In the Dynamic Interface

Sometimes its the little things. AutoCAD 2008

Its seemed like forever waiting for AutoCAD 2008 to be released. Its finally here and awaiting to start shipping. So hopefully by now everyone has been reading all over the blogs sphere the major enhancements in AutoCAD 2008. Annotation Scaling, MLEADERS, Table enhancements, and all that jazz. I'll be providing some real world examples on how I use Annotation Scaling in production to help people be aware of the PROS and CONS of annotation scaling. Its not a new feature that you can immediately jump into without properly planning ahead. I'll get to that in another post later, but for now, its about the little enhancements.

So here are some of the extremely helpful little enhancements inside AutoCAD 2008 known as F3 items.

First off my favorite new feature inside AutoCAD 2008. Its called Layer Lock & layer ISO Fade. This new feature allows users to fade back locked &/or isolated layers. The fade intensity can be controlled by LAYLOCKFADECTL system variable. The initial value is 50, but I would recommend 65 or 70 for the fade intensity, but the initial value of 50 isn't too bad either. The reason why this new feature is my favorite is I use it to fade back all xrefs inside the drawing. I can then easily identify all the objects in my drawing that are not an XREF and make my changes as necessary. Before I was crossing select items trying to see what was part of an xref and what was not. Trust me this is a great new enhancement. Again this works with LAYISO (Isolates current layer) as well, because once you initiate the LAYISO command and select your objects, all remaining layers turn to a locked layer. Don't worry you can still get the OFF effect like before from the SETTINGS option inside LAYISO.

Some of the other nice F3 items are in the Sheet Set Manager Category. I believe there is two new enhancements related to the SSM. The first of them is the new Drag & Drop functionality to add sheets to the Sheet Set Manager. Simply hold CTRL to pick you desired layouts, then drag and drop them into the SSM desired subset. The only problem with this new functionality is it asks you each time what layouts you want to import, even though you actually selected them. But does have them pre selected for you, so all you need to do is hit Import. The second enhancement is the ability to reverse order when publishing using page setup overrides. Previous releases you were stuck with the default plotting based on the order they were in the SSM.

The final F3 item I'll discuss about in this post is the new layout enhancements. They added two new enhancements related to layouts that have been major pains in the past. The most significant change is the ability to drag and drop layouts into different orders in the layout list. Before you would have to use the dialog box where you had to try and place each layout at the end of the list and organize from there. What a pain that was!! Now its a simple drag and drop and done. The last layout enhancement is the ability to rename layouts directly on the layout tab.

Hope this gave you a little taste of some of the smaller enhancements inside AutoCAD 2008. This just scratches the surface on the laundry list of new features inside AutoCAD 2008.

Marin Autodesk User Group - Dynamic Block Demo

Well I think winter is definitely here in Northern California, it was raining pretty much all day today. This last Saturday we had a good mid 75's weather which was pretty nice, but today it all went down hill. Oh well we made it this far.

Now finally a post related to Dynamic blocks again.This Thursday November 16th at 6:00pm I'll be doing a demonstration on Dynamic Blocks for the Marin Autodesk User Group.

I'll be giving a general overview of Dynamic Blocks, explain how they work, how to build one, then answer any questions. Hopefully I'll get to show everybody some of the complex Dynamic blocks I've made, as well as some of the really cool ones people have sent to me through my BLOG.

Finally im back!!

Well what a crazy last couple months this has been. I've been pretty much pulled away from my home desktop for way too long and happy to have everything set up. Where were you might ask? Well I got married in late August and has been a whirl wind of stuff following. After the wedding my Wife and I jumped on a plane and headed for New York, We stayed in New York for two nights then hopped on another plane and headed for France. We arrived in France and made our way to Monte Carlo and boarded a cruise ship called "The Dearborn Legend". We cruised for seven nights up around the Italian Rivera, and ended in a little industrial town where we took a bus to Rome. We then stayed in Rome for three nights (In a not so nice hotel, thanks travel agent).

On our final night before heading home we received a exiting phone call. Our house we've had on the housing market for the last couple months had just gone into escrow. The northern California housing market is pretty poor right now. So it was a huge relief. Once we made it back to the states we began recouping with the wonderful trip we just experienced. It was put to a quick halt when we found out that the buyer wanted to have an early escrow. Ok more like 5 days from when they called me. So we rushed to get everything packed and moved our entire house into a POD on a Thursday, the night before we had to be out. Turns out the Home Owners association forgot to sign one paper and delayed it to the following Monday. Due to the bad timing of escrow closing two weeks early my new wife and I had to move into my parents house for 2 weeks while we wait for our new house to close escrow.

