Multileaders with Blocks

CAD-a-Blog posted earlier about Multileaders and Multileader Styles. Now lets take a look at Multileaders with Blocks for annotation.

When you set up a multileader style, you have three options for the annotation: Mtext, Block, or None. You can set this in the Multileader Style Manager under the CONTENT tab. It’s the first option in the tab. Just click the arrow and the available options will be displayed. Select the one you want. Today we want to look at the BLOCK setting.

This setting will create the callout as a block. You can pick from several standard blocks that come with AutoCAD, or you can use your own. Do what you need. If the standard blocks fit your needs, then why make one? If they don’t then make it the way you like it.

Having the annotation as a block works great for assemblies, subassemblies, charts, or any other drawing that you need to display similar objects in. The other great thing about making the annotations (or callouts) blocks is that it makes it so much easier to be able to extract that data from your drawing.

Imagine that I (or you) am working on a landscape drawing. It shows the types and amounts of different shrubs and trees that we need for the project. I can count each symbol, or I can use data extraction (see previous post) to read the multileader block information and count it for me, and place it in a table for my drawing or report.

The other benefit is visual. I can use different blocks to represent different types of objects. For example, in my landscape drawing we mentioned earlier, I can use hexagon shaped blocks for shrubs, round blocks for trees, and square blocks, for flowers. This will make the drawing much easier to read for other people.

If you want to get real fancy, create blocks with fields and extract that data, or tie it to other objects in your drawing.

Give multileaders with blocks a try. I think you will find them useful.

Happy CADDing.