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Here is a sneak peek from my two classes…

CADD Leadership 2009

What got you here – won’t get you there

• When you started down this road you had no CAD Skills
• Once you got CAD Skills you thought… Maybe I could be a CAD Manager…
• So you added Management Skills
• Then you thought… Why am I still having trouble…
• You need to add Leadership Skills!

Leading from your Strength…

Gallup Poll on what the boss wants to see…

• Resourcefulness (81 percent)
• Decisiveness (75 percent)
• Managing change (69 percent)
• Straightforwardness and composure (68 percent)
• Building and mending relationships (67 percent)
• Doing whatever it takes (67 percent)
• Employing a participative management style (64 percent)

BIM Manager – the Newest Position

The Changes of BIM
BIM requires you to…

• forget old habits
• reinvent old work flow
• redefine project teams
• refine design team coordination processes
• establishing levels of design detail in BIM
• investigate changes to billing and invoicing your clients
• investigate changes to design support functionality (specs and estimating)
• rethink accounting, billing, PM workflow

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. employees (24%) would fire their boss if given the chance. And as many as 51% of actively disengaged workers would get rid of their leader if they could.

These findings were gleaned from a Gallup Management Journal ( GMJ) survey of U.S. employees. Gallup researchers studied employee responses to see which factors differed most strongly among engaged employees (26% of respondents) and those who were not engaged (56%) or actively disengaged (18%).

Read the article

On the personal side… I would not fire my boss.

Have you ever wondered what version of AutoCAD the file was created in?  Have you ever opened a file that was a newer version than what you have only to get the stark warning alert that it will not work?

Well this might be just what you need.

You can add DWG Creation software Name and Version in a Windows Explorer column.

Step one:

Right click on the column heading in a Windows Explorer session.

You will get a drop down check box like above – Select More…  this will open a Dialog Box…

Check the DWG Creator Name and the DWG Creator Version options…  You may have to scroll down to find the.  They may be lower on you screen than what is shown above.

Once selected and saved you will see the above columns added to your Explorer window.  These columns will show the version that the file was last saved in and ver version number (not sure where this might come in handy)

If you want tohave all your Explorer views to match what you see, select Folder Options and the View Tab and click on Apply to All Folders.

Table of contents for CADD Manager Journal - October 2009

1. AutoCAD – Save it or Lose it
2. AutoCAD 2010 – Save Options
3. AutoCAD 2010 – Limits on Saving to Earlier Versions
4. AutoCAD 2010 – SaveFidelity
5. AutoCAD 2010 – Objects may be larger than they appear

The shout goes up…   Save it or Lose it!

That was the reminder that we all used say to keep our files safe.  We were addressing the fact that a computer crash may take out your work.  If it was not saved back to the server, then it might be lost.  Sometimes this would be said in frustration by one that had just been bitten by a crash (software or hardware).  Sometimes it was just a casual reminder.

You may not be needing reminders like this to make sure that your users are remembering to save, but you do need to think about the whole save process.

How often do you save?

Do you rely on AutoSaves to save your files?

Do they even think about saving?

How much data are you willing to risk in an unsaved file?

AutoSaves are not real saves of your file data. It is a save to local. The location is defined by the SAVEFILEPATH variable.

SAVETIME

This is the system variable that sets the automatic save interval, in minutes.

0 – Turns off automatic saving.

>0 – Saves the drawing at intervals specified by the nonzero integer automatically

The value of SAVETIME is an integer between 0 and 600 minutes.

The SAVETIME timer starts as soon as you make a change to a drawing. It is reset and restarted by a manual QSAVE, SAVE, or SAVEAS.

So what do you set your Save Time as ?

I think that if you are in a good habit of saving your files and are not forgetful, then set it higher than 10 minutes.   You could even turn it off (not recommended).   If you are not in the habit of saving then set it lower or at 10 minutes.

My other Save rule of thumb…  save you drawing every 10-15 minutes or so and after every major operation.  Also save it when you are interrupted, leave your desk or get a phone call or chat message that might derail your thought process.

You can set the time of an AutoSave in the Options Dialog box.

Automatic Save
Saves your drawing automatically at the intervals you specify. You can specify the location of all Autosave files by using the SAVEFILEPATH system variable.  SAVEFILE (read-only) stores the name of the Autosave file.

Note:  Automatic save is disabled when the Block Editor is open.

Minutes Between Saves: When Automatic Save is on, specifies how often the drawing is saved. (SAVETIME system variable)

System Variables – you can type these in at the command line to make changes.

SAVEFILEPATH

Specifies the path to the directory for all automatic save files for the current session.
You can also change the path on the Files tab in the Options dialog box.  The default is to place it in a temp file under your Docs and Settings.

