CAD and Stuff

TAB button

2011-09-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a real quick tip.

Have you ever needed a command that you used a few months back and you don't remember the exact key-in, but you might remember at least the first few letter?

What you can do is start to type the command at the command line and then hit the TAB key. The command line will scroll through all the command that start with those first letters you started with.

For example, lets say you wanted the the command to un-isolate layers after doing a layer isolate. You remember it starts with LAYU. Type LAYU at the command line and then hit the TAB key. It will scroll through all the commands that start with LAYU.

If you are bored you can can type one letter and scroll through all the commands that start with that letter.

I should correct myself and say that this doesnt jsut scroll through commands, but System Variables. Stuff that you don't use that much.

I almost always forgot the system variable to bring up the point style dialog box, but I know it starts with DDP. So I type DDP and hit the TAB a few times and then I see DDPTYPE and BAM, up pops up the point style dialog box.

For those of you using AutoCAD 2012, you will see a list of commands popping up while you type. But for all us using 2011 and before you can take advantage of the TAB key.

AutoCAD Quick Tip #1

2011-08-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, It has been almost a year since I posted and I am going to try to at least make 1 post a week. To make sure I am going to keep this up I am going to post really simple quick tips.

The first one I will be giving you is Clean Screen.

Basically, if you aren't lucky enough to have a big 23"+ screen you will be hoping for more screen real estate. You probably have already set up your workspace the way you like. If you are a more advanced user you might have already set up different workspaces for different types or tasks (a topic I will cover in the future)

but,

If you just need more room to do something quick just do this.... "Ctrl+0" (control key+ the zero key). This will get rid of the ribbon and toolbars and open up your screen. When you want your ribbon and toolbars back just do "Ctrl+0" again and BAM they are back. If you are command line person the keyins are CLEANSCREENON and CLEANSCREENOFF.

added tip, if you want to get rid of your command line just do "Ctrl+9". This toggles the command line on/off. Some people have even made the move to turn off the command line and just use dynamic input.

I should probably not mention this, but these tips could also be fun jokes to play on people who don't know about

Image Frames and PDF Frames

2010-10-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Some of you already know about the IMAGEFRAME variable. Basically this is the system variable that controls how the frame of a referenced image acts.

Set to 0 (zero) The image frames are not visible and they are not plotted
Set to 1 The image frames are displayed and plotted
Set to 2 The image frames are displayed but not plotted

Well, with the ability to now reference PDFs into drawings there is a new variable that does the same thing for PDFs. The variable is PDFFRAME

Set to 0 (zero) The PDF underlay frame is not visible and it is not plotted

Set to 1 Displays the PDF underlay frame and allows it to be plotted

Set to 2 Displays the PDF underlay frame but keeps it from being plotted

OSNAPZ = 1

2010-09-21T14:55:00.000-07:00

This happens a lot when dealing with aerial topo. You want to measure the distance between an existing curb line to a centerline or another known object. You use the distance command to measure and snap to the existing curb line and you expect a distance around 40' and you end up getting 568.94'. What happens is the topo element has a Z value that. So the distance that is being calculated is that actual 3 dimensional distance and not the horizontal distance you want. There is a way around this.... OSNAPZ

OSNAPZ controls weather objects snaops are automatically projected onto the plane parallel to the XY plane of the currect UCS at the current elevation..... HUH?

Basically, since we do not work on 3D mechanical or architectural files that have constantly changing UCS's, this variable sets the Z value to your current UCS Z value which is zero.

So when you set your OSNAPZ to 1 you will get XY distances, not XYZ (3D) distances.

3 ways to save a file...

2010-08-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

I am not sure if everyone knows this but there are three ways to save a file you are working on. I will start off with the one you are most familiar with.

Quick Save
This is the most common one. The one you do when either hitting the save icon at the top of your screen or doing a "Ctrl+S". This basically just saves the file you are working on while you keep working on it. Pretty simple.

Save As
This is useful option when copying a file. It takes the file you are in and saves it as a completely different file without modifying the original and makes this new copy the active drawing. You can perform this with a "Ctrl+Shift+S". This is also a way to save down to an older version of AutoCAD.

Save
This is an underused command. I find it perfect for making backups or archiving files. What this command does is take the file you are working in and saves a copy as a completely new file, just like Save As. What makes this different than Save As is that you are not active in this new file, you are still in the original file. I find it perfect when working on major design changes and you want to save different iterations of your design. By using the SAVE command you can "backup" before making any major changes. Try it out!

Take Ctrl

2010-08-16T13:02:00.000-07:00

There are a bunch of quick things you can do with the control (Ctrl) key in AutoCAD. I will quickly go through them....

