Flatten vs flatten? 1

[ohiocad]

Going back a few releases, not sure when the change occurred or if it was a unique program we had.. Before, when running the flatten command, it would take most objects in autocad, and (If you're in world ucs plan view, for instance) change the Z coordinate to 0.

If there were blocks, it moved the insertion point to Z=0, leaving the block untouched (if the components within the block were non-0, it left them that way).

Ran Flatten in Autocad today, and it redefined all blocks to unique, with flat-xx (or something like that) assigned as part of the name, and went into the block and flattened everything inside the block (hence why it assigned new names). It also killed all dynamic aspects of the blocks.

I have looked, and can't find any settings to get back to the previous version. I can't remember if that was an add-on that we located, or if it was built into Acad express tools, and simply had the functionality changed somewhere in the last few releases.

Anyone have any ideas / comments? Flattening to Z=0 is quite useful, but not at the cost of almost all block functionality, and having 1 block become 300 different unique versions. Am I just not seeing the settings?

We tested this on Acad vanilla 2015, SP2, if that makes a difference

 

[CarlB]

Looks like Flatten does not have option to not break down blocks.

There are lisps to re-assemble block, and alternate flatten lisps, e.g:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/auto...duced-excessive-number-of-blocks/td-p/5694305

Or other ways in AutoCAD to move objects to z=0:

http://cadtips.cadalyst.com/object-properties/tips-help-flatten-objects

 

[chicopee]

Interestingly enough, my ACAD version of 2005 will respond to the command FLATTEN, however the help command does not address it and neither do my ACAD 2002 and 2005 text books. With ACAD 2005 FLATTEN will convert 3D to 2D drawings. Undoubtedly it is an old command just like for example GROUP.