SAVEFILE stores the current automatic save file name.  It is read only – so you can display it, but not edit it.

Table of contents for CADD Manager Journal - October 2009

1. AutoCAD – Save it or Lose it
2. AutoCAD 2010 – Save Options
3. AutoCAD 2010 – Limits on Saving to Earlier Versions
4. AutoCAD 2010 – SaveFidelity
5. AutoCAD 2010 – Objects may be larger than they appear

When you open a file in 2010 and save it, you have several options…

Obviously, you can save it in the native 2010 format.  This is the default setting and you need not do anything to make it happen.  But you may need to send files to those who are using other formats.  there are several formats that can be used.

You can also save a drawing to an earlier version of the drawing format (DWG) or drawing interchange format (DXF), or save a drawing as a template file.

You can save each file one at a time:

Choose the format from Files of Type in the Save Drawing As dialog box.

File > SaveAs… > Then select from the dropdown list

Or you can set your system to save them all back to a prior release:

In the Options Dialog box > click on the Open and Save Tab…

Set the Save as: drop down to the setting you want and click OK to apply.

Reduce the Time Required to Save a Drawing File

You can reduce the time needed to save a file if you specify an “incremental save” rather than a “full save”.

An incremental save updates only those portions of the saved drawing file that have changed.

AutoCAD, like other file formats, records file edits.  When a save is done, it looks for those items that have changed and saves only those.  That is called an incremental save.

When you use incremental saves, drawing files will contain asome wasted space. This space increases after each incremental save until it reaches a specified maximum, at which time a full save is performed instead.

You can set the incremental save percentage in the Open and Save tab of the Options dialog box or by setting the value of the system variable ISAVEPERCENT.

If you set the value of ISAVEPERCENT to 0 (zero), all saves are full saves.  This takes longer.

To reduce the size of drawing files,  you should perform a full save (with ISAVEPERCENT set to zero) before transmitting or archiving a drawing.  The system will jetison all the extra stuff it has built up in the file and the file will get smaller.

Table of contents for CADD Manager Journal - October 2009

1. AutoCAD – Save it or Lose it
2. AutoCAD 2010 – Save Options
3. AutoCAD 2010 – Limits on Saving to Earlier Versions
4. AutoCAD 2010 – SaveFidelity
5. AutoCAD 2010 – Objects may be larger than they appear

When you save back to a prior release,there are some impacts to the files.

Here are some of the limitations that affect files that are saved in prior releases.  plucked from the AutoCAD 2010 help file with some edits and comments.

Saving a drawing in Release 2000/LT 2000 format is subject to the following limitations:

• File size can increase. – I did a quick test and saw my files go up from 10-20 percent when saved from 2010 back down to 2000 format.  I then opened the 2000 based file and saved it as 2010 and it reduced the files size lower than the original 2010 drawing I had opened in the first place.
• Encryption and digital signatures are not preserved. – I never use these anyway.

Saving a drawing in Release 14/LT 98/LT 97 format is subject to the following limitations:

• Hyperlinks are converted to Release 14/LT 98/LT 97 attached URLs.
• Database links and freestanding labels are converted to Release 14/LT 98/LT 97 links and displayable attributes.
• Database attached labels are converted to multiline text and leader objects, and their link information is not available. Attached labels are restored if you open the drawing in AutoCAD 2000 or later.
• Dynamic block geometry can be redefined independent of the block’s dynamic elements, and the geometry in the block reference is not updated when the drawing is opened in AutoCAD 2010 or later.
• Dimensions created using the DIMARC and DIMJOGGED commands may not retain their original color in Release 14/LT 98/LT 97.

Saving a drawing in Release 12/LT 2 DXF format is subject to the following limitations: (is anyone still doing this???)  (This is for DXF only – you cannot save back to DWG version 12 from inside AutoCAD 2010)

• Lightweight polylines and hatch patterns are converted to Release 12 polylines and hatch patterns.
• All solids, bodies, regions, ellipses, leaders, multilines, rays, tolerances, and xlines are converted to lines, arcs, and circles as appropriate.
• Groups, complex linetypes, OLE objects, and preview images are not displayed.
• Many objects are lost if you save a drawing as Release 12 and open it in Release 2000/LT 2000 or later.  <=== keep an eye on this!
• Multiple layouts and layout names are lost. Only the Model tab and the current layout tab are saved.
• Spaces in the names of layers and other objects are converted to underscores, and their maximum length is 32 characters.
• DWF or DWFx underlay files attached to drawings cannot be saved to Release 12/LT 2 DXF format.
• The status of external references as unloaded is lost.  <=== keep an eye on this!

