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Trim/Extend Function

  • 1.  Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 12-29-2020 13:45
      |   view attached

    Did anyone else's work flow suffer because of the changes made to the trim/extend tool? I use this function quiet often and sometime around the 5.2 - 5.3 update it changed. I used to be able to select a bounding line and select multiple lines and the line would be either extended or trimmed based on the situation as you would expect it to work. That has not worked for me and now I find myself having to click the individual lines one by one even though I have the multiple linework function selected. 

    Depending on where you click the line that you are trying to extend or trim affects the way the program wants to execute the trim or extend function. The most annoying example of this that I can give is that when you have two lines crossing each other forming a "+" if you select the long side of the line it leaves the short side of the line and if you select the short side of the line it leave the long side of the line. Im sure that "MIGHT" be helpful when you are doing one line at a time but when you are trying to do multiple lines I have not seen this be helpful.

    It used to be that it would trim or extend based off of the shortest distance and now that rule has seemed to be thrown out. 

    maybe its not a function yall use often but when I have hundreds of lines that cross another line by .02 and having to zoom in on every line to make sure I click on that short side of the line it ends up being an all day event. 

    Has anyone else ran into this?



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    Eric Salgado
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  • 2.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 12-29-2020 13:54

    I don't use trim for that feature too often. I've been using Rockpile Solution's Macro "crop crossing lines" for what you're describing. I know it's tough to have to shell out more money but that command is so useful in my opinion. I didn't like some of the changes that were made to trim/extend for the auto-prompts for selecting the next line. The problem is that a few people complain to change it one way, then they change it for those people, then other people end up suffering because they liked the way that it was before.



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    Adam Bower
    Owner
    AB Civil Consulting
    Mooresville NC
    585-331-1762
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  • 3.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 12-29-2020 14:15
      |   view attached

    Yeah I know what you mean but my problem is that the function still states "Trim/Extend shortest distance" yet that is not how the function works, I just find it odd that the function has always worked a certain way and while I dont have a problem with increasing functionality to remove or completely change how it works is beyond me.  looks like it just needs to be another option under trim extend. 



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    Eric Salgado
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  • 4.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 12-29-2020 14:24

    I never used that command much, but to be honest, I thought that it meant that the shortest distance was whether it trimmed or extended. But, now that I'm testing it, I can see that it only trims the side you selected. Are you using v5.40?



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    Adam Bower
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  • 5.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 12-29-2020 15:16
      |   view attached

    Right now im still using 5.32 but the changes happened about 2 updates ago for me. The shortest distance comment to me means that if there is a small gap that will close that up and touch the line you select as a bounding line or if it passes the line by a hair that it will trim it to where it touches the line.

    here is another example (See image below) sometimes the linework will curve and for this exmaple I just made a U shape for the bounding line and a straight line in between. in the past the function would extend the line whichever happened to be the shortest distance which is the right side. the function was predictable meaning that i could select hundreds of lines and I could always expect the same results, when i select multiple lines i usually do not select them one by one and never pay attention to which side of the line im clicking,  i usually click and drag and create an area of the items i want selected but if i do that in this case the program will not know what i want it to do with the line and leaves me with having to select and exectute a trim or extend function on every single line one by one and that adds up to alot of time if you have hundreds of lines 

    in short the predictability of the function is not there which does not give me confidence to use it as I did before. I have messed with the function so I have learned what the program is doing in the background but honestly I dont think this is how the function should work and wonder if it is a problem that no one has pointed out yet



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    Eric Salgado
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  • 6.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 12-29-2020 16:14

    I'd be very curious to see if you find the same issue in v5.40. I'm sure it's still there, but it would be worth someone else commenting on.



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    Adam Bower
    AB Civil Consulting
    http://courses.abcivilconsulting.com/
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  • 7.  RE: Trim/Extend Function
    Best Answer

    Posted 01-02-2021 10:23
    Eric
    I think I answered this before. When Trimble added the Command Line feature that allows you to run the commands like Trim, Extend, Break, Join etc. they reworked all of the CAD commands so that they would work with the new command line function. In that process a number of things were changed (not all for the better unfortunately) and this was one of those that was affected. I agree that some things worked better before but in some situations the new approach also works better - however it is more sensitive to where you pick / how you multiselect data than it used to be.

    To be honest I rarely use the Trim / Extend Shortest Distance function and I would have to go back a way to find a version that worked based on what you are saying to see how it operated previously.

    The Trim / Extend function will Trim or Extend the end of the line nearest to where you pick the line that you want to Trim or extend - so I just click the end that I want to trim or extend and that clips or extends as needed. 

    If you have a line that just falls short or just overhangs the bounding line nd you have a mix of those to sort out as would be found from a PDF file, I agree that it is a pain to use because you have to zoom in tight in order to click on the piece of the line that you want to trim off and often you don't know what you are dealing with until you do zoom right in - sometimes it is easier to create an offset line to the Bounding Line, Extend all of the lines to that first and then Trim them all back to the original bounding line than to try and work out which ones need trimming or extending.

    This is what I would do with the Crop Crossing Command (in that case I would trim all the lines short of the bounding line and then use Extend to extend them all to the bounding line if I have a lot of lines to do - eg driveways to a curb line or a sidewalk or ROW line etc.)

    I think that you used to also be able to have it alternate between the Bounding line and a single line to extend or trim so that you could easily to two lines to their intersect point etc. and that was lost at the same time as the changes that were made.

    I will see if we can get this improved.

    Alan 


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    Alan Sharp
    alan.sharp@rockpilesolutions.com
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  • 8.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 01-04-2021 11:08
    I must have forgot that it changed because of the addition of the command line. 

    I guess I was just trying to figure out how many people use it or if anyone even noticed the changed because I know that I have been having a hard time accepting the new process of zooming in extending it then moving to the next. 

    Ive been using the function to extend Lot Lines to touch the ROW since sometimes some of these dont touch. I create my ROW with elevations and then I drape my Lot Linework to the the ROW elevations. I have just increasing the "offset Tolerance" so that even if it doesnt touch it still catches the elevation. 

    I dont exclusively use it for this but thats how I noticed that i could no longer take multiple lines and extend/trim them like i used to.

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    Eric Salgado
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  • 9.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 01-04-2021 14:38
      |   view attached
    This short video shows a couple of tricks that may help - I typically offset the ROW line in this case, extend all of the Lot lines to the offset line and then select the original ROW line with the same Lot Lines and trim them all back to the bounding line. You can also do it with Trim Shortest distance but how you select the lines is now important (if it wasn't before) so that it either Extends or Trims off the end of the line selected.

    Hopefully the attached video may help



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    Alan Sharp
    alan.sharp@rockpilesolutions.com
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  • 10.  RE: Trim/Extend Function

    Posted 01-06-2021 16:14
    Yea I brought this to their attention back in May 2020 for 5.30 and again for 5.31. I guess it still doesn't matter that our workflow has been hampered by the command line "improvements".
    Thread Here

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    Richard Tyndall
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