Underground Mine Mapping Symbols using Dynamic Blocks and Tool Palette in AutoCAD

The included dynamic blocks were created for use as Underground Mining symbols; they follow in most part, the requirements from the State of West Virginia guidelines. Other symbols may be found at the West Virginia website http://www.wvminesafety.org/minemaps.htm, in the downloadable PDF file and also in the book titled Mine Mapping & Layout, by W. Randolph Williams. Only underground mining map symbols and some SCSR Emergency Plan symbols will be released as part of the Carlson Underground Mining Module, version 2015.  Dynamic Blocks and Tool Palettes only exist in AutoCAD. They are not found in the IntelliCAD engine of Carlson. Future releases of blocks may consist of CO systems, AC and DC Power, and the Tracking system.

All of the blocks may not work for everyone, based on regional requirements. Blocks and Tool Pallets are readily editable so they can adapt to any desired format. Any existing block can be converted into a dynamic block. All blocks should be placed into one drawing, in the AutoCAD layer 0 to establish mapping standards for blocks and layers for all users in a company.

Dynamic Blocks were first introduced in AutoCAD 2006. Their benefit is they can be edited without exploding them. You can even manipulate the block appearance during or after inserting it into a drawing.

Traditional blocks:

Dynamic blocks:


Dynamic blocks are extremely useful in that they can adapt to the current needs of your design. Blocks representing stoppings or any mining symbols are easily made as dynamic blocks. Dynamic blocks can fill the need for multiple blocks. All blocks will be consistent throughout a company.
Tool palettes are used to manage a block library. Tool palettes provide a consistent interface to insert consistent blocks into all drawings. Tool palettes allow the ability to maintain the blocks in one drawing on a network, so every user reading that drawing is updated instantly.  All changes to the blocks should be made in this one drawing.
Carlson provides a standard AutoCAD drawing with several mining dynamic blocks.  The blocks in this drawing are general standards, and do not imply these symbols will comply with your regional and government agencies. But the blocks are easy to edit so they do comply. The user will need to create a new Tool Palette, and then use the Design Center to drag and drop the blocks from this drawing into the new Tool Palette. Details on this procedure are below.
 
This document covers the following topics regarding Dynamic Blocks and Tool Palettes

Creating a Tool Palette

To use the included library of underground mining symbols, the steps to create a Tool Palette containing them are as follows. There are two main methods to create a Tool Palette.
  1. Use the Tool Palette shortcut menu to create a new, empty palette. This is found by right-clicking anywhere on the tool palette itself, and choosing New Palette. Enter a name for it, such as UG Symbols and then add the blocks to it as defined below. The Design Center is the preferred method to add the provided blocks into the new Tool Palette.
  2. Use a DesignCenter shortcut menu to create a Tool Palette tab with predetermined content. The DesignCenter button is found in the AutoCAD Standard toolbar or by typing “_adcenter”. Right Click in a blank area of the DesignCenter and Select “Create Tool Palette of Blocks” or “Create Tool Palette”. Then hold down “Shift” key and Select the blocks to add to the Tool Palette.


Methods for Adding Tools to the New or Existing Tool Palette.Tools can be added to a new or existing Tool Palette using several methods.

Here is what the new Tool Palette should look like after the Dynamic Blocks are imported.
 

Customizing the Tool Palette

Once a Tool Palette is created, it can be modified and customized by the following methods.
Details of the Tool Properties dialog are listed below.
   



If the Dynamic Blocks are modified in the protected source drawing, such as scale, color or linetype, this revision will change every other drawing that has used it.  It may be necessary to do the following to force the change. First, On the Tool Palette Select the tool or Dynamic Block and right-click and Select “Redefine”. If these changes are going to be pushed out to all the users then it is necessary to export the Tool Palette and the users will need to re-import the Tool Palette with the changes. That steps to do this are shown below.



Here is an image of the source drawing provided by Carlson showing some of the available Dynamic Blocks. User's are allowed to add to it with additional custom Dynamic Blocks, and then include them on the Tool Palette.

Dynamic Block Editing

The AutoCAD ribbon for Blocks is shown here. It appears after picking or selecting a Dynamic Block that is inserted into the dwg, or in the source drawing. To insert a Dynamic Block, turn on the Tool Palettes and just drag and drop a symbol in the drawing. The Authoring Palettes, Parameters and Actions tabs are the functions being used in the Underground Symbols library of blocks.



The Parameter Sets and the Constraints, are not covered in this document. For example, the Constraints tab could be used for the Aligned method to place a door or window in an architectual drawing with rules of placing a window in the center of the wall, and the door placed 6 inches from a perpendicular wall.

Parameters and Action work together to provide the editing capability of Dynamic Blocks. Regular blocks could only have a “Basepoint” parameter. The matrix is a quick reference to determine the appropriate action for each parameter.
Once the Dynamic Block is inserted, pick on it to activate the blue grips. They allow for the editing and orientation of the block. Picking the down arrow for Visibility1 brings up a list of other blocks and appearances.
Here is an example showing ventilation arrows as Dynamic Blocks:

When drawing ventilation arrows, some MSHA districts will not use Neutral Air. They require it to be Belt Air.  Some would recommend that the color of the arrows match the reflector underground, or some may require that the double arrow represents the Intake Air instead of the Return Air.  Dynamic Blocks allow for editing of colors and arrow heads so they comply.


Dynamic Block Creation and Editing
To see the editing features, select the inserted Dynamic Block to show the blue grips and icons. To see the image shown here, right click on a Dynamic Block in the tool palette, and select Block Editor.

  1. Visibilty1:

Picking on the Visibility1 downward \/ will bring up the list of visibilities, or types of arrows in this case. This one block can be used for any of the above visibility states in the drawing.
 
2. Flip state1: Flips the direction of the symbol 180 degrees.
3.X and Y Distance1: Scales and sizes the symbol.
4.Angle1: Rotates the symbol.

All of the above actions are done with the mouse control. As more “Actions” icons are added to the block, they can be moved to any position around the symbol. Other editing icons are for Rotate, Scale and Flip.