Curve Union

The Curve Union (CUnion) command is designed to work in 2D with polylines, splines, and other curves. The command combines several curves, as if the curves mark the boundaries of a certain area, and it is necessary to build a common contour along the outer boundaries. The usual _Union command works in exactly the same way with flat Regions. But now you do not need to convert closed curves to a region, combine and convert back to curves. The program will do it all itself. In addition, the program can be used to join open curves, as _Join command does. The program can customize layers, save or delete the original drawing objects.

Program capabilities

• In 1 click, you can immediately combine many curves, there is no need to call the command hundreds of times for each pair of curves.

• The program considers almost closed curves with a small gap as closed. When joining pieces of curves, small gaps and intersections are also allowed.

• The source curves can be scattered and rotated in 3D space as you like - the program will project everything onto the XY plane of the current user coordinate system UCS. You can even work with 3D polylines.

• The results can be assigned to any existing or new layer.

• The source curves can be deleted from the drawing, or saved.

• You can set up to 9 different command styles with different settings and quickly switch them each time the command is called.

The CUnion command is not supplied as a separate plugin, but is included in the AVC_CurveSub plugin and in collections: A>V>C> Pro and A>V>C> 2D-kit.

How to use

You can set up all the command options in the AVC Options Palette on the Curve Subtract tab. The settings are common with the Curve Subtract command.

Set up the coordinate system (UCS) - the program will project all curves onto XY plane.

You can select the source curves before calling the command.

Call the CUnion command. If nothing is selected in advance, the program will ask you to select curves. You can work with any finite curves: lines, polylines, 2D polylines, 3D polylines, splines, circles, arcs, ellipses. Infinite rays, xLine, multi-lines are not processed.

The curve selection prompt has options for quickly switching the style and opening the settings dialog.

All curves will be projected onto XY.

After unification, all closed contours will remain closed. If only lines, any polylines and arcs are joined, the result will be a closed polyline. If at least one spline or ellipse is encountered, the result will be a spline. But you can set up the region as the result of joining closed curves.

Curves that have not participated in any union/joining will remain unchanged in the drawing (even if the original ones are set up to be deleted).

Processing hundreds and thousands of curves can take a long time. You will see a progress bar and can interrupt the command by pressing ESC.

Monitor the command line. The program will display messages about the current settings, all failures and the results of the work.

Options

Select subtracted by layer

This setting is not used in this command.

Result layer

Assign a layer to all curves that could be combined with at least something. If there is no such layer in the drawing, the program will try to pull it from your template. Or create a new one. Leave the field empty to keep the layer of one of the combined source curves. If curves with different properties are combined, the properties will be taken from the first random one that comes across, you cannot control this in any way.

Save Stubs / Stub layer

This setting is not used in this command.

Gap / Save gap

This setting is not used in this command.

Work with open

Process curves that could not be closed. If you disable this option, all unclosed curves will be ignored.

Create regions

After merging, do not explode regions, but place them in the drawing. This setting only works for closed source curves.

Delete Source

Delete source curves if they participated in at least one union. If the selected curve was not processed due to failures or simply did not intersect with others, then such a curve will remain unchanged in the drawing in any case.

Delete Subtracted

This setting is not used in this command.

Tolerance

The calculation precision setting is on the Common Options tab. Linear tolerance affects the permissible gaps when closing and joining curves, building regions, and other operations.