The CAD Geek

Hatching Open Areas in AutoCAD using a Gap Tolerance

Donnie Gladfelter — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 02:21:33 +0000

Hatches help us assign context to specific elements of our plans by adding texture to what would otherwise be a flat engineering document. As the “paint bucket” tool of AutoCAD, inserting hatches isn’t especially difficult, however they do come with one simple rule. You can only hatch closed areas, and if the area you select [...]

Identify Drawing Changes with AutoCAD

Donnie Gladfelter — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:59:57 +0000

Despite our best efforts to avoid it, at some point in a project you’ll likely end up with two drawing files that are supposed to be the same, but aren’t. After running into this issue several times over the years, I learned about the incredible “Compare” feature within the Autodesk Design Review application. Although this [...]

Capture AutoCAD Workflows with Project Chronicle

Donnie Gladfelter — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 23:55:35 +0000

Given the wide breadth of tools and commands inside products such as AutoCAD and Autodesk Revit, it can oftentimes be difficult to communicate the exact steps necessary to reproduce a procedure. Regardless if you’re requesting help or providing it, a missed or slightly altered step can mean the difference between solving an issue or it [...]

Essential Apps to Survive Autodesk University 2012

Donnie Gladfelter — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 02:51:48 +0000

Autodesk University 2012 is just a week away, and with both the 20th AU and Autodesk’s 30th birthday to celebrate, this should be an extraordinary conference. Fellow blogger Shaan Hurley authored a great “overall AU survival guide” post recently that you should certainly check out if you haven’t already. As noted in that post, you [...]

A Quick Tip for Rotating AutoCAD Objects

Donnie Gladfelter — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 19:12:45 +0000

It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving will cap off the week, and we all know what comes after that – Autodesk University. I look forward to seeing many of you there, and hope you will join me for my class “Excel-ing in AutoCAD: No Programming Required”. For those of you not coming to Autodesk University [...]

Learn to go Beyond AutoCAD, and Save the World

Donnie Gladfelter — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 13:44:02 +0000

AutoCAD has been recognized as the industry-leading architecture and engineering documentation platform for thirty years now. The thing is, the last several years have seen the AutoCAD platform extend beyond simple 2D design documentation. AutoCAD 2010, 2011, and even 2012 each saw the introduction of some incredible 3D modeling tools. Beyond the AutoCAD platform itself, [...]

Automate Sheet Setup with Action Macros

Donnie Gladfelter — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:12:23 +0000

Although there’s no shortage of ways to customize AutoCAD, nearly every one requires some familiarity with programming. Given the barriers of learning a programming language, I find so many of the AutoCAD users I come across simply survive with the tools they already have verses learning to create new ones. This is the fundamental reason [...]

Exploring the AutoCAD 2013 Command Line

Donnie Gladfelter — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:17:20 +0000

As a veteran AutoCAD user, I was a bit concerned when I first learned Autodesk was updating the command-line in AutoCAD 2013. While I’m certainly all for regaining valuable screen real estate; reducing the command-line to just one line? Does Autodesk not understand that I need to see at least some of my command history [...]

XREF Drawings from Autodesk 360

Donnie Gladfelter — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:46:30 +0000

Like most releases, AutoCAD 2013 introduces a lengthy list of worthwhile enhancements to the product in this, it’s 30th anniversary year. While these are each welcome improvements, I feel the biggest opportunity surrounding AutoCAD 2013 is its integration with Autodesk 360. Formerly known as Autodesk Cloud, the family of Autodesk 360 products and services present [...]

Recreating the FLATTEN Command in AutoCAD for Mac

Donnie Gladfelter — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:23:27 +0000

Aside from being rather absent from the blogosphere, I have found myself using AutoCAD for Mac more and more lately. In fact, my company and I are preparing to host an AutoCAD for Mac training class in the next month. While the gap between the Mac and Windows releases of AutoCAD 2011 left me wishing [...]