Category: <span>AutoCAD</span>

Category: AutoCAD

AutoCAD, Grammar

Grammar and AutoCAD

 , , , itemprop="discussionURL"0

I have a lot of posts about AutoCAD and a few about grammar, but I expect this will be the only post I ever make that combines the subjects. Autodesk founder John Walker, a very prominent figure in AutoCAD’s history, has written an article about the correct use of the apostrophe. While I enjoyed it, I think it’s too insulting to be useful. People struggling with the correct use of the apostrophe are unlikely to get past the part where they are called morons, to read the useful advice below. If you just want simple apostrophe advice without being belittled, …

AutoCAD, Tip

AutoCAD tip – more on the Oops command

 , , , , itemprop="discussionURL"2

In a comment on my Five More Simple Tips for AutoCAD post, Jeremy had some questions about the Oops command. I thought I would explain the command in more detail in another post so more people will see it. The first thing to understand is that Oops varies from Undo/U in that it only reverses those commands that erase objects. The Erase command is obvious, and the same applies to pre-selecting objects and hitting the Delete key, but the Block and Wblock commands can also erase the objects that go to make up the block. In such cases Oops can …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Polls

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 15 – Background

 , itemprop="discussionURL"2

You may have noticed that the default AutoCAD background is an off-white shade. In a comment, Tim asked if this is the same as the Block Editor background. No, not quite. This image shows the different backgrounds and some linework, with black as a comparison: Paper space is pure white (Red, Green, Blue is 255,255,255), Model space is very pale cream (254,252,240) and the Block Editor is a slightly darker cream (255,252,229). In common with most people in my experience (and most people who need to use drawings with yellow linework), my backgrounds are all going to be 0,0,0 (black). …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2000, Polls

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 14 – What do you think?

 , , , itemprop="discussionURL"4

I’m interested in people’s perceptions of the forthcoming AutoCAD release. Based on what you’ve seen so far, how good a release do you think it will be? Please speculate using the poll on the right. If you feel the poll doesn’t give you the opportunity to adequately express yourself, feel free to add a comment here. I intend to follow this up in a few months with a similar poll when people have had a chance to use the shipping product. It’s not scientific, but it will be interesting to see if actually using the product changes people’s opinions.

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Performance

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 13 – ViewCube

 , , , itemprop="discussionURL"1

For many 3D users of AutoCAD, the ViewCube is likely to be the most useful new thing in AutoCAD 2009. There are a couple of problems with it, at least in the Release Candidate: It does not work in 2D wireframe mode (which is, paradoxically, where 90% of my 3D work is done). You need to choose another visual style before it will appear. It seems to slow things down quite a lot in complex drawings. That said, if you have more than enough computing power for the drawings you usually deal with, then this is a very, very nice …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Tip

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 12 – Controlling Screen Elements

 , , itemprop="discussionURL"3

How do you turn the new screen elements on and off using the keyboard? How about the not-so-new ones? See this table: Element On Off Toggle Advanced Render Settings RPPREF RPPREFCLOSE   Clean Screen CLEANSCREENON CLEANSCREENOFF Ctrl+0 Command line COMMANDLINE COMMANDLINEHIDE Ctrl+9 dbConnect DBCONNECT DBCCLOSE Ctrl+6 DesignCenter ADCENTER ADCCLOSE Ctrl+2 Layer palette LAYER LAYERCLOSE   Lights LIGHTLIST LIGHTLISTCLOSE   Markup Set Manager MARKUP MARKUPCLOSE Ctrl+7 Materials MATERIALS MATERIALSCLOSE   Menu bar MENUBAR 1 MENUBAR 0   NavCube NAVCUBEDISPLAY 1 NAVCUBEDISPLAY 0   Properties palette PROPERTIES PROPERTIESCLOSE Ctrl+1 Quick calc QUICKCALC QCCLOSE Ctrl+8 Ribbon RIBBON RIBBONCLOSE   Rollover tool tips ROLLOVERTIPS …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 11 – Docked Vertical Ribbon

 , itemprop="discussionURL"2

This video shows how the AutoCAD 2009 vertical Ribbon behaves when it is docked on one side. The labels explain what is going on. The main thing that used to drive me batty with the Dashboard was the way in which expanding one panel would contract another. The vertical Ribbon doesn’t do that, it leaves panels how you left them, which I much prefer. Something else you may have noticed is that when there is no docked horizontal Ribbon, the red A in the corner shrinks. I’ll describe what’s lurking beneath that A in future posts.

