General Information on Symbols

Like a 2-D part, a symbol is the combination of several graphical elements into a unit, but with the following restriction: Symbols must not contain

Every symbol must have a clearly defined fitting point, which is referred to as the reference point of the symbol. You insert reference points into a drawing by defining their position and specifying stretching factor and an angle of rotation, depending on fitting point ID.

Symbols can contain texts and other symbols, i.e. a reference to another symbol. If a symbol contains references to other symbols, the parameters like angle of rotation and stretching factors also affect all symbol points contained in it. For this reason, the nesting depth of the recursively called symbols is restricted to 50. A symbol is allowed to refer to the same symbol, i.e. even symbol xy is contained in symbol xy.

Texts can be bound to the symbol in a fixed or variable manner. Fixed texts are displayed unchanged for each symbol. You can enter variable texts when inserting the symbol.

A symbol is identified by means of a name consisting of up to 4 digits - 1 to 9999.

Symbols only allow you to access the reference point of the symbol, not the individual graphical elements. The Break up symbols function enables you to break up symbols into graphic elements and edit them.

If a symbol occurs several times in a drawing, only the reference point appears several times, while the geometrical elements of the symbol appear only once.

If graphical elements lead to the reference point of a symbol or intersect it, in the plotter output they are automatically drawn to the edge of the symbol if it has been defined in the fitting point ID.

Each drawing can be assigned a symbol table. Symbols in a symbol table cannot be manipulated arbitrarily. All drawings which contain symbol xy display the changed symbol, e.g.. xy’, in a graphic output. Only the symbol parameters - reference point, symbol name etc. - and no graphical information about the shape of the symbol are saved in the drawing. A symbol table is created as a drawing. The individual parts of the drawing represent the symbols.

The geometrical information of the symbols is stored in absolute coordinates in mm. They are invariant in relation to scale changes.

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