CAD Panacea

AutoCAD WS is now AutoCAD 360

rkmcswain — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:41:17 +0000

AutoCAD WS is now AutoCAD 360. The online/cloud version of AutoCAD has seen over 12 million downloads and 11+ million registered users since it was introduced. Starting today AutoCAD 360 will feature some new tools and some new purchase options. The modile app version is available for iOS and Android smartphones/tablets at no cost, but there are new "Pro" versions available. AutoCAD 360 Pro gives you 25GB of online storage, a maximum supported file size of 30MB, the ability to create a new drawing, plus more advanced drawing and editing tools. AutoCAD 360 Pro will cost you $4.99 per month, or $49.99 per year. If you need even more online storage (100GB) and the ability to work with larger drawings (40MB), AutoCAD 360 Pro Plus is available for $99.99 a year.

With AutoCAD WS currently installed, all you need to do is update the app and you will be ready to go with AutoCAD 360. I've included some screen shots of the free version below.

Check out AutoCAD 360 at www.autocad360.com and at the AutoCAD 360 Blog.

AutoCAD 360 splash screen on iOS

The infamous SOLAR.DWG, created in AutoCAD version 2.18 (colors modified in the image so they will show up better here).

A sample floor plan drawing

More info from:

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AutoCAD WS

AutoCAD 360

Cloud

AutoCAD 2014 - Command line enhancements

rkmcswain — Sat, 18 May 2013 19:25:40 +0000

AutoCAD 2014 includes some new command line enhancements briefly covered in our launch time review titled AutoCAD 2014 in two minutes. Let's dive in and explore some of these new tools closer.

AutoCorrect - On the surface this is not a bad idea. If I type in LIME (instead of LINE), the LINE command will run instead of it saying "Unknown Command: LIME". Not bad, I can see the usefulness to this. However, I do not understand the need for a new PGP file (AutoCorrectUserDb.pgp) to hold user defined misspellings. If you misspell a command so often that you need to tell AutoCAD "Hey, I'm going to misspell this, so here is what I really mean" - it's time to create a shortcut key, or use a graphical UI element. Moreover, even it you did want to create an alias (say you misspell ARC a lot by typing in ARV), you can already do this using the old standard "Acad.pgp" file. You can manage this file if needed by going to the Manage Tab of the Ribbon, on the Customization panel, and then look for an entry to edit the AutoCorrect List.
AutoComplete - Anyone with a smartphone who sends texts, understands this feature. Start typing PD for example, and commands that start with or include the string PD are suggested for you (i.e. PDFAttach, PDFClip, etc.). Fortunately, you can configure these suggestions based on frequency of usage vs. alphabetical. I'm sure most people will want the former. This feature was in AutoCAD 2013, but for 2014 they added a built in option to perform mid-string searches. In other words, typing in LIN will not only bring up suggestions for LINE and LINETYPE, but also PLINE. You can actually do this in 2013 also, but you have to include your own wildcard characters (i.e.: type in *LIN*).
Synonym Suggestions - This is a feature that allows you to define a string such as "Length", and have it execute an actual command such as "Dist". I suppose the idea behind this is that if you use a different CAD program with different phrases for things, you can continue to use those phrases by defining a synonym suggestion. However, I'm going to pick on this one even more. Why does this require a new and different PGP file (AcadSynonymsGlobalDB.pgp)? This is a "new" feature that isn't really new at all. You have been able to do this for over 20 years using the normal "acad.pgp" file. Interestingly, there are some synonym suggestions defined in the default file like "connectpolyline" (runs the PLINE command) and "constructionline" (runs the RAY command). I have to say that if you are typing in 15+ character command names, it's time to create a shortcut in the "acad.pgp" file anyway.
Command Help - This is a nice feature. When you do get a full command name to show up, either by typing it out or letting AutoComplete work, there will be two icons on the right side. A help symbol and a globe symbol. Click the help symbol to launch AutoCAD help on that command or click the globe symbol to launch a Google search for that command. The Google search will open in a new window in your default browser.

