Troubleshooting: Creating a Region
You may be having troubles creating a region for a variety of reasons. Most likely there is some sort on discontinuity in your AutoCAD drawing, but it could be something else.
Listed below are common mistakes that can prevent you from creating a region.
Incorrect Order in Steps
It could just be that you are doing things in the wrong order. Follow these steps again, just to make sure.
Step 1
Type in REGION at the command prompt.
Step 2
Highlight the entire figure. Make sure that you are getting every piece.
Step 3
Press Enter
Note: If you highlight the entire figure first, and then type REGION, you will still have to highlight the figure all over again.
Not Highlighting Everything
Make sure that you are highlighting every piece of the figure when you are in the REGION command. Here are some pointers.
1. Be extra aware when highlighting the curved edges. Exploding these curves sometimes breaks them up into a lot of individual pieces, and every single one needs to be highlighted.
2. When highlighting the object, move the mouse from right to left. A selection square created from the right side to the left side highlights everything it has boxed, whereas a selection square drawn from left to right only highlights complete objects within the box only.
Therefore, if you've highlighted part of a line with the left to right box, it will not be highlighted.
Still a Polyline
If any part of your figure is still a polyline, AutoCAD will not make it into a region. Make sure that you've exploded everything.
Open Figure
Sometimes there are lines in your figure that are not connected. Make sure that you can actually make a closed polyline out of your figure. If you can, there is no opening in your figure. Here are some more tips on finding the opening.
1. Double Check all the areas on your pendulum that are detailed and/or were difficult to draw. The pendulum pallets and curved edges are common problem areas.
2. Try to create a closed polyline out of your figure. If you've highlighted everything, done all you can to select all the pieces, and it still doesn't close, just type in CLOSE when you are still in the polyline edit mode. This will either,
a) Automatically close the figure filling in a spot you couldn't find.
b) Try to connect two very separate points on your figure with a line. If it does,
you've just found out where the problem is.
Untrimmed Figure
The problem may be that you forgot to FILLET or TRIM a certain edge. Check the edges on your figure, and any spot that is either detailed or was difficult to draw. Again, the pendulum pallets and curved edges are common problem areas.
Here are some common examples of untrimmed figures.
Overlaps
The most common, yet hardest problem to solve is a figure with overlapping lines. Many times, AutoCAD will create a polyline for you even if you have some overlapping lines. The problem is, you will still not be able to create a region. Here are some tips on how to find them.
Polyline Removal
Sometimes you may be able to separate the extra lines from the figure by creating a polyline of your figure and then moving it away. Delete any extra lines that remain behind.
Checking the Hot Spots by Highlighting
Most likely, you have an idea of where the problem might be. You can start checking these spots by highlighting them. If you see more grab boxes than necessary, there may be overlapping lines lying around.
Here is an example.
Notice the excessive markers for just
one line.
There should only be 3 markers per line.
If All Else Fails, Trace
There are two options to take when you're at this point. One is to redraw the pendulum over again. The other is to retrace the pendulum with a polyline.
The Pros of Tracing
1. Quick and Easy
2. Opportunity to Learn More About Layers
The Cons of Tracing
1. Less Accurate Results
2. Detailed Pendulum May Be Difficult to Trace
3. Requires a Little More AutoCAD Knowledge
Step 1. Prepare to Trace
a) Create a New Layer to Trace with
Click Format and then Layer to bring up the "Layer Properties Manager".
Click on New, and give the new Layer a name and a different color. (double click
the color section of the layer to select the color)
b) Get Ready to Polyline
Scroll down the Layers toolbox at the top left corner of the AutoCAD window.
Select the new Layer you have made.
Type in PLINE in the command prompt.
You are now ready to start tracing.
Step 2. Trace
a) Tracing
Continuously click on your pendulum to create a polyline trace of you pendulum.
Tips: For areas with lines and edges, having OSNAP on will help. For circular
areas, you may want to turn OSNAP off.
b) Closing the Polyline
If you can remember where you began, you will not have a problem connecting your
last line to your starting point.
Otherwise, if you are close to the end but do not know where you started, type in
CLOSE in the command prompt, and AutoCAD will close up the polyline for you.
Step 3. Erasing the Old Picture
a) Freezing the New Layer
Scroll down the Layers Toolbar and select the original Layer (probably named 0)
Then click on the light bulb that corresponds to the layer you just created.
This procedure will freeze the new layer, making it invisible and untouchable, so
that you can easily ease the old picture.
b) Erase the Old, In with the New
Erase the pendulum that you cannot create a region out of.
Then go to the Layers Toolbar again and UnFreeze the new Layer.
You are now ready to make this new pendulum tracing into a region.