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Quick discussion of idea: Certain types of drawings use standardized drawing symbols. This section shows you some example symbol libraries that you might use, or edit, for testing my programs. Additionally with DANCAD3D (tm) you can try to create any number of your own special symbol libraries to fill your own individual needs. DANCAD3D (tm) Alias symbol libraries are organized into groups of 36 symbol drawing files, plus an Alias Index file (i.e. *.ALI) to tell DANCAD3D (tm) what keyboard key should load the symbol, the drawing filetype of each symbol file, and disk location, i.e. filename, for each drawing symbol file. The line thickness and color of symbols loaded can be edited with the commands in the drawing editor's [L]ines sub-menu.

Detailed discussion of idea: In this download section there may be some example sets of symbol files. These types of symbol files are referred to as ALIAS since when using the drawing editor the symbol files can be loaded into the drawing workspace by pressing the [Alt] and [Somekey] rather than having to enter the filename of the symbol file. The *.ALI Alias index files that may accompany each of the sets of symbol files equates the [Alt] and [Somekey] combination pressed with the actual path, filename, and filetype of the symbol file to be loaded into the drawing workspace. It may be possible for you to create Alias index files of your own, as well as draw your own symbol files to be indexed in some Alias index files that you might create, in order to meet your own special needs.

The ALIAS feature of DANCAD3D (tm) lets an [Alt] & [Key] combination stand for an element's filename, file-type, and scaling factor. This greatly speeds up some types of drawing such as when standardized symbols are to be used repeatedly. All you do when drawing is to move the drawing cursor where you want the symbol and press [Alt] and the chosen key (see the Alias symbol tables for the example symbol sets to know what key to press.)

To install the Alias files enter the path\filename of the selected files with the *.ALI extension when prompted for the 10 names of Alias index files by the [A]lias command of the [C]hange command found in DANCAD3D (tm) main menu. Since there are so many element symbol files indexed by these Alias index files it is best to keep the Alias symbol files in a sub-directory. My symbol sets are normally kept in the ALIAS\ sub-directory off of the directory the CAD program is installed in, and need to be installed in that sub-directory to work since the Alias index file in my symbol sets uses the ALIAS\ sub-directory in the path to all of its symbol files. If you download a set of symbols as a *.ZIP file, you need to extract the symbol and index files into the ALIAS\ sub-directory of the directory the CAD program is in, or you may get a file not found error when you try to use the symbols. If the ALIAS files are set up in a sub- directory named ALIAS then you would enter ALIAS\ followed by the filename with the .ALI extension when you install the Alias index files with the [C]hange command from the main menu. Up to 360 symbols may be installed at once (i.e. 10 sets of 36 symbol files.)

In the main menu [C]hange command you can enter the names of ten Alias index files, each indexing up to 36 symbol files. To select the one of ten Alias index files you want to use while in the [D]rawing screen of the drawing editor press the [PgUp] key.

To make an Alias index file first draw your symbols normalized to some logical scale and save them individually to disk. For ease of handling and organization you should save them to the ALIAS\ sub- directory but you do not need to. Then use the ASCII text editor ([W]rite from DANCAD3D (tm)'s main menu) to make an Alias index file that you can install with the [C]hange command in the main menu. The Alias index file has the following form:

EXAMPLE: 1,A=ALIAS\WHEEL.ASC

With the above example saved in an Alias index (text) file named MY.ALI, when you enter MY.ALI as the Alias index file to use for Alias index file 0 with the [C]hange command in the main menu you could then enter [Alt] & [1] while drawing to load the ASCII drawing data file-type element named WHEEL.ASC found in the ALIAS\ sub-directory. Do not use or add any leading spaces or spaces between parts of the reference in the Alias index file, just enter the reference as shown in the above example starting on the left side of each line of text in Alias index file.

EXAMPLE: A,2=SHAPE.R72

The above index in the selected Alias index file would load a 2D- Real file-type file named SHAPE.R72 in the current directory when [Alt] & [A] are pressed while drawing.

EXAMPLE: Z,3=D:\SYM00123.J06

The above would load a 3D-Quick type file named SYM00123.J06 found in the D: drive's root directory when [Alt] & [Z] are pressed.

