Switching Gaps

[LISPer]

I'm a draftsman. I write some very heavy LISP programs for the manufacutring company I work for.

Currently, I am working with coupling boards for ceramic RF mircorwave filters.

The current itteration of my program inserts the original drawing into a specified place to make an array from it.

I am curious to know, if there is a way to get it to switch where the squares are drawn.

Here's what I mean by that, the coupling boards appear as a series of squares of equal height but varying width and varying distance inbetween. When the block is inserted, the squares represent the copper flashing on the coupling board, but I need to edit it so that the spaces *between* the the copper flashing are the squares that are seen.

I've been doing this mainly with a mix of LISP and manual manipulation, but I'd like to know if anyone knows how to grap the proper points and redraw/edit the squares as I need them to be edited (EACH board is massively different, but are all sets of squares)

 

[Estassoc]

It's hard to visualize what you're doing without
the codes and the drawing. Are you trying to determine
the insert point of each arrayed block to be used as a
basis for revising the boards?

 

[LISPer]

The blocks are going to be inserted into an array. They'll then be modified to be sent out for a positive photoplot.

The enclosed polylines will come back dark and anywhere it's dark will remove copper from the material during the photo-etching process.


To get an idea of what one of our boards looks like, draw a series of same height boards with an arbitrary distance between them.

What I need to do, is select this series of squares, and have it reverse the image (where there are spaces between the squares, turn into the squares, and erase the previous squares).

The code itself is just an insertion program right now. I need to write the editing portion, and am unsure how to go about it. Well...I could....but it'd be messy, and VERY long grabbing x,y coordinates from a series of lines automatically.

 

[LISPer]

I just realized I still didn't elaborate enough.

The squares of the same height, are in line with one another from left to right.

Perfectly in line. They will be cut out with a saw, which again forces them to be of identical height.

The width of the squares from left to right varies, and the spacing from one square to the next also varies from square to square and from drawing to drawing.

The space inbetween where the squares are currently drawn, is what I need to be turned into squares. And be rid of the old squares.

If anyone needs a visual, I can send a jpeg via email to them for better clarification. I don't know if this site holds my email in my profile, so here it is: jguy@klmicrowave.com