Three days into the great living situation at my parents house I find out from my lender that the credit agencies have gotten my credit history mixed up with another individual here in town. Thus completely putting my loan in a stand still. Thirty days later, the credit agencies have finally cleared up enough of the problems that I can get my home loan. The current tenants in the house we're buying moved out and the remodeling began. We put on a new roof, new gutters, new pain interior and out, new carpets, and what felt like a million other things.

My home office is now finally back up and operational. Focus can be directed back to my BLOG and the other events coming up in the next month.

Here is one of my favorite pictures from the honeymoon, overlooking a town in France.

Thanks for hanging in there this last month and check back for more AutoCAD stuff coming up.

Dimension Centerlines cant get any easier!

Over the years I've done a lot of research looking for a good solution to creating centerline linetype dimensions. I've tried suppressing the extension lines, setting centerline types current and drawing plines over the dimension. I've tried some program found on the Internet (Don't remember where) and could never get it work. Long story short I was stumped.

In the release of AutoCAD 2006 there was a new property added to Linear, and Aligned dimensions that allowed you to set a dimensions extension lines to something other than a continuous line. A lot of people did back flips over this. I sure did, but quickly realized that it wasn't so simple. Have you ever noticed how hard it is at times to find the linetype you want? Here is a screen shot of my properties palette on my second monitor.

Take a look at the alphabetical order, or lack there of. Our drawings typically have around 20 to 30 different linetype's loaded up in the drawing. And having to manually hunt through this mess each time, sometimes twice for each extension line can be pretty time consuming.

So I decided to take a look at the system variables associated with the dimension extension line linetype's. Then threw together a quick lisp program to change dimension line extension line linetype's quickly. (Wow that's a mess to say)

Simply copy the code below then paste the contents into notepad and save with the .lsp extension. Next inside AutoCAD, issue the Appload command and browse for this file you just saved. Next on your command line issue CENDIM. It will prompt you to select a linear dimension. Once selected, you can choose to apply the linetype to both extension lines, the right extension line, the left extension line or clear the extension lines and reset it back to ByBlock.

Its a relatively quick operation, if you want to apply this to many dimensions in you're drawing, you can quickly use the MATCHPROP command to apply the dimension extension line settings to other dimensions.

(defun c:cendim (/ diment censtyle censtylelinetype LT centerlinename)
(setq diment
(entsel
"\nSelect Linear Dimension to Change to Center Line Display:"
)
)
(setq censtyle "B")
(setq censtyle (strcase (getstring "\n<B>oth Extension Lines or <L>eft/<R>ight or <C>lear: <B> "))) 

(if (= censtyle "C")
(progn
(setvar "dimltex1" "ByBlock")
(setvar "dimltex2" "ByBlock")
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "")
))
(if (/= censtyle "C" )
(progn 

(if (eval LT)
(setq LT LT)
(setq LT "3")
)
(setq censtylelinetype 3)
(setq censtylelinetype (getstring
(strcat "\nWhich Center Line Type (1, 2, 3 or 4) <"
LT
">: "
)
)
)
(if (= censtylelinetype "")
(setq censtylelinetype "3")) 

(setq centerlinename (strcat "Center" censtylelinetype)) 

(if (= censtyle "B")
(progn
(setvar "dimltex1" centerlinename)
(setvar "dimltex2" centerlinename)
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "") 
)) 

(if (= censtyle "")
(progn
(setvar "dimltex1" centerlinename)
(setvar "dimltex2" centerlinename)
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "") 
)) 

(if (= censtyle "L")
(progn
(setvar "dimltex1" centerlinename)
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "")
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "")
)) 

(if (= censtyle "R")
(progn
(setvar "dimltex2" centerlinename)
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "")
(command "-dimstyle" "A" diment "")
))
(setvar "dimltex1" "ByBlock")
(setvar "dimltex2" "ByBlock")))
(princ)
)

Click here to download the lisp program. Download CENDIM.LSP

Suggest a topic for a future post

Lately I've been getting many e-mails from readers requesting additional topics and think its time we start a post to list possible future posts. I am going to keep track of ideas for future blog posts with this blog article.  I'll add my own ideas as they come to me, and I also welcome suggestions from anyone out there who would like to suggest a topic.  I am going to use the following guidelines:

1. Please use the comment functionality on the blog server to suggest anything you think sounds interesting
2. Keep in mind my areas of expertise from the tag line of my blog - I know about things outside of these areas, but my level of depth of knowledge may vary widely depending on the topic, and I am not going to pretend to be an expert and post about a topic I am not very familiar with
3. I will remove comments as I create posts that address them.