Ctrl+C - Copy to Clipboard
Ctrl+X - Cut to clipboard
Crtl+V - Paste from Clipboard
Crtl+R - toggle between viewports
If you have two or more viewportss in paperspace you can switch between active viewports with Ctrl+R

Ctrl+P - Plot
Ctrl+O - open
Ctrl+N - new drawing
Ctrl+S - Quick Save
Ctrl+Shift+S - Save As
Ctrl+Q - Quit
Ctrl+A - Select All
Ctrl+F - Toggle OSnap on/off
Ctrl+G - toggle grid on/off
Ctrl+L - Toggle Ortho on/off
Crtl+Tab - toggle between open drawings
Ctrl+1 - Toggle on/off properties palette
Ctrl+2 - Toggle on/off design center palette
Ctrl+3 - Toggle on/off tool palette
Ctrl+4 - Toggle on/off Sheet Set Manger
Crtl+9 - toggle command line on/off
Ctrl+0 - Toggle on/off clean screen

Where did my dialog box go?

2010-07-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

This used to happen a lot more in Land Desktop but I am sure it has happened to everyone at least once. You go to open a file and the open dialog box is no where to be found. After some searching around you noticed that the command line is asking you to type in the entire path of the file you want to open, like this...

Usually this will happen right after a crash now a days but back in the LDT days it would happen mostly when you would hit the esc key before finishing a command.

Instead of going into a long blog about why this happens I will just tell you how to fix it...

Type "FILEDIA" at the command line and set the value from 0 to 1...

Voilà!

Upgrading to 2011...

2010-07-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here is the video from the lunchtime workshop we had in Anaheim on the AutoCAD 2011 upgrade. Hopefully it works ok, the video file is unedited and is over an hour long.

AutoCAD 2011 Workshop (7-7-10) from Randy Shadowen on Vimeo.

Missing plot styles...

2009-12-18T09:42:00.001-08:00

I am sure this has happened to you a time or two. You go to plot a file, usually one you got from another office or agency and when you go to pick a plot style you see no plot styles or maybe just e a few plot styles. This could mean a few thing. If no plot styles show up at all then it is probably a lost network connection and the file is fine. If you you see a few plot styles that don't look familiar, take a closer look. If you see the plot styles end in .stb instead of .ctb it means the file you are in is set up to use plot styles.

I won't get too much into the details about these settings, but to convert or "FIX" just type

CONVERTPSTYLES

This converts the file from a style dependant plot file to a color dependent file. Here is some info from the AutoCAD help file (do a search for CONVERTPSTYLES)

"CONVERTPSTYLES converts a currently open drawing from color-dependent plot styles to named plot styles, or from named plot styles to color-dependent plot styles, depending on which plot style method the drawing is currently using."

I hope this post helps you guys

I have let this blog slide a little, but here are a couple quick tips

2009-07-16T13:51:00.000-07:00

The first little tip I wanted to let you guys know about is a tool that I recently found reading though another CAD blog. It is the SETBYLAYER command. I have no idea how long this has been around but man do I wish I had this 8 years ago.

What SETBYLAYER does is takes objects and blocks and set all its properties to By Layer. This tool shouldn't get a lot of use but every so often you find a block that has the color set to a specific color and you can't change the color for the life of you unless you the blocks. With this command you just type SETBYAYER, select the block(s) and hit enter a few times and BAM... done. It is very helful on files that were converted from Microstation that have cells that were converted to blocks.

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Next command i wanted to share is TEXTTOFRONT. It isnt to hard to figure out what this command does. It brings all the text to the top of the draw order... BAM!

Hatch Pattern Too Dense... WHAT?

2009-03-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to hatch something and got the "Hatch Pattern Too Dense" error and wonder what the heck? Basically, there is a setting in AutoCAD that controls max number of elements a hatch can create. The default value is set to 10,000. To make sure you don't get this error again copy and past the following into your AutoCAD command line....

(setenv "MaxHatch" "100000000")

This is a LISP command and it is case sensitive, so if you are typing it make sure you type it exactly as it appears above.

Where is my dialog?

2009-03-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

What is FILEDIA? Well, it is a system variable that controls weather or not commands bring up the dialog box. I am sure this has happened to a few of you guys and gals. You click the open or save button and the dialog box doesn't open but instead it asks you to type in the file name... WITH THE WHOLE PATH!!! WHAT!!!! I know a few of you who couldn't fix it ended up typing out the entire part.

First, to fix this all you have to do (usually) is type FILEDIA and set it to 1. Now everything should be set back to the way they should be. Another variable that might control this is CMDDIA. This should be set to one also, unless you like typing everything out.

I used to deal with this happening a lot with Land Desktop, usually when trying to set an alignment current. What happens is a lisp routine that switches the FILEDIA to 0 got interrupted and FILEDIA never got set back to 1. This happens when you start a command and then half way through you hit the Esq key to get out, usually about 20 times because you realized that you could mess things up.