As you see from the examples the first character on the line is the key to assign. The keys available are [A] to [Z], and [0] to [9]. That gives you 36 files per Alias index file. The next character is a comma. This is followed by the file type. File-types available are A for my ASCII type, 2 for my 2D-Real type, and 3 for my 3D-Quick type. The next character is an equal symbol. Immediately after the equal symbol is the path\filename of the element symbol of the chosen type to load. Each Alias index reference should be at the start of a new line of text. Examine the example *.ALI Alias index files that may be provided in the example Alias symbol *.ZIP files.

Each set of files for an Alias index file therefore consists of 37 files (the index file and up to 36 indexed symbol files.) If the 37 files all have the same name and different extensions like the example ones might have, then the files that are part of one set may be easier to keep track of. Any of the symbol files can be indexed by more than one Alias index file if you wish to have that symbol available without having to switch the currently selected Alias symbol file set by using the [PgUp] key.

The example symbol files might be supplied in ASCII format so that the 8087 version, DANCAD87 (tm), might also be used to read the symbol files without conversion to the 8087 3D-Quick data format. You will probably be using either DANCAD3D (tm) or DANCAD87 (tm) but not both, so you might want to develop your symbol library in the 3D-Quick file- type to possibly get faster loading of the symbol files. The symbols may load faster from a RAM disk. You can write a DOS batch file to copy the Alias files you want to use to the RAM disk and alter the drive assignment for the Alias index files with the [C]hange command from the main menu. Remember that the path in the Alias index file's indexed symbol file filenames must be valid, so if you want to use the symbol files from a floppy or RAM disk you can, but you will need to edit the Alias index file to place the drive letter in the filename path for the indexed symbol files. DOS may have a limitation on how many files can be in the root directory at once, if you try to exceed the number of files DOS will accept in the root directory you may get a disk full error even though the disk is not full, therefore large sets of files might need to be put in a sub- directory.

EXAMPLE: REM DOS batch file to load RAM disk.
         MD D:\ALIAS
         COPY C:\DC25\ALIAS\*.* D:\ALIAS\*.*

Change the drive assignment with the [A]lias command of [C]hange command in the main menu.

EXAMPLE: D:\ALIAS\SOMETHIN.ALI

Change the Alias index file with an ASCII text editor ([W]rite) so that the path of the indexed symbol file has the proper directory path.

EXAMPLE: 1,3=ALIAS\SOMETHIN.1  1,3=D:\ALIAS\SOMETHIN.1

         For the RAM disk or for a floppy drive:

         1,3=ALIAS\SOMETHIN.1  1,3=A:\ALIAS\SOMETHIN.1

To choose the Alias index file to use and set the symbol loading scaling factor press the [PgUp] key while drawing. There is also an option to drag (i.e. move around while you see the position on screen) loaded symbols that contain less than 500 drawing lines. This drag option works well with a mouse or 3D track-ball and a fast computer to visually position elements. You can zoom in and out while the element is blinking with the [D]raw option of the CAD program's drawing editor for better alignment, e.g. press [+] then [*], or [-][-][-] then [*] and so on.

If you download an example Alias symbol file set you will notice that I have probably named all the symbols to be the same as the Alias index file, this is not a requirement I just have done it that way to make keeping things that go together easier to keep track of. Also the sequentially numbered symbol file extensions are not a requirement, but make it easier to write a macro to re-scale the symbols if need be, since the macro NAME command can be used in a LOOP to LOAD, MAGNIFY and then SAVE all the symbols in the set.

SECTION: 9.21.11 ELE1.ALI et al. for testing DANCAD3D.COM (tm).

SECTION: 9.21.12 ELE2.ALI et al. for testing DANCAD3D.COM (tm).

SECTION: 9.21.13 ELE3.ALI et al. for testing DANCAD3D.COM (tm).

SECTION: 9.21.14 ELE4.ALI et al. for testing DANCAD3D.COM (tm).

SECTION: 9.21.21 PCB1.ALI et al. for testing DANCAD3D.COM (tm).