Convert a Polyline to a Member Profile (Video)

by | Jul 13, 2016 | Columns and Members, Learning Center | 0 comments

Video: https://youtu.be/7pfZWMHMh6M
Transcript:

A profile can be used for your members or trim pieces in your design. Envisioneer has a default group of profiles already created for you, but you can add or create your own to help give your designs the custom look you need. We will draw our profile using lines, but you can also import a dwg file of a profile from an outside source.

  1. First, let’s make sure we are in a worksheet. Select any of the worksheets located at the bottom of the drawing area.
  2. Under the Draw tab, select the Line option, or under the Draw menu, select the Line command. You can also type in L on your keyboard to activate the line command. Left-click in the middle of the drawing area. We are drawing our profile to scale, so we will need to zoom in on our worksheet. Use your zoom and navigate controls or the flywheel on your mouse to zoom in. Move your mouse down, type in 6”, and press Enter.
  3. Move your mouse to the right, type in ½” and press Enter.
  4. Move your mouse up, type in 4”, and press Enter.
  5. Move your mouse to the left, type in 1/8” and press Enter.
  6. Move your mouse up, type in 1 ½” and press Enter.
  7. We now want our line to close at the top, but if we have ORTHO enabled, our cursor will be restricted to 90° movements. We can turn ORTHO off by pressing F8 on the keyboard or by selecting ORTHO in the lower right of the screen. Now, we can move our mouse over and snap to the end of the 6” line.

We have now created the lines that make up the shape of our trim, but we need this to be a polyline.

  1. Select the 6” line we started with, and then select the Join Polyline option under the Modify tab or under the Modify menu.
  2. A message will be displayed stating that the line you selected is not a polyline. Do you wish to make it a polyline? We want this line and the others to be polylines, so we will select Yes.
  3. After selecting Yes, the commander states that we must select the items we want to join, and our cursor displays the selection box icon. Create a box around all the lines and then press Enter. This creates the polyline profile, and you can select it to ensure it is all connected.

We have now created the polyline, but we need to add it to the catalog so we can use it with our members or trim.

  1. Go to File > Catalogs > Export Polyline to Profile Library and select the polyline we just created.
  2. This will open the Profile Properties dialog box, where we can give our profile a unique name so it is easily identifiable. We are going to name this New Baseboard and then select the OK button.
  3. We can now see the new profile in the catalog, and we can select the OK button.

Now that we have created the custom profile, we can use this in our models to create custom member or trim pieces.

  1. Let’s go back to our Model Space by selecting the Model tab in the lower left corner.
  2. We are going to insert a member into our drawing by going to the Members button under the Building tab and then selecting Members or we can go to the Insert menu and select Members and then select Members.
  3. select any member in the catalogue and insert it into the drawing area.
  4. Select the member just inserted, then right-click and select Properties.
  5. In the Member Properties dialog box under the Basic tab, we can see a Type section. Scroll to the end of this section to see a Custom option. Select this, and we will see that we can select a profile using the Select Profile button.
  6. From the Profiles catalog, select the profile that we created under the Import Profiles folder.
  7. Once we select the profile, we are brought back to the Member Properties dialog. Here, we can assign a name and adjust the size of the new trim piece. You will need to unselect the Uniform Scale option to do so. When you are done editing, you can select OK. This adjusts the member in the drawing file for you.

You can also apply this profile to a trim piece in the catalog, which you can then use in all your future drawings.

  1. Go to File > Catalogs > Element Manager.
  2. Under the Trim section, find the trim folder to which you want to add this trim profile. We are going to select the Baseboard folder.
  3. Select a baseboard and then right-click and select Add Element.
  4. In the Trim properties, you can assign the profile and adjust the name and size, as we did above. When you are done editing, you can select OK, which will save the new trim profile to the catalog for future use.