A LISP for printing a CAD drawing changing colours and texts
In the following article, I described a piece of LISP code that once loaded a DXF or DWG file, enlarges some text, changes the colour of layers and prints a PDF fitting it to the A3 format and orientates it by the drawing dimensions. You can easily adapt it to your purposes.
I wrote it because I was tired to do a lot of repetitive operations when I had to print an output produced by a closed software in use in my Company. With LISP I am able to reduce by fifty times all of the processes, with no errors and reproducing the exact tasks that my mind sometimes forgets.
I usually change the DXF generated by that software only for two reasons:
- a better and more readable print;
- a PDF with the Text-searchable functionality. That closed software can produce PDF output but without this feature.
In the past, I only open the exported drawing in my CAD software and I printed it right away, as you can see below the output needs some work in order to become a good printed draw.
In detail every time I load this type of DXF, I have to:
- enlarge all the texts in a layer (so I can better read them);
- freeze a layer (useless and with a very bad return in the prints);
- change the colour of some layers to adapt to my print style;
- restore all colour properties of objects to BYLAYER;
- add a text at the bottom with the name of the file itself;
- create a PDF (assigning the A3 format, my print style and the correct orientation and size in function of the drawing extension).
But now I can make all these operations with a single command defined in the LISP script.
And it is useful when I have 10 or 12 drawings to convert one or two times a day, saving me to do repetitive and boring tasks. To put it more simply, before posting my script I want to share a video comparison: in the top half the LISP execution and at the bottom the same operations made by me for the same file. 3 seconds against 2 minutes and 26 seconds. So the LISP is approx 50 times faster than me!
You can save the following LISP code and adapt it. At the moment I called it Spazi:
CLICK TO SEE THE CODE
(defun c:Spazi (/ ss TxHt LayName Ent EntData sell n cm) ;; zoom extension (command "zoom" "E")(princ) (if (and ;; For the layer name 7 change the text height to 60 ;; SOURCE: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/visual-lisp-autolisp-and-general/select-objects-based-on-layer-name/m-p/9017917#M389749 (setq LayName "7") (setq TxHt 60) (setq ss (ssget "x" (list (cons 0 "TEXT") (cons 8 LayName)))) ) (while (setq Ent (ssname ss 0)) (setq EntData (entget Ent)) (entmod (subst (cons 40 TxHt) (assoc 40 EntData) EntData)) (ssdel Ent ss) ) ) (print) (setq sel1 (ssget "_X" '((0 . "*TEXT")(8 . "7")))) (if (tblsearch "layer" "(getvar 'LayName)") (repeat (setq n (sslength sel1));;;count number of entity and go through the each entity (print (cdr(assoc 1 (entget (ssname sel1 (setq n (- n 1)))))));;;print text value (command "_.chprop" sel1 "" "_color" 1 "");;;change to red color ) (princ "No entity") ) ;; Change the color of some layers (command "_.layer" "_color" 10 "0" "") (command "_.layer" "_color" 4 "2" "") (command "_.layer" "_color" 1 "3" "") (command "_.layer" "_color" 2 "4" "") (command "-layer" "off" 5 "") (command "_.layer" "_color" 170 "6" "") (command "_.layer" "_color" 10 "7" "") (command "_.layer" "_color" 4 "9" "") ;; taken from ByLayer.lsp [command names: --> BYevery] ;; To change all properties of objects to BYLAYER and other defaults, ;; clearing out all entity-specific overrides on such properties. ;; Works on top-level entities only, not nested ones [e.g. in Blocks]. ;; Kent Cooper, 12 March 2013 ;; SOURCE: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/visual-lisp-autolisp-and-general/lisp-set-default-color-linetype-line-width-by-layer/m-p/6552240#M344578 (setq ss (ssget "_X")) (repeat (sslength ss) (setq ent (ssname ss 0) edata (entget ent) edata (subst '(62 . 