1. Open the drawing named lesson14.dwg which is located in your GeoTools Tutorials folder. This folder is located in the folder where you have installed GeoTools.

2. You should see a drawing (see Image 15-1) of a small layout of road under development represented by 3D Polyline. And having block attributes placed denoting the electrical poles been installed.

Image 15-1

3. The block has two attributes Pole_Number and Installation_Date, we will see how we can rename the attribute tag Pole_Number to Elect_Pole_No 

Renaming Attribute Tag

1. Click on menu GeoTools => Blocks => Rename block attribute tags, prompts and defaults or type GT_TAGREN at the command prompt. This will pop-up the dialog box as shown below (image 15-2)

Image 15-2


2. Set the parameters as shown in above dialog box. 

• Under Select block name choose Rect_Pole

• Under Select tag to rename choose Pole_Number

• In New tag name box type Elect_Pole_No

• In New attribute prompt box type Enter the electrical pole no

• In New attribute default box type 1

3. Lastly click on OK button. This will change the attribute tag name Pole_Number to Elect_Pole_No  as shown below in (image 15-3)

Image 15-3

So we have learnt how to rename the block attribute tag. Now we will see how we can connect blocks based on attribute values.

Connecting Blocks based on Attribute values

1. Click on menu GeoTools => Blocks => Connect blocks based on attribute values or type GT_CONNECTBLOCKS at the command prompt. This will pop-up the dialog box as shown below (image 15-4)

Image 15-4

2. Set the parameters as shown in above dialog box. 

• Under Select block name(s) to use choose Rect_Pole

• In Connect points box type 2,3,5,6

• In Attribute Tag name box type Elect_Pole_No

3. Now click on OK button this will hide the selection dialog box and you will be prompted to select objects. Select all the block attributes and press ENTER key.

4. This will draw a polyline connecting the blocks having attribute value 2,3,5,6 under attribute tag name Elect_Pole_No. as shown below in (Image 5-5)

Image 15-5

After learning how to connect blocks based on attribute values. We will see how we can explode block and retain attributes as text.

Exploding block and retaining attributes as text

1. Click on menu GeoTools => Blocks => Explode blocks - Retain attributes as Text or type GT_XP_ATT at the command prompt. This will pop-up the Standard selection dialog box as shown below (image 15-6)

Image 15-6

2. Click on Scan selected objects button and select the block with attribute value as 5 and press ENTER key.

3. This will bring back to the standard selection dialog box. Lastly click on Apply button. This will explode the block and retain the attributes as text

4. You can confirm by double clicking on the text of exploded block.