Rocking Northern California

Well its been a while since i last felt and Earth quake in California, this one that just hit 30 minutes ago was a 4.4 magnitude (not huge) but was only 10 miles away from my house. So I was doing my best to stabilize my computer screen from tipping over (Only draw back of flat panels, not really earth quake proof) Anyways hopefully everyone in the Norther California area is safe. Was a pretty bumpy ride.

Here is a cool site to get up to the minute information on California earthquakes. (Thanks Shaan for showing me this site)

http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/index.html

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40187964.html

AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies book released

Another great AutoCAD book has just been released from Wiley publishing called "The AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies". Authored by Lee Ambrosius' & David Byrnes packs a combination of fun to read mini books in this 800 page, 10 books in one, book. This book goes into detail on just about every subject that you could need in AutoCAD & AutoCAD LT 2007.  I was lucky enough to help out on this project doing the technical editing, and can say Lee and David nailed it on the content. The book is definitely a must have desk reference. Check out more details on Lee's blog post to find out all the details. http://hyperpics.blogs.com/beyond_the_ui/2006/08/autocad_autocad.html

New EplotView DWF & PDF viewer Palette

As many have probably noticed I've been MIA (Missing in Action) on keeping this BLOG up to date lately. One reason is the weather here in Norther California has been crazy. Last week we had temperatures around 110f then about 5 days later it was soo foggy out one morning it felt like it was raining. Hence, has been hard to sit down and write up some posts.

The other reason I've been under BLOG neglect is I've been trying to self teach myself the VB.net 2005 programming language. I'm not by any means a pro, but have been able to create a couple small programs that have helped me out in the office lately. So I thought i would share one of the programs I created here for everyone to test out.

The program basically is an Autodesk DWF & Adobe PDF viewer palette. This palette can be docked or anchored to the side of your screen (Anchored if you're using AutoCAD 2007). The palette allows you view, and print DWF/PDF files directly from a palette inside AutoCAD. This palette is especially helpful if you're station has one monitor and you dont want to tile applications to view files at the same time. You can then open up DWF/or PDF markups in the palette and make the corrections in you're DWG files as necessary.

Click here to download the program: Download EplotView.zip

Here is some screen captures of the program.

Viewing a DWF file inside the palette.


Print DWF's directly from the palette.

Open PDF's in the palette.

Print PDF's directly from the palette.

To load the program, simply download the attached zip folder and extract it to your computers hard drive. Next inside AutoCAD, issue the NETLOAD command and browse to the folder location you extracted the zip file. There, select the EplotView.dll to load it into the current AutoCAD session. Once its loaded into the current AutoCAD session the palette should automatically open. If not simply run the EplotView command on the AutoCAD command line to open the palette.

Prerequisites:
Autodesk DWF Viewer 7 must be installed
Adobe PDF Reader 7 must be installed
.Net 2.0 Framework must be installed

Known issues:

Palette looses focus at times if dynamic Inputs text box hovers over the palette. To fix, simply minimize the AutoCAD UI to refocus the cursor. If Dynamic Input is turned off there should be no problems.

The viewers will not show entirely maximized in the palette until you stretch the palettes width. Simply hover your cursor over the edge of the palette, once the arrows appear stretch palette outward to adjust the palettes width.

This program has been tested using AutoCAD 2007, and should work in AutoCAD 2006 as well. Feel free to test out the program in AutoCAD 2005 and see if it works. This program is not supported and should not be used on mission critical projects. If you have any requests or for find problems with the program feel free to send me an email, and I'll update the program when time permits.

Please let me know what you think.

Report any problems to dynamicinterface@hotmail.com

If this program helps you out, feel free to make a donation below.

Media Center controlling home appliances?

Found this link on Matt Goyer's Media Center BLOG. Seems like the Media Center Operating Systems are becoming a House Hold name (no pun intended). This link shows a possible future concept.

From the Post: http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2006/07/19/1147

This would be great for apartment buildings where you have to share a laundry room. From The washer goes wireless:

Are you ready for this? Microsoft, Whirlpool, Hewlett-Packard and other members of the Internet Home Alliance are about to start testing a system that connects a washer and dryer to a home network to deliver notifications to TV screens, PC monitors or cell phones about the status of a laundry load.

The “Laundry Time” system also goes further, to let people control the washer and dryer from a distance — pressing a button on a cell phone, for example, to keep the dryer going a few extra minutes until you get home. Microsoft created the Laundry Time software, which works in conjunction with the company’s Media Center PC and mobile-phone technology.

