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Anonymous Blocks in AutoCAD

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Nevin Ghaboun
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58 views3 pages

Anonymous Blocks in AutoCAD

Uploaded by

Nevin Ghaboun
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Anonymous Blocks in AutoCAD

“AutoCAD uses anonymous blocks for supporting hatch patterns and dimensions. These types of blocks
are also created using AutoLISP or similar means, but cannot be intentionally created in the drawing editor.
Also, anonymous blocks cannot be modified using AutoCAD editing commands.” – www.autodesk.com.au

What are the Types


*U### = anonymous blocks

*E### = anonymous non-uniformly scaled blocks

*X### = anonymous hatches

*D### = anonymous dimensions

*A### = anonymous groups

What anonymous blocks look like in AutoCAD

Converting Anonymous Blocks to Normal Blocks


For the purpose of this discussion the block in question is named *U105.

1. RENAME *U105 to U105 (still an anonymous block, but now will appear in the BLOCKREPLACE drop
down box)

2. Create a matching block to replace U105. We will call this block COLUMN

3. Use BLOCKREPLACE to replace U105 with COLUMN

Exploding Anonymous Blocks


*U### uniformly scaled blocks can be exploded with the EXPLODE command.

“When nonuniformly scaled blocks contain objects that cannot be exploded, they are collected into an
anonymous block (named with a “*E” prefix) and referenced with the nonuniform scaling. If all the objects in
such a block cannot be exploded, the selected block reference will not be exploded. Body, 3D Solid, and
Region entities in a nonuniformly scaled block cannot be exploded.” – AutoCAD 2004 Help File

LISP Routine for Converting Anonymous Blocks to Normal Blocks


Unanon.lsp – Converts anonymous blocks with a *U prefix to normal autocad blocks
Various types of anonymous blocks in AutoCAD.

AutoCAD drawing database (DWG) can contain various types of


anonymous (unnamed) blocks. The pseudo-names of anonymous
blocks always start with an asterisk "*". You normally cannot
use AutoCAD block editing commands with anonymous blocks.
Examples of anonymous blocks:

 *U### - general anonymous blocks


 *E### - anonymous blocks from non-uniformly scaled
blocks - when exploded (e.g. solids, regions)
 *D### - anonymous dimensions (dim blocks)
 *X### - anonymous hatches (hatch blocks)
 *A### - anonymous groups, DGN linetype blocks
 *T### - anonymous blocks in tables
 *S### - anonymous blocks of 3D views (Viewbase, e.g.
from Fusion360)
 *Model_Space - Modelspace block
 *Paper_Space## - Paperspace blocks
 A$C######## - blocks from Flatshot or
Sectionplane commands
 AutoCAD add-on applications may create also other types
of anonymous blocks.

Naming conventions for anonymous blocks


Issue
Is there a standard naming convention for anonymous blocks (block table
records)?
Solution
AutoCAD and other Autodesk programs implement an anonymous block
naming scheme where an asterisk is used as a prefix followed by a letter
indicating the type of object. For example, "X" is used for hatches, "D" is
used for unused dimensions, and "U" is used for anonymous blocks.
One way to create an anonymous block is to set its name to be an asterisk.
AutoCAD then automatically generates a name using the syntax "*Unnn"
where the letter n represents a digit.
There aren't any stringent rules that uphold this naming convention.
Anonymous blocks are not always named with an asterisk followed by a
fixed letter that designates the type of object. The crucial factor in how a
name is assigned is the setting of the first bit of group code 70 of the block,
which is accessible and easily designated by coding in ADSRX, such as
ads_entmake or acdbEntMake) or AutoLISP, such as entmake.
The following is an excerpt from the ObjectARX help reference manual that
explains the naming of anonymous blocks at a finer level:
"The block definitions table in a drawing can contain anonymous blocks.
Anonymous blocks are created to support hatch patterns and associative
dimensioning. They can also be created by entmake for the application's
own purposes, usually to contain entities that the user cannot access
directly.
The group code 2 (block name) of a dimension entity is optional for the
entmake function. If the block name is omitted from the entity definition
list, AutoCAD creates a new one. Otherwise, AutoCAD creates the
dimension using the name provided.
The name (group 2) of an anonymous block is *Unnn, where nnn is a number
generated by AutoCAD. Also, the low-order bit of an anonymous block's
Block type flag (group 70) is set to 1. When entmake creates a block whose
name begins with * and whose anonymous bit is set, AutoCAD treats this as
an anonymous block and assigns it a name. Characters following the * in
the name string passed to entmake are ignored."

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