If this post helps one person out I will feel as though it was success.

Hatch Origin

2009-03-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

I am sure this has happened to everyone. You go to do a concrete hatch (AR-CONC) of an area and the hatch looks like this....

Now, this doesn't quite look the way you expected it to. The concrete pattern doesn't have the closed triangles. To test it out you go to another drawing and you get a correct hatch...

Now why does this happen? If you want me to bore you with why this happens go ahead and e-mail me and I will try my best to explain it, but basically it has to do with the base point of the hatch pattern. This is the origin of the pattern. The farther away from the origin of your drawing (0,0) the more likely your hatch will come out a little out of whack. Usually this happens when you are working on something that is based on GIS coordnates and your X:Y is 6,000,000:6,000,000 and the hatch origin is at 0:0

Before AutoCAD 2005 there were some lisp routines to fix this or you could type SNAPBASE and pick a new base point. Now (since 2006+) it is built into the hatch command (and the hatch edit command). In the lower left corner you will now see the hatch Origin options...

For the best results I recommend checking the box "Default to boundaey extents" box. Doing this will pretty much give you consistent results.

Well, good luck!

CAD usergroup AFTERMATH!!!!

2009-02-26T08:06:00.000-08:00

We had a good user group meeting yesterday. I think it went really well and it could have gone on for another hour easy.

Lineweights
The first thing we touched on was AutoCAD lineweights for the Willdan CAD Standard. With the new standards being developed we want to use object/layer lineweights to control plotted line thickness instead of the using color to determine plotted lightweights. Also, we want the ability to plot full or half scale using the same pen table.

AutoCAD comes with 24 lineweights but with a 400 DPI plotter like the Xerox 510 there are about 11 of the different plotted lineweights. For example, a lineweight of 0.13mm plots exactly the same as a 0.20mm line. With a 600 DPI plotter there are a few more but it is basically the same. I have gone though these lineweights and found six lineweights that can represent all our plotting needs and have the ability to be scale in half to create legable half scale plots.

0.18mm will be a zero weight line, the reason we dont use a smaller lineweight is that when plotted half scale

0.35mm is similar to a weight 1 one in Microstation and will be used for text and call outs.

0.50mm and 0.70mm will be used for proposed linework. For now these two are interchangeable. They do plot different but the 0.70mm lineweight plots better on half scale plots, but both are acceptable. The standard template use the 0.70mm lineweight.

The final 3 lineweights (1.00mm, 1.40mm, and 2.00mm) are there for any other need for thinker linework. Do not vary from these lineweights because half scale results may not result in an acceptable plot.

These changes have been incorporated into the CAD standard document that can be downloaded here "Willdan CAD Standards rev 0.3". Refer to page 21-23 for lineweights.

Drawing Template and import of Layers
I have updated the AutoCAD templates on the Anaheim server. If you are not in the Anaheim office and want to use these templates you can get them on
(\\soc-dc1\config\ACAD CONFIG\Templates)
or
e-mail me and I can send them to you.

I have also created another way to bring in layers into a drawing using the Tool palette

These Tool palette commands will import the layers, color, linetype, lineweight, and descriptions with basically a push of a button. These tools need a little more work and only work in the Anaheim office, for now. I also need to study up a little more on AutoLISP to get them to work perfect, but for now if you are in the Anaheim office and need to bring in the annotation layers you now have a tool. Some setup in your options need to be set but it is easy.

System Variables for Linetypes
With the new annotative scale (AutoCAD 2008+) there is a new system variable that tells linetypes in model space to use the annotative scale to adjust the appearance of linetypes.

MSLTSCALE (system variable)
This variable scales linetypes displayed in model space by the annotation scale
0 - Linetypes displayed in model space are not scaled by the annotation scale
1 - Linetypes displayed in model space are scaled by the annotation scale

The preferred method to get linetypes to display properly is to set all the following variables to "1"
MSLTSCALE - scales linetypes displayed in model space by the annotation scale
LTSCALE - sets the global linetype scale factor
PSLTSCALE - controls linetype scaling of objects in paperspace viewports

This works for linetypes that need to adjust when different scales are used but do not work with linetypes that need to stay the same size at all scales, like lane lines.

Related links
Willdan CAD Standards revision 0.3
Layer Name Format
Layer Codes (based on National CAD Standard)

CAD Usergroup meeting Feb 25th

2009-02-18T16:06:00.001-08:00

It has been a while since we have done our CAD user group meetings and it is time to get them going again. The next one will take place Wednesday February 25th. If you didn't get an invite and want to come feel free to e-mail me at rshadowen@willdan.com and I will add you to the list. I need everyone to RSVP by Tuesday

Here is an agenda. I hope we CAD hit everything...