Content Search - This is another nice feature that allows you to type in the name of certain content such as a block, and when a match is found the appropriate command is launched. For example, say you type in "Window2" (which is a block in your drawing). Then when you press enter the Insert command is launched and the Window2 block is ready for insertion. The same thing works for Layers, dimstyles, hatches and other named items.

These items can be configured using the dialog shown below, which itself can be launched from the wrench icon on the command line.

Tags:

AutoCAD 2014

Command Line

AutoCAD & Civil 3D Bug List

rkmcswain — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:19:27 +0000

I am starting a list of known bugs in Civil 3D here. Some of these may be inherited through AutoCAD.

Product	Version	Description	Addressed?
Civil 3D	2013	When you insert a point from the Survey database, it automatically zooms you to that point. But the zoom level is way too small (viewsize = 0.0002). There is no way to control this.	No
Civil 3D	2013	Drawing files listed in the Sheet Set manager on the Model Files tab, are listed in seemingly random order and there is no way to sort them. Update: This only appears under certain conditions.	No
Civil 3D	2013	With the system variable "Startup" set to 1, when you start Civil 3D and select a sheet set from the list of recent files, Civil 3D will continue to open, but the sheet set is not loaded in the SSM palette.	No
Civil 3D	2013	With the following system varibles set like this [Startup = 1, SSMAUTOOPEN = 1, SSLOCATE = 1], if you select a .dwg file to open from the startup dialog, the .dwg file opens fine, but the related sheet set (if any) does not load in the SSM palette.	No
Civil 3D	2013	The recent files list in the application menu, and in the Startup dialog box (if enabled) always floats sheet set files (.dst) to the top (even old ones), forcing recent .dwg files off the list.	No
Civil 3D	2013	Under certain conditions, when switching from a layout to model space, the ucs in MS changes by itself.	Fixed in 2013 SP1
Civil 3D	2013	If you click a column header to sort the parcel listing in the prospector, the list disappears. More info and a workaround here.	No.
Civil 3D	2013	When plotting from model space, and using the window selection method, if you zoom with the scroll wheel while picking your window in the graphics window, you get an error and have to press ESC several times to get out of a loop. Some people report that the loop is impossible to get out without killing AutoCAD.	No.
Civil 3D	2013	Under certain conditions, layer names in the layer properties manager palette (LayerDlgMode = 1) will be seemingly 'double-spaced'. Closing and opening the layer properties manager palette will generally restore the smaller spacing between layer names. Forum post with screenshots.	No
Civil 3D	2013	If you open a drawing that contains only a dynamic block, you are prompted to go directly into the block editor. If you make changes to the block definition and click "Save Block", then "Close Block Editor", the block editor _and_ the drawing closes, without saving your changes.	No

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Bug

AutoCAD

Civil 3D

AutoCAD Places List hard to read?

rkmcswain — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:20:29 +0000

Many Autodesk products including AutoCAD and verticals such as Civil 3D include a proprietary shortcut bar in file selection dialogs, known as the Places List. It's the leftmost panel shown here.

Notice that the panel is light gray and the icon text is white, which makes the text difficult to read. Here is how to fix it.....

Thanks to Jay_B in the Autodesk Forums, I was able to change this to text to black. If you have been wondering how to do this also, check out the post from Jay_B, second post in this thread. (instructions for Windows 7, but I suspect it is similar with Windows XP also).

Here are screenshots of before and after on my machine.

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AutoCAD

Colors

Places List

CAD Panacea 8th Birthday

rkmcswain — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:49:43 +0000

Today, March 29, is the 8th birthday of CAD Panacea. Inspired by Shaan Hurley, our first post was a simple tech tip back on March 29, 2005 on the old free Google blogspot system. Over the years we moved to our own domain, been through a few makeovers, and watched many other CAD blogs being born. Hopefully CAD Panacea has helped, informed, and provoked thought in many of you. Thanks to all of our readers over the years, especially those who leave feedback.

