Drawing Objects and Annotation
Geometry objects
LINE creates independent segments; PLINE creates one object that can mix straight and arc segments and carry width, which matters when a schedule counts objects or when the result must be offset. JOIN rebuilds polylines from touching lines and arcs. BOUNDARY and REGION produce closed areas suitable for hatching or mass properties, and HATCH with associativity on (HPASSOC = 1) updates when its boundary is edited. Spline-fit polylines look smooth but bloat files and behave badly under OFFSET; use SPLINE or true arcs instead.
Annotation
TEXT creates single-line text and takes one style per object; MTEXT creates paragraph text with a defined width, columns, background mask and inline fields. A text style with height 0 prompts for height at creation and preserves annotative flexibility; a fixed height locks every new object to that size. Multileaders bundle arrow, landing line and text and stay attached when moved. Fields (date, sheet number, drawing property) refresh on REGEN, save and plot.
Worked example
A plaza hatch must leave the tree canopy unhatched. Start HATCH, pick an internal point inside the paving, and let island detection find the closed canopy boundary; the result is a hole in the hatch. If paving should run under the canopy instead, choose Ignore islands, then use DRAWORDER to bring the tree to the front.
Traps
A fixed text height preventing per-object sizing; MTEXT width left at 0 so the paragraph never wraps; hatching before the boundary is truly closed and then losing associativity; exploding polylines and losing width or arc continuity.