What Is a Block

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What Is a Block

A Block is an element of the drawing that consists of several entities 'moulded' together to form a single selectable entity. Thus the operations like moving, rotation etc are made not with the separate elements but with the whole group of elements. The elements which form a block can belong to different layers and have different properties which do not depend on the values of the block properties. The set of elements of a block and their initial properties can be redefined after its creation.

The usage of blocks makes the process of creating and editing identical elements of the drawing easier. One should distinguish the notions of a block definition and a block reference while working with blocks. When a block is created its definition is set. It is stored in the file of the drawing and shows what objects a block consists of. Block definition is not displayed in the drawing. When a block is pasted a block reference is created. A block can be pasted an unlimited number of times, which makes it easier to create identical elements of a drawing. All the block references are connected with its definition that's why all the changes in a block definition (for example, a redefinition of its constituents) are automatically reflected in its references. unused in the drawing block definitions can be deleted with the help of the command Purge.

Block definitions can be deleted in two ways:

with the help of the command Create block

by means of pasting objects from the clipboard with the help of the command Paste as block

Some semantic information in the form of different textual data can be connected with blocks to characterize an object. To add such data attributes are used.

 


The dialog box Create block

The dialog box Paste block

Attribute definitions

Block editor

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