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Announcment

AutoCAD 2014 in two minutes

rkmcswain — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:27:13 +0000

Autodesk announced the new line of 2014 branded products this week. Since 2008, CAD Panacea has brought you a quick summary of the new AutoCAD features and here is the rundown for AutoCAD 2014.

General

The DWG file format remains the same (AutoCAD 2013) for AutoCAD 2014. As in previous versions, you can still save drawings down to versions as old as R14 DWG and R12 DXF.
AutoCAD 2014 for Windows is supported on Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8. No word on the availability of AutoCAD 2014 for Mac.

User Interface

Just when you thought the Command Line was at its maximum usefulness, more features are added.

The command line now includes an AutoCorrect feature. If you type in LNIE, the LINE command will run instead of returning "unknown command". There is a new file (AutoCorrectUserDB.pgp) used to store user defined entries.
The Command line tool AutoComplete now has the option to perform mid string searches. You can actually do this in 2013 by using wildcards (i.e. *LINE*), but now you can turn this on so you don't have to use wildcards.
The Command line can now adapt to your personal command usage and tailor suggestions based on your habits.
The Command line can now also perform synonym suggestions. For example, if you enter BUBBLE, a suggestion to use the MLEADER command will appear, or maybe you enter CURVE to get to the SPLINE command. There is a new file (AcadSynonymsGlobalDB.pgp) used to store these synonyms.
The Command line includes a way to search the Internet for more information on a command. When the item pops up, click the globe icon to launch a Google search for the item.

The two new PGP files mentioned earlier are accessible for editing from the Ribbon.

If you type in the name of a existing BLOCK definition in the drawing, you can insert it directly, essentially running the INSERT command for the selected block.

Lastly, there is a comprehensive dialog where you can control all these new Command line options.

File Tabs has FINALLY been added to the core product. Users have been asking for this since AutoCAD went to MDI in 1999. They tried to pacify us with "Quick View Drawings" and "Quick View Layouts", but thankfully they finally listed to the users and added the FILE TABS! File Tabs let you switch drawings by clicking tabs. Most MDI applications use this same GUI element, so you should not have any problem figuring this out. Turn this on using a button on the View tab of the Ribbon. Tabs can be moved using the mouse to change their order, and hovering over a tab will show you a preview of the Model and Layout tabs.

More layers are shown in the Layer drop down in the Ribbon.
Layer name sorting of numerical characters is now down based on the numerical value. For example "1, 3, 30, 40, 5, 9" will sort as "1, 3, 5, 9, 30, 40"

You can now perform a layer merge from inside the Layer Manager. Select a layer, right-click and choose Merge. Then select the target layer from a dialog. (Interestingly enough, they forgot to apply the new sorting mentioned above to this dialog.)

Xref linetypes are now omitted from most linetype lists and Xref layers are omitted from the Properties dialog.
You can now change the attachment type of multiple Xrefs from [Attach] to [Overlay] and vice-versa.
You can now change the path type of multiple Xrefs among the choices of Absolute, Relative, and None.

Object Creation and Modification

Support for Geographic locations has been significantly enhanced. It includes the same Coordinate System Library as AutoCAD Map 3D. Now you can more accuratly set a location for your drawing to assist when importing geolocated data. You can set the location of your drawing using Autodesk Live Maps or by selecting a KML or KMZ file. Use of the Autodesk Live Maps requires you be logged into your Autodesk 360 account. You can sign up for free if you do not have one.
.RCP and .RCS files (file formats created by the new Autodesk Recap application) are now supported when importing a point cloud.
DIMCONTINUEMODE is a new system variable that affects creation of continued and baseline dimensions. If DIMCONTINUEMODE = 1, DIMCONTINUE and DIMBASELINE create dimensions using the style of the selected dimension. If If DIMCONTINUEMODE = 0, the new dimensions are created based on the current dimension style.
Two ends of the same polyline can now be filleted together creating a closed polyline.
Draw arcs in either direction using the CTRL key for control.
The Text command remembers the last justification used until you change it.

Connectivity

Design Feed is a new service that allows you to enter text messages and attach images to be shared online with partners and clients using Autodesk 360. The messages you enter appear with their related drawings on the desktop, web, and across mobile devices.

