By Elvis Sverko
After running in the Warrior Dash last weekend I’ve seen my share of people wiping out in the mud. No, I didn’t wipeout, but I did have a great time with my friends and fellow warriors. And it got me thinking, that I’d like to participate in an event that has no running, but instead just some obstacles. Then last night I was watching Wipeout on TV. All it is, is obstacles, and it looks fun.
But all this talk about wipeout, got me thinking about the AutoCAD wipeout command, the one which creates areas that hide underlying objects.
It’s a simple command that’s been around for ages, but seems to have taken a backseat to the rest of AutoCAD. What I mean is that many of the commands in AutoCAD have been updated through the years, making AutoCAD very versatile or customizable, and thus in the process, almost making the wipeout command obsolete. Some quick examples that come to mind include Hatch, the use of layers, text background masking, dimension settings, etc. (It all depends on what you’re doing, and what you’re trying to accomplish, so I’m sure there are some uses of the wipeout command that cannot be substituted by anything else. But I’ll let those go for now. Maybe it’s just a workflow thing.)
Sometimes having stray wipeouts in a drawing is no big deal. In other cases, it can be a big deal. And it’s these big deals that I’m talking about.
Sure, you can turn on all wipeout frames to see the stragglers, and then delete them, but that takes time, and if you have a big drawing with lots of layers, it can be difficult and time-consuming. And if you leave wipeouts in the drawing, you may eventually send another object to the back, and in the process inadvertently be sending it behind the straggling wipeout, thus blocking out part of your drawing that you don’t want blocked, and you may not notice it until it’s too late.
I’ve also heard many people complain about the difficulty of printing with wipeouts in a drawing, either not blocking what it’s supposed to, or printing as a black “smudge” on certain printers. Obviously there are ways to get around this, but should we really have to?
And wipeouts can only be made from polylines. So you can only have a wipeout shape using straight lines, not curves. It kind of limits how you can use it. Unless you get creative of course.
Sometimes a wipeout can hide a mistake. Sometimes, the wipeout is the mistake.
Some people flat out refuse to use wipeouts. Others overuse them. And then there are those in between. If you are going to use them, I suggest you put them on their own dedicated layer.
So, with the possible issues caused by wipeouts, should we continue to use them? It’s a simple tool, but should we “hide” it from training sessions? Or should we just use it responsibly?
I don’t know. But aren’t drawings meant to show something, not hide it?
“Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all.” - Sophocles
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