Rotation of autocad block with an attribute value.

Question

If I understand it correctly, when blocks are used for the symbology of (point) feature layers, the rotation of the block will be adjusted according to a value in ab attribute called "ROTATION" or  "ANGLE"

Unfortunately, we have stored the rotation value of a symbol in a field called "SYMBOLROTATION". Is there a way to use the values in this attribute to rotate the Autocad blocks?

Marc_Graham · Answer

https://github.com/Esri/ArcGIS-for-AutoCAD-API-Samples/tree/main

BasWest · Answer

Thank you @DanWade. This will definitely be helpfull 🙂

DanWade · Answer

Hello @BasWest1,

While ArcGIS for AutoCAD does not actually support user defined attribute fields as rotation angle fields this is where AutoLISP is a powerful tool alongside ArcGIS for AutoCAD. Using the available AFA API users can write their own LISP method in this case to rotate blocks using attribute values not baked into the software.

For those not well versed with AutoLISP the next version of ArcGIS for AutoCAD will be releasing a number of sample LISP methods. While one of these samples is just what you are asking for – to rotate blocks based on a user defined Attribute Value. These samples will be available on GitHub when 435 is released sometime in January 2025.

I am not quite sure the rotation angle sample is going to make it in this upcoming release so I am attaching the sample discussing how you might go about doing it in AutoLISP.

RotateBlocks.zip