Plate from Pline

PlateFromPline allows you to define surface or knife plates by selecting a polyline. Designed to work in conjunction with the AutoPlates routine, PlateFromPline can also be linked to MidBolts & EndBolts. Currently, the Pline must be drawn on the correct surface of the beam to create plates at the correct location--this will be addressed in a future release. The routine stays dynamically linked to the Pline, as you grip edit or Pedit the polyline the plates will update to match.

Insertion

First create a polyline of the desired shape. The polyline must be drawn on the face of the beams and be in the correct position, although you can edit it later.
Call the routine, select a beam, then the polyline.
The plates are created as surface plates, with a default thickness of 3/8".
Adjust parameters in the OPM for thickness, drill tolerance, knife or surface.
Link the plates to bolts and vice-versa with Rt-click > Custom > Link bolts to plates.

Mods

You can alter insertion defaults, as with most scripts. PlateFromPline also changes the color of the defining Pline for visibility, if the red doesn't work well for your setup you can change the color--this only occurs on insertion and will not change color in scripts already existing in your drawing.

Any polyline can be used to create plates, currently the Pline must be drawn on the face of the beams. In this screenshot the darker plates are AutoPlates, while the green ones are created with the PlateFromPliine script.

Line 42 inside the insertion section sets the color of the polyline. This is a standard AutoCAD color from 1 to 256, it's only significance is to make the polyline more visible to the user.

The property stType can only have values listed in the definition of stArType[] in the line above, alter the order of the list or add a fourth parameter to the definition of stType to change the default plate type. Plate Thickness and drill tolerance are set to 3/8" and 1/16" respectively, change these numbers to the most common figures for your office.

Caveats

PlateFromPline currently requires that the defining polyline is drawn on the appropriate face of the connected beams, the plates are located on the polyline not on the beam. If you accidentally create plates with the polyline in an inappropriate location, simply move it with standard AutoCAD commands.
The plates will drill holes to accommodate MidBolts or EndBolts, but the scripts must be linked with the context menu commands.
The defining polyline must be maintained in the drawing, erasing it will cause the script to fail.