The TSPACEINVADERS Command

Hi everyone,

Today I'm going to talk to you about a command that arguably has the coolest name ever to be given to an AutoCAD® command. The command is so cool in fact, that it didn't want to go through the usual fuss of being a documented command. Therefore it's actually one of those secret (undocumented) commands that Autodesk lets us find for ourselves.

The command is: TSPACEINVADERS

But what could such a bizarrely named command be for?

It is essentially a command for checking your drawing for TEXT and MTEXT entities that have other entities that "invade" the space of the TEXT or MTEXT. This makes it obvious where you might want to apply background masks and the like for your TEXT and MTEXT, so that they become more readable.

It becomes extra useful when we're dealing with a large number of TEXT or MTEXT entities, because this command makes it very easy to make a selection of the relevant entities that need a background mask, which can then all be amended at once.

That's all for today - but as a little side question, what are the commands you use that have the most interesting names?

Will

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Comments

neil jones
2013-01-17 08:01:04

Nice find....

Mark Pettitt
2013-01-17 11:31:52

Will,

is this a LISP command? Doesn't seem to work in plain 2012 for me?

Will
2013-03-18 12:54:43

Hi Mark,

TSPACEINVADERS is a lisp routine in TSCALE.LSP included with Express Tools. So yes it's a LISP command. It should be working, but if not take a look for the TSCALE.LSP - perhaps it's missing ?

Will