AutoCAD, Tip

Five More Simple Tips for AutoCAD

 , itemprop="discussionURL"7

More simple AutoCAD tips, as promised: If you erase some objects, draw a few things and then want your erased objects back without losing the things you drew in the meantime, enter OOPS rather than undoing the commands. At any Select objects: prompt, you can select using a triangle, non-orthogonal rectangle or other odd shapes, by entering the WPolygon (WP) or CPolygon (CP) options. If you have a paper space viewport entirely inside another one, it can be hard to make that viewport current just by picking in it. Try Ctrl+R to cycle through viewports instead. Move some objects, rotate …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 10 – Dude, where’s my Dashboard?

 , , , itemprop="discussionURL"2

Dude, Dashboard’s dead. Defunct. Done. AutoCAD 2009 replaced the Dashboard with the Ribbon. If you type in the DASHBOARD or DASHBOARDCLOSE commands, they are just converted to the RIBBON and RIBBONCLOSE commands, which turn the Ribbon on and off. If you’re a fan of the Dashboard (and I never was), there is good and bad news. The good news is that you can right-click on various parts of the Ribbon, pick Undock and you get a Dashboard-like floating vertical Ribbon that can be resized and configured very easily in terms of turning panels on and off. You can’t do that …

Announcement, AutoCAD, Tip

Five Simple Tips for AutoCAD

 , , itemprop="discussionURL"0

As my forced change to a different blog theme (thanks IE7) has meant the demise of my random AutoCAD tip feature, you may as well have the tips in a blog post instead. Here are the first five. These are fairly simple tips that apply to all recent releases. You probably know most of them, but just in case… If you need to draw circles, slots or rectangles around multiple text objects, use the Express Tools command TCIRCLE (Express > Text > Enclose Text with Object). When using the TRIM or EXTEND command, you don’t have to select any edges. …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 9 – Docked Toolbars

 , itemprop="discussionURL"1

If AutoCAD 2009’s floating toolbars are the best ever, what about when they’re docked? As a starting point, here is AutoCAD 2008 with the Express Tools toolbars docked. Here is the same thing in AutoCAD 2009. So a few pixels have been shaved off in one direction and added in another. The end result is that they use about 99% of the space used in 2008. Not too bad, but I think it could be better. Here’s my suggestion: That uses about 80% of the space. In addition to shaving off a few more pixels, I think this looks a …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Performance

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 8 – Vista Startup Times

 , , itemprop="discussionURL"9

I’ve now tested startup times of various AutoCAD releases under Vista. Here are the results, alongside the XP results for ease of comparison: Release First Startup Subsequent Startup XP Vista XP Vista 12 8.6 – 8.2 – 13 2.6 1.8 1.3 0.8 14 2.1 – 0.5 – 2002 3.2 2.1 0.6 1.1 2004 – 4.3 – 1.7 2005 – 7.9 – 4.5 2006 14.9 8.7 2.6 4.4 2007 13.8 11.9 3.5 6.6 2008 14.6 10.5 3.6 6.0 2009 28.9 17.3 7.2 13.3 Same caveats as before, plus the following: Some AutoCAD releases were not installed on both XP and Vista …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Performance

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 7 – Subsequent Startup Time

 , itemprop="discussionURL"1

This table shows both the initial and subsequent startup times for various releases. Most of the qualifications and caveats from my AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 6 – Initial Startup Time post still apply here. Release First Startup Subsequent Startup 12 8.6 8.2 13 2.6 1.3 14 2.1 0.5 2002 3.2 0.6 2006 14.9 2.6 2007 13.8 3.5 2008 14.6 3.6 2009 28.9 7.2 AutoCAD 2009’s subsequent startups are much less slow than its agonising first startup, as to be expected. Windows XP is doing that by caching and reusing recently used parts of memory. Release 12’s old code, …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Performance

