Lurking in the Shadows
Our next tip is not a difficult programming trick but instead a simple yet powerful utility. Shadow Fade (Tip #2019) from Roy Lackey makes copies of objects along a given direction as if they were attached to a cylindrical object, such as this simple shaft representation (figure 3).

To create this drawing, all I did was draw a series of rectangles, then add lines from the midpoint of one base to the midpoint of the next. The next step was to run the macro. Load the FADE.LSP file to access the FADE function from the Command line. Type FADE, then select one of the centerlines. Indicate the start and stop as being from the base of the centerline to the base of one edge, then input the number of copies to make. I used 35 copies to achieve a nice-looking 3D effect. Nice and useful, Roy.