Redraw and Regenerate Drawings in BricsCAD

Quick answer: Your screen display is really just a simplified version of the underlying drawing database, and the two occasionally need to be brought back in sync. REDRAW just repaints the screen. REGEN actually resynchronizes the display with the database, a real, if easy to overlook, distinction.

Why These Commands Exist

What you see on screen isn’t the drawing database itself, it’s a simplified representation of it. From time to time, that display and the actual database drift out of sync, and need to be reconciled.

Redraw vs Regenerate: The Real Difference

REDRAW simply repaints the screen to clean it up, without attempting to synchronize the display with the drawing database at all. REGEN does the real work: it regenerates the display so it actually matches the database again. It’s easy to treat the two as interchangeable “refresh” commands, but they aren’t, REDRAW is cosmetic, REGEN is a genuine resync.

The Five Related Commands

Automatic Regeneration

REGENMODE controls whether BricsCAD regenerates automatically, and you change its value using the REGENAUTO command. With REGENMODE on, BricsCAD handles regeneration automatically most of the time, but a small number of cases can still require you to force a regeneration manually.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is REDRAW just a faster version of REGEN? Not really, they do different things. REDRAW only repaints the screen; REGEN actually resynchronizes the display with the drawing database. REGEN tends to be slower precisely because it’s doing more.

How do I turn automatic regeneration on or off? Run REGENAUTO, which changes the REGENMODE system variable.

If REGENMODE is on, will I ever need to regenerate manually? Occasionally, yes. Automatic regeneration handles most situations, but a few cases still call for running REGEN or REGENALL yourself.

What’s the difference between REGEN and REGENALL? REGEN only regenerates the current viewport. REGENALL regenerates every open viewport at once.