How to Explode Entities in BricsCAD

Quick answer: EXPLODE converts complex entities, blocks, polylines, solids, or dimensions, into their component parts. A polyline or dimension reduces to individual lines and arcs, a block converts into its individual entities (possibly including other nested blocks it was composed of), and MText reduces to single-line text entities.

What Happens to Different Entity Types When Exploded

Exploding generally has no visible effect, with three exceptions:

• If the original polyline had a width, that width is lost, the resulting lines and arcs instead follow the original polyline’s centreline.
• Exploding a block containing attributes loses those attribute values, though the original attribute definitions remain, confirming the same behaviour covered on this hub’s block exploding page.
• Colors and linetypes assigned ByBlock may look different afterward, since they adopt the default color and linetype instead.

Exploding Text Specifically

TXTEXP (an Express Tools command) explodes text entities into polylines, the same command covered on this hub’s text exploding page. From there, use JOIN to combine the pieces into a single polyline per letter. Some letters, like a, e, or p, need a second polyline for their “hole.”

Exploding Entities

Either launch EXPLODE, select the entities, and press Enter, or select the entities first and choose Explode from the Modify command group in the Quad.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does exploding a block lose its attribute values? Yes, though the original attribute definitions remain intact, only the specific values on that instance are lost.

Why does my exploded polyline look thinner than the original? Its width information is lost during exploding; the resulting lines and arcs follow the original centreline instead.

How do I turn exploded text back into clean, joinable shapes? Use JOIN on the resulting polylines to combine each letter into one shape, keeping in mind that letters with a hole (like a, e, or p) need a second polyline for that hole specifically.

Why do colors or linetypes look different after exploding an entity? Any ByBlock colors or linetypes adopt the default color and linetype instead once exploded.