Discuss CAD standards

I have made some updates to the CAD Standards manual I have been working on. the main upgrades have to do with lineweights. For the most up to date PDF of the CAD manual, copy and paste the following link into explorer.

\\soc-dc1\config\Willdan CAD Standards\Willdan Anaheim CAD Standards_rev 0.3_.pdf

Annotative elements and Linetypes

In the last two releases of AutoCAD they have introduced annotative scales. I believe we can take advantage of this new feature. Plus get into some of the system variables that control how linetypes appear

AutoCAD 2009 interface changes

AutoCAD 2009 looks quite a bit different than older version. Don't be scared, it does all the same things, they just might be in different places. Also, some of the tools have got upgrades, I will try to show as many of these as I can.

Hope to see you next Wednesday

Profiles.... USE THEM

2009-02-09T16:39:00.001-08:00

Once thing I have noticed recently, especially after everyone made the upgrade to 2009, is that almost no one is using Profiles. Your Windows profile is what defines (and remembers) your background wallpaper, your screensaver, icon locations, etc. AutoCAD basically has the same thing. AutoCAD saves your user interface (menus, palettes and toolbars) and other various preferences like, background color, layout color, crosshair size, etc. in a profile

Hopefully 99% of the time you never will have to mess with your profile and you can just draft away at your hearts content. BUT… it is that 1% that can ruin your day. For some reason you open up AutoCAD and everything is out of whack. Your background is white, you go to plot and none of the plotters or pen tables show up, and other, none of your fonts look correct. I am sure AutoCAD has done this to you and most of the time something went screwy with your options. Now, if you have a profile and made a backup of this profile, then you can get it fixed with a few click. If you didn’t have your profile backed up, well then, you will spend the next few hours getting everything back to the way you had it, and you will never get it back exactly the way you had it.

This is what I recommend. Once you are in AutoCAD, go to your options…
Command Line: OP or OPTIONS
Right-Click command line and select Options…
Menu>Tools>Options

Click the “Profiles” tab at the top

Click the “Add to List…” button

Name the profile your name and maybe put the version of ACAD at the end.

***Set the new profile current***

Either by double clicking or highlighting and clicking the “Set Current” button

Now, everything you do to your options will be applied to your current profile.

Once you have everything set, then Export your profile to a safe place. I don't mean in the My Documents folder on your workstation. I mean to a safe network location, floppy disk, jump drive, R drive, or even save it locally and then email it home.

To Export all you need to do is choose Options and then the Profiles tab. From there you will see a button on the right for Export. This will create an .arg file. Name the file the same name as your profile, not the name of the file. This will make it easier to fine down the road.

Now if things get messed up, you can just go to your options profile tab and click the import button and bring in your backed up profile and save yourself the headache of setting everything up again.

In the future I will show ways to have AutoCAD stat up using a specific profile (either local or on the network) and even having multiple profiles for different jobs or tasks.

CAD oriented BLOG for Willdan CAD users

2009-02-06T13:50:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,

I have a bunch of little tips and tricks I have collected over the years. I thought it would be a good time to start a blog and share these tips with everyone plus it is a good way to archive them.

So I will start this first post of with a few quick tips for ACAD 2009 since our office got everyone upgraded to 2009 this week.

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Hey, where did the menu bar go?

You might notice that all the file pull downs across the top are gone (File, Edit, View, etc...) They are still there. You just have to click the big A in the upper left hand corner. A little different, but they are all there. If you want them they way they used to be without switching your workspace to the classic view, which will get rid of all the cool new ribbon functionality, they just enter the following system variable at the command line

MENUBAR (system variable)
0 = no menu bar at the top of screen
1 = menu bar back at the top of the screen

OSNAPZ (system variable)
0 = default, give you the true distance between using the Z-value of the specified point
1 =Osnap substitutes the Z-value of the specified point with the elevation (ELEV) set for the current UCS

I know this has happened to you. you measue from the centerline to the topo curb line and you get a distance of 1400'. You realize that the centerline is drawn at a Z of zero but the topo lines are at elevation. So if you sent OSNAPZ to 1, you will get a distance in XY dirrection as if everything is at the same elevations.

You can Right Click on the command line to see a list of recent commands

TASKBAR (system variable)
0 = (default) displays only the name of the current drawing on the Windows taskbar
1 = display multiple open drawings as separate items on the Windows taskbar

SETBYLAYER (command)
This is a command to set any object back to bylayer. Including blocks and the elements within the blocks.... BAM!!!!

LAYDEL (command)
ever get that layer that just wont go away. Use LAYDEL to get rid of that layer. Just make sure these isnt ANYTHING you need on that layer still. You might want to backup the drawing before you do this command.

TEXTTOFRONT (command)
Bring all of the text to the top of the draworder

TXT2MTXT (express tool)
converts single line text to multiline text. You can select multiple text objects and it will join them together into one multiline text object.