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 6 – First Startup Time

 , itemprop="discussionURL"4

One thing you’ll notice (and dislike) right away with AutoCAD 2009 is that it takes a lot longer to get started. How much longer? About twice as long as recent releases, or about ten times longer than ancient speed demon Release 13. (I bet a 1994 AutoCAD user transported forward in time would be shocked to hear that description being used). Here’s a video that shows what the first startup looks like in a collection of releases from Release 12 to 2009: Now for the qualifications and caveats: Tests performed on a Core2Duo E6600 PC with 4 GB RAM, under …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 5 – Floating Toolbars

 , itemprop="discussionURL"4

There are many areas of AutoCAD 2009’s new user interface that pointlessly waste your screen space. Floating toolbars do not. You have probably already noticed that AutoCAD 2009 concentrates on the Ribbon as its primary screen-based user interface, with the default state lacking any toolbars at all. So it’s somewhat ironic that AutoCAD 2009 sports what are easily the best floating toolbars in the history of the product. Ironic but very welcome. Why are they better? Because they’re smaller. Let’s compare the number of pixels taken up by a typical small group of floating toolbars in different AutoCAD releases. These …

AU2006, AutoCAD, Autodesk University, Fun, Navel Gazing, Other Blogs, Pictures

Thanks for the welcome

 , , , , , , itemprop="discussionURL"0

A belated thank you to Kiwi Robin Capper for his welcome to the CAD blog world. Here’s a snap I took of Robin at Autodesk University 2006: Similarly, thanks to Lynn Allen for linking to my post about her famous Cell Phone Story. Here she is, also at AU 2006, presenting me with a signed copy of her excellent book AutoCAD: Professional Tips and Techniques which I won by skillfully (ahem) waving my arms furiously at the right moment during her presentation. Finally, thanks to Shaan Hurley for welcoming me to the blog fold. Here is one of the more …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2000, Fun, Linux, Video

AutoCAD on Linux – Video

 , , itemprop="discussionURL"11

Lots of people get excited at the prospect of AutoCAD running under Linux. I’m not one of those people, but for those of you that are, here’s a video from a Linux enthusiast that shows AutoCAD running in an environment that’s doing all kinds of cool geeky stuff. It’s not mine and it’s from October 2006: YouTube Link Cool if you like that kind of thing, that is. I think the effects would drive me mad after a short period of dorkoid enthusiasm, but of course being Linux it would all be under complete user control. Before you get too …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009

AutoCAD 2009 – The Prequel Part 4 – More on the Status Bar and Layouts

 , itemprop="discussionURL"2

Here are a couple more tricks AutoCAD 2009 has up its Status Bar sleeve, this time to do with layouts. You may love the new Quick View Layouts feature or you may find it too slow. You may wish to use it sometimes and at other times use the traditional layout tabs. How do you quickly switch from one to the other? Right click, as shown in this animation. The left clicks are red, the right clicks are blue. As you can see, when the layout tabs are visible, the model space button and most recent layout button are replaced …

AU2006, AutoCAD, Autodesk University, Fun, Music, Video

Shaan Hurley gets blue

 , , , , itemprop="discussionURL"0

Part of an excellent show put on by Autodesk at the end of Autodesk University 2006 was The Blue Man Group. I was so impressed by the show that I later bought a DVD and CD. The men in blue had a special guest… YouTube Link Artist site: Blue Man Group

AutoCAD, Tip

AutoCAD tip – persuade Open to highlight your drawing

 , , , , , , itemprop="discussionURL"1

In AutoCAD, when you have a drawing open and you go to open another, does Open automatically scroll down and highlight your current drawing? This can be very handy when you’re working your way though a set of drawings. If this isn’t happening for you, here’s how to make it do so. In Explorer, go to Tools > Folder Options > View tab and turn off the toggle for Hide extensions for known file types. (Windows XP shown). This is the first thing many people do when setting up a new Windows system. If you fit into this category, you …