256) (assoc 62 edata) edata); color edata (subst '(6 . "BYLAYER") (assoc 6 edata) edata); linetype edata (subst '(48 . 1.0) (assoc 48 edata) edata); linetype scale edata (subst '(370 . -1) (assoc 370 edata) edata); lineweight edata (subst '(39 . 0.0) (assoc 39 edata) edata); thickness ); setq (entmod edata) (ssdel ent ss) ); repeat (princ) ;; CreateText is a function to insert a text in a fixed position ;; SOURCE: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/visual-lisp-autolisp-and-general/trouble-with-text-coordinates/td-p/9313929 (defun CreateText (txtJust txtHeight insertPt txtString) (if (= txtJust "tc") (setq horJust 1 verJust 3)) (if (= txtJust "mc") (setq horJust 1 verJust 2)) (if (= txtJust "bc") (setq horJust 1 verJust 1)) (if (= txtJust "ml") (setq horJust 0 verJust 3)) (if (= txtJust "mr") (setq horJust 2 verJust 2)) (entmake (list (cons 0 "TEXT") (cons 72 horJust) ;Horizontal text justification,0=Left,1=Center,2=Right,4=Center,5=Fit (cons 73 verJust) ;Vertical text justification, 0=Baseline,1=Bottom,2=Middle,3=Top (cons 10 insertPt) (cons 11 insertPt) (cons 40 txtHeight) (cons 1 txtString) ) ) ) ;; Put the filename at the bottom (CreateText "ml" 250.0 (getvar "EXTMIN") (vl-filename-base (getvar 'DWGNAME))) ;; Check the orientation looking for the extension of the drawing (setq LL (getvar 'extmin) UR (getvar 'extmax) ); setq (if (> (- (car UR) (car LL)) (- (cadr UR) (cadr LL))) (princ "Landscape" (setq orientation L)) (princ "Portrait" (setq orientation V)) ); if ;; How to save a PDF file ;; SOURCE: https://www.theswamp.org/index.php?topic=49301.0 (vl-load-com) (setq cm (getvar 'CMDECHO)) (setvar 'CMDECHO 0) (if (> (- (car UR) (car LL)) (- (cadr UR) (cadr LL))) (command "_.-plot" "_y" (if (= 1 (getvar 'TILEMODE)) "Model" (getvar 'CTAB)) "Print As PDF.pc3" "A3" "_I" "_L" "_N" "_E" "_F" "_C" "_Y" "printStyles.ctb" "_Y" ) (command "_.-plot" "_y" (if (= 1 (getvar 'TILEMODE)) "Model" (getvar 'CTAB)) "Print As PDF.pc3" "A3" "_I" "_P" "_N" "_E" "_F" "_C" "_Y" "printStyles.ctb" "_Y" ) ); if (if (= 1 (getvar 'TILEMODE)) (command "_A") (command "_N" "_Y") ) (command (strcat (getvar 'DWGPREFIX) (vl-filename-base (getvar 'DWGNAME))) "_Y" "_Y") (setvar 'CMDECHO cm) (princ) )
Making of the video
Software used on Windows:
- OBS Studio (https://obsproject.com/) is a free and open-source software for video recording and live streaming;
- BricsCAD (https://www.bricsys.com/en-intl/) is a CAD software;
- Carnac (http://code52.org/carnac/) is a keyboard logging and presentation utility for presentations and screencasts.
On Linux:
- Shotcut (https://www.shotcut.org/) is a video editor used to cut and add the timer;
- Openshot (https://www.openshot.org/) is another video editor used to add the 3D title and the music credits;
- FFmpeg (https://ffmpeg.org/) is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video; I used it to put two videos side by side with a description text in the middle of each one1
:
ffmpeg -i file1.mp4 -i file2.mp4 -filter_complex \ "[0]drawtext=text='TEXT FILE 1':fontsize=200:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2:[email protected]: box=1: [email protected][v0]; \ [1]drawtext=text='TEXT FILE 2':fontsize=200:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2:[email protected]: box=1: [email protected][v1]; \ [v0][v1]vstack=inputs=2" \ -s 1920x1080 -acodec copy output.mp4
The same command with the soundtrack:ffmpeg -i file1.mp4 -i file2.mp4 -i audio.mp3 -filter_complex "[0]drawtext=text='TEXT FILE 1':fontsize=200:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2:[email protected]: box=1: [email protected][v0]; \ [1]drawtext=text='TEXT FILE 2':fontsize=200:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2:[email protected]: box=1: [email protected][v1]; \ [v0][v1]vstack=inputs=2" -s 1920x1080 -map 2:a -acodec copy output.mp4
Invece ho usato questo comando per velocizzare un video:ffmpeg -i file2.mp4 -vf "setpts=0.25*PTS" -an file2_faster.mp4
The music in the video: Corncob - Country by Kevin MacLeod2 rilasciata con licenza Creative Commons 4.0.
