. Undo is not available for this command.
CHange – Is launched automatically when a command is not active and you select with the mouse a Line (PLine) or a 3DFACE entity. You can change the position of the nearest point of the entity. If the entity is Line (PLine) will be displayed the options of PEdit command. In the STANDARD TOOLBAR will be displayed the entity attributes (layer, color and linetype).
SEParate – Intersect a set of 3DFace entities with a horizontal plan passing through an indicated point.
Each intersected 3DFace entity will be separate in two parts according to the segment of the intersection.
The 3DFace entities located above the intersection will be transferred to the layer “separate_up” (having cyan color).
The 3DFace entities located below the intersection will be transferred to the layer “separate_down” (having magenta color).
The segments resulting from the intersection will be automatically joined in Line (PLine) entities located in the layer “separate_polyline” and colored from 1 to 1, beginning with the color 2. The joints will be made according to the CONcat_prec variable (see Format). These contours (eventually corrected with PEdit command) and contours defined explicitly with the command Line (PLine) can define the separation plane of a mold (by using RTRIangulation command)!

If you press the left mouse button and in the cursor position is not a LINE (PLINE) or a 3DFACE entity, it automatically enters in the Crossing selection mode (of the SELect command). When you are in the SELect command and are selected entities you can change the layer, color or linetype through a proper selection in STANDARD TOOLBAR.

The modification commands are automatically preceded by a SELect command.
The selection options are: Window, Crossing, CPline, ALL, Previous, Add, Remove, SIngle, Last, LAyer and COlor.
The “CPline” option will select all entities having a point inside a selected PLine.
Using “LAyer” option and selecting an entity, all entities having the same layer name with the selected entity, will be automatically selected.
Using “COlor” option and selecting an entity, all entities having the same color with the selected entity, will be automatically selected.
The options “LAyer” or “COlor” are valid only for the next selection, and “Remove” remains valid until it selects the “Add” (and vice versa).
Turn off HIGhlight variable (see Display) when you have many entities.

UNdo – Reverses the effect of a number of commands of modification.
Undo1 – Reverses the effect of one command of modification.

Special keys

You can move the toolbars by dragging them from any side (preferably left). You can also turn a toolbar from vertical to horizontal and vice versa (dragging the appropriate side). You can not put off a toolbar. If you are bothered by a toolbar, drag it so that the toolbar area to be outside of the window.

F1 – Display Help
F2 – The zone of the commands is displayed on the full screen or at its previous size. You can reduce or increase the number of displayed rows by positioning the cursor above the topmost displayed row. Press the left mouse button and then move the mouse up or down.
F8 – Turns on/off Ortho mode (which work in the projection plane, identical to that of the screen)

ESC – Cancel a command in progress

Press mouse left button – Orbit (change VPOINT in real time) when you move the mouse.
Press wheel button – PAN in real time when you move the mouse
Rotate mouse wheel – ZOOM SCALE in real time

VIEW TOOLBAR

Splframe – controls the display of invisible edges of 3D faces; 0= Does not display, 1= display.
Wireframe – displays 3DFACE using lines
Flat Shaded – shades the objects
LIGhting – controls the lighting; 0=off, 1=on. Lighting is really active if “Flat Shaded” is on and exists 3DFACE entities.

Picking +/~ in the layer box you can switch layer on/off
When a command is not active you can pick and select the current layer, color or linetype.
When you are in the SELect command and are selected entities you can pick and change the layer, color or linetype of the selected entities.