Other

Several Autodesk Exchange apps are included by default. The Featured Apps tab provides direct access to Exchange where you can browse, download, and install other Exchange apps.

More information on AutoCAD 2014 including many other articles on what's new, the Suites, and other Autodesk 2014 products can be found on Shaan Hurley's Between the Lines blog

You can download your free trial today at http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-autocad/free-trial

Tags:

AutoCAD

AutoCAD 2014

Win a free pass to AU2013

rkmcswain — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:50:21 +0000

Fill out and complete a survey on AU for Autodesk, and you will be entered into a drawing for a free pass to AU2013. Survey closes Friday, April 12, 2013. Good luck!

More details here.

Tags:

Autodesk University

Free

Can't explode a block?

rkmcswain — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:29:45 +0000

Have you ever come across a block that you could not explode? You might try and get this message:

Command: explode
Select objects: 1 found
Select objects:
1 could not be exploded.
Command:

The ability to restrict blocks from being exploded was added many releases ago, but I still see a lot of users confused by this. Here is how to "fix it".

What you need to do is redefine the block and allow it to be exploded.

Run the BLOCK command and select the desired block from the list.
Now check the box that says "Allow exploding", then click OK.
If there are instances of this block inserted in the drawing, you may get the dialog shown here asking you to confirm your decision to redefine the block:
If there are no instances of the block inserted in the drawing, then you may get this similar confirmation dialog:
Either way, confirm that you want to redefine the block.
Now you will be able to explode an insertion of this block definition.

There is another (fairly rare) reason you might not be able to explode a block, and that is if it was inserted using MINSERT. If that is the case, the command line will tell you when you try to explode

Command:  EXPLODE
Select objects: 1 found
1 was minserted.
Select objects:
None found.
Command:

In this case, you will have to erase the MINSERT and reinsert the block(s) and explode the blocks as needed, or Autodesk has an alternative method listed here on their KB.

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AutoCAD 2013 Core Console

rkmcswain — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:29:31 +0000

Have you ever wanted to run a script file on one or more drawings, without having to use the overhead of the entire AutoCAD application? Starting with AutoCAD 2013, you can. AutoCAD 2013 comes with a tiny application named AcCoreConsole.exe. (The AutoCAD Core Console). This is basically a stripped down version of the AutoCAD engine without the graphics screen. Talk about the ultimate "classic" interface!

So you might be thinking "AutoCAD is a graphics program...what do I want with a command line only interface?" At its most basic level, you can feed the Core Console a single script file that can create and edit entities and save those edits to a DWG file. Take this a step further and combine the Core Console with ScriptPro from Autodesk and you'll probably be processing script files, on multiple drawings, faster than ever.

I created a small script file that creates a few entities, makes an edit and then saves this work to a DWG file, and it runs and completes in about 2.5 seconds. You can barely get the splash screen to go away in 2.5 seconds when using full blown AutoCAD. Kean Walmsley over at Through the Interface has a much more in depth post on this application, and the AutoCAD Tips blog has a post on doing some more complex things with this tool, including batch plotting a set of DWG files to PDF.

What do you think about this?

Are you already using it? If so, what kind of things are you doing with it?

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Changing the case of date fields

rkmcswain — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:03:20 +0000

There does not seem to be an option for changing text portions of dates (such as the name of the month) to UPPERCASE (or lowercase) using the Field command dialog box. All of the examples shown are in First capital.

However, if you explore other fields where there are options to change the case, you can see that setting a field to UPPERCASE simply adds some code to the end of the field like this: "%tc1".

Back to the date fields shown in the first dialog above. Note that you are not limited to only the example date formats shown, but you can enter your own date format (center, top of dialog). So click on the example that most closely matches what you want, and then paste in the suffix code "%tc1". This should alter the Field expression shown at the bottom of the dialog and change the string to UPPERCASE.

If you are automating this, note that you can use the full string %<\AcVar Date \f "MMM yyyy %tc1">% to get the same effect. Of course, you can vary the date strings part to fit your needs.

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