Lazy Drafter

Add the Layers Pull-Down to Quick Access Toolbar

Josh Jones — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:32:50 +0000

When we upgraded to AutoCAD 2012 I started to like and use the RIBBON. It took some getting used-to at first but I’ve learned to love it but I did have one major problem with it: the layers pull-down is on the “home” tab.

I love the layers pull-down because it quickly shows me the layer an object is on when I select something, but if I happen to be in another tab I can no longer see it. But I soon learned a trick thanks to Rick Ellis.

Go to the “home” tab of the ribbon, right-click on the layers pull-down and select “Add to Quick Access Toolbar”.

Now I have the layers pull-down where I can always see it!

If only I could make it wider… Does anyone know how to change the width?

UPDATE: Thad answered my question via Twitter:

@lazydrafter In the CUI editor you can change the min. & max. display width for the layer drop down on the QA Toolbar. twitter.com/thadnewport/st…

— Thad (@thadnewport) May 17, 2012

Save Time with Geometric Constraints

Josh Jones — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:14:07 +0000

Autodesk introduced something called geometric constraints in AutoCAD 2010. They are very powerful and can help speed up drafting by saving keystrokes, picks and clicks. Check out this link from Lynn Allen to see what I mean.

Do you use geometric constraints in your day-to-day work?

AutoCAD 2013 Preview Guide

Josh Jones — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:30:46 +0000

Autodesk released a new version of AutoCAD and it has a lot of improvements. Check out this guide which shows what’s new. Are you upgrading to AutoCAD 2013? Why or why not?

Annotation Visibility

Josh Jones — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:38:52 +0000

Kate Morrical from LT Unlimited wrote a helpful blog post on managing annotation visibility. It can be confusing at first but annotation visibility is worth mastering. I use annotation scale visibility with dimensions, text and multileaders every day because it gives me even more control over how my drawings look. Here is what she said:

“When you’re working in a drawing that uses annotation scaling, sometimes it can be helpful to see only the annotations that exist at the current scale. But sometimes you want to see the others, too.” (read more…)

How to Draw a Line Tangent to Two Circles

Josh Jones — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:03:21 +0000

Hope, one of my readers, asked me how to draw a line tangent to two circles. This is a great question because it isn’t very obvious at first. Here’s how you do it.

Start the LINE command and type TAN to start the tangent object snap. Click on the first circle near where you expect the line to be tangent to.

Then type TAN again and click on the second circle.

AutoCAD will draw a line between the two circles perfectly tangent to both of them.

Great question Hope!

Burst!

Josh Jones — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:44:55 +0000

Due to limited time and because I’m feeling lazy today, this is going to be a short post.

Ever wonder how to properly explode a block that contains attributes without having the text revert to the attribute tag? Try the BURST command. It a special “explode” command made for blocks with attributes.

See, I told you this was short.

Automatic Barcodes on Drawings

Josh Jones — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:55:27 +0000

I’m a design drafter. I create contract plans for construction. After the final plan sets are made, I hand the prints off to our archival team to put the drawings in their final home. Part of this process is printing a unique barcode sticker for each sheet. I didn’t realize that they went through such a tedious process to get this done until an associate at work came to me with an idea: why not print barcodes directly on the plan sheets?

How? I learned that it was simple: there are barcode fonts. So I asked around and found out that they use a “3 of 9″ barcode. After a quick search I found a free one here: http://www.dafont.com/3of9-barcode.font

Of course the next question was what information went into the barcode. I found out that each barcode that goes on our drawing sheets is made up of a combination of something we call a “Vault Plan Number” and the sheet number surrounded by asterisks. Since we already have this infomation on our sheets, I thought, this should be easy!

Here’s how I set it up:

STEP 1
Download and install the 3 of 9 barcode font (this is what we use but your system may use a different kind of barcode).

STEP 2
Create a barcode text style in AutoCAD.

STEP 3
Start the MTEXT command and type an asterisk (*) because this is one of the barcode requirements. Then insert an “object” field, select the “Vault Plan Number” text object, choose the “contents” property and hit OK.

After that field I added a hyphen, then inserted another field for the sheet number. Finally I added another asterisk at the end.

Make sure you set the barcode text style.

STEP 4
Place the barcode in an appropriate place in the sheet template.

This just saved us a couple of tedious steps in printing and placing barcode labels on each sheet!

Create a Block the Lazy Way

Josh Jones — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:08:18 +0000

This has got to be the easiest way to create a block out of existing linework. The first step is to select some linework:

Then right-click and hold anywhere you want the base point to be until you see a cursor that looks like this:

You could right-click and hold on a grip or anywhere else – it doesn’t matter.

Move your cursor while holding down the right button on your mouse and you will see that AutoCAD copies the linework.

Let go of the right mouse button and AutoCAD will present you with a short menu.

Simply select “paste as block” and your new block will be created. The base point is the place you selected with your mouse.

UPDATE: Then, as one of my subscribers pointed out, use the RENAME command to give the block a logical name. Thank you for pointing this out Tommy!

So lazy!

CAD Tips on Twitter

Josh Jones — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:47:54 +0000

I love using Twitter because it’s like a mini news feed that I can customize to my tastes. Today I would like to share six Twitter accounts that offer great CAD tips on a regular basis. I recommend following…

Do you recommend following anyone? Leave a suggestion in the comments below.

Combine Civil 3D Pipe Networks

Josh Jones — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 22:04:55 +0000

A guy that I work with shared a tip with me on how to combine two pipe networks in Civil 3D. I hear you can do this natively in Civil 3D 2012, but I thought I would share a workaround in case you are using an older version of Civil 3D.

Export the network you want to put into another pipe network to a LandXML file.
Next delete the just exported pipe network and rename the remaining pipe network to the name of the exported pipe network.
Then import the xml file back into the drawing.
The two pipe networks will now be combined into one (this also works with pipe networks in different files).

When you do this make sure the pipes and structures have different names or change them after you do the import. Having pipes or structures of the same name will most likely cause problems in the drawing.