The Art of the Span: Crow’s Feet

A question came up on the discussion group about how to tack a marker at the start and end of a spanning label.

Click more to find out how…

To properly compose this label, create a direction arrow that spans the outside segment (visibilty true or false depending on your fancy) and then use the direction arrow start and end points as the attachment points for your Bearing, Distance and Circle Ticks (or block of your choice)

It is helpful to make a child style of your default spanning label that swaps the attachments of your bearing and distance.  In my case, my lot lines need to be labeled clockwise.  So I need to encounter Bearing first THEN distance.  Depending on my segment default direction, I might wind up backwards.  Instead of reversing the direction of the segment, I can choose my child style that has the attachement points swapped.

If you have this problem where your spanning label reads the right distance, but it doesn’t want to start the direction arrow at the span start you need to add a small Y offset to the direction arrow. (Like the curve labels, it is having an identity crisis on which side of the split face vertices it falls on)

(**special thanks to MMccall on the DG for opening my eyes to this)

If all else fails, keep child styles in your template that you can use as Label Type: Single Segment.

There is a lot more here of course…. more to come.

Comments are closed.