Table of contents for CADD Manager Journal - October 2009

1. AutoCAD – Save it or Lose it
2. AutoCAD 2010 – Save Options
3. AutoCAD 2010 – Limits on Saving to Earlier Versions
4. AutoCAD 2010 – SaveFidelity
5. AutoCAD 2010 – Objects may be larger than they appear

Save with Visual Fidelity for Annotative Objects

When working with annotative objects in 2010, this option allows you to maintain visual fidelity for these objects when they are viewed in AutoCAD 2007 and earlier releases. Visual fidelity is controlled by the SAVEFIDELITY system variable.

SAVEFIDELITY - Controls whether the drawing is saved with visual fidelity.

0 = Saved without visual fidelity.

1 = Annotation objects assigned annotative scales are saved to separate layers for each scale used. Only affects drawings when saving to AutoCAD 2007 or earlier file formats.

If you work primarily in model space, it is recommended that you turn off visual fidelity (set SAVEFIDELITY to 0). However, if you need to exchange drawings with other users, and layout fidelity is most important, then visual fidelity should be turned on (set SAVEFIDELITY to 1).

Notes from the Help File:

The SAVEFIDELITY system variable does not effect saving a drawing to the AutoCAD 2010 drawing or DXF file formats.

Annotative objects may have multiple scale representations. When visual fidelity is on, annotative objects are decomposed and scale representations are saved (in an anonymous block) to separate layers, which are named based on their original layer and appended with a number. If you explode the block in AutoCAD 2007 or earlier releases, and then open the drawing in AutoCAD 2008 or later releases, each scale representation becomes a separate annotative object, each with one annotation scale. It is not recommended that you edit or create objects on these layers when working with a drawing created in AutoCAD 2008 and later releases in AutoCAD 2007 and earlier releases.

When this option is not selected, a single model space representation is displayed on the Model tab. More annotation objects may be displayed on the Model tab depending on the ANNOALLVISIBLE setting. Also, more objects may be displayed in paper space viewports at different sizes than in AutoCAD 2008 and later releases.

Using Options to set this variable via the dialog box:

Look for this area on the interface:

Table of contents for CADD Manager Journal - October 2009

1. AutoCAD – Save it or Lose it
2. AutoCAD 2010 – Save Options
3. AutoCAD 2010 – Limits on Saving to Earlier Versions
4. AutoCAD 2010 – SaveFidelity
5. AutoCAD 2010 – Objects may be larger than they appear

Buried inside the Options Dialog box is a little check mark that can affect the way your files are stored and size limits of individual objects.

People use AutoCAD for many things. Most of the time, objects storage sizes are small. But sometimes things can get quite large.

Individual objects use to have a limit of 256MB – have you ever drawn anything that big? You may have with a mesh or an extremely large hatch pattern. Maybe by mistake you have had AutoCAD chunk away at creating something like a hatch and have it choke because it is too large.

Now you can avoid that… but it might cost you if you are saving files back to prior releases.

Here is the story from Autodesk…

The following explains how object size limits for drawings is determined:

Drawing files cannot exceed an internal size limit of 4GB. This size is based on the total size of all objects in a drawing when uncompressed. Since a drawing file is normally compressed, the final size of a saved drawing file on disk will vary based on the size and number of objects in a drawing.

Each individual object in a drawing cannot exceed an uncompressed size limit of 256MB. For example, a mesh object, when saved to a file and compressed, might be 75MB in size while the same object when uncompressed might be 257MB.

In these situations, the drawing cannot be saved to an AutoCAD 2007 or earlier file format until the issues are resolved. You can resolve the size limits by breaking the drawing or objects up into several drawings or objects.

Specifies whether or not the AutoCAD 2009 and earlier object size limits are used instead of those for AutoCAD 2010.  Click the information icon to learn more about object size limits and how they affect opening and saving a drawing. (LARGEOBJECTSUPPORT system variable)

In the Options Dialog

The variable that is controlled by this is LARGEOBJECTSUPPORT

Controls large object size limit support when you open and save drawings.

0 = Use legacy object size limits from AutoCAD 2009 and prior

1 = Use AutoCAD 2010 object size limits

Warnings:

Drawings saved to a legacy drawing file format (AutoCAD 2007 or earlier) do not support objects greater than 256MB. With the AutoCAD 2010 drawing file format, these limitations have been removed allowing you to save objects that are greater in size.

When saving to a legacy drawing file format (AutoCAD 2007 or earlier), the drawing cannot contain large objects; there might be compatibility issues with trying to open the drawing. The LARGEOBJECTSUPPORT system variable controls the large object size limits used and the warning messages displayed when a drawing is saved.

Note: When working with the 64-bit release of AutoCAD, you can work more efficiently with large objects and drawings. However, the drawing files you create might be too large to open with the 32-bit release of AutoCAD.