Separate Hatches

AutoCAD 2006/07 has a new feature called Separate Hatches. This new feature comes in handy when you want to just hatch your boundaries all at once, then after, apply different hatch patterns to each separate hatch. Pretty simple little feature but does help!!

Another enhancement with Hatches in the ability to separate previously "Grouped" hatches. You can double click you're hatch to open the Hatch Edit dialog box, then simply check the separate hatches check box to separate the hatches again.

One thing that have always bothered me about hatches is sometimes the custom hatch patterns can be extremely slow. Usually you'll notice this when you try to move custom hatch patterns. So a little trick I use is to simply create a block of the hatch. If you quickly make a block of the slow hatch pattern you can quickly move the hatch around your drawing, then when you need to edit it you can easily explode the block back to a hatch and work as normal.

New AutoCAD Customer Gallery

If you're like me, you're probably tired of going to the Autodesk website looking for work others been creating with AutoCAD and and to no avail, all there is, is that old 8th floor sample DWG. I think every CAD user has probably run into this file before. Well there is a nice new Customer Gallery on Autodesk.com that has some new content. There is some 3D projects along with some 2D projects in DWF and DWG file format. If you have a cool project that you'd like to submit to be possibly placed on the Customer Gallery follow the attached link to submit your file. Maybe one day some of these great samples will make it into the AutoCAD sample install folder. Submit File

You'll also see one of my sample Dynamic block drawings I've posted here before (MKM Associates) where nearly every object in the drawing file has been converted to a Dynamic block. Dynamic blocks play a huge role in our office especially for this type of project.

Link to AutoCAD Customer Gallery:

Fractions in Attributes....How?

Well my favorite team the San Jose Sharks have now been eliminated from the playoffs. It was a long and stressful month watching them win and loose in the playoffs. Hopefully next year will be their year and I'll have more to BLOG about next year. So on that note time for a cool AutoCAD tip.

A couple weeks ago I received an e-mail from a reader asking how I got a stacked fraction to appear inside an attribute. Well its a simple answer, we use "Big Fonts".  Whats a Big Font? Well I don't really know where the name came from myself, but the help says for some alphabets like Kanji it can contain thousands of non ascii characters. To accommodate such text, the program supports a special type of shape definition known as a Big Font file. A bigfont file allows you to enter a character string such as ~1, ~2, ~C or even ~p. Once you specify the string such as ~p you'll get the Plate Symbol appear in your editor. If you specify the ~1 you'll get the 1/16 and ~2 is 1/8 and so on. Pretty simple.

So this basically is what a Big font is. Now back to why I like big fonts. Well again you can specify stacked fractions inside an attribute. You can use the bigfont characters inside Fields and Dynamic block lookup tables. Big font files allow you to customize you're own custom symbols to meet your company's needs. Big fonts work inside the MTEXt & DTEXT editor. You can also specify different Big font .shx files to access different looking symbols such as Vertical or horizontal stacked fractions. The standard AutoCAD install, installs with a couple sample ones for you to play with.

So how do I set up a Big font for my text style.
Well first you need to issue the STYLE command. Once you get the Text Styles manager up all you need to do is change to the text styles you want to apply the big font to, and check the box that says "Use Big Font". Next the Big Font drop down will be enabled and allow you to specify a Big Font SHX file. (I use the special.shx) but you can pick any one you want. Once you select one you can hop into the Preview box and type in ~1 and you "Should" see a 1/16 symbol preview. If you still see ~1 then try another Big font file. Once you find one you like you can hit OK and try starting the Mtext editor inside AutoCAD using the ~1 character or entering in ~1 inside the Attribute editor. If you get a 1/16 symbol you've done a good job. Try exploring more possible key stroke characters or simply look at my chart provided below and change the text style for your desired big font.

Now some things to be aware of when using Big font files. If you send your file to someone else you need to make sure you send the Big font file with the DWG file. Otherwise when they open the file they probably will see the ~1 instead of the 1/16 symbol. If you use Etransmit and check the include fonts then you should have your big font file in your zip file and be all set.

Hope this helps out...

Click to download the Big Font File Chart: Download bigfonts.dwg
(Note: Some symbols in the image below are custom to the office I work at and may not be valid)

ALERT!! Bad Dynamic Block Bugs!!

Well its been a while since my last post. Its been pretty hard to get focused to sit down and write when the playoff chase for the NHL playoffs was going on. Now that my favorite team, the San Jose Sharks safely swooped into the 5th playoff spot we get to face the Nashville Predators tonight in Nashville. Hopefully they pull out a win tonight, well just have to wait and see.

So these pesky Dynamic block bugs? One of these bugs have been around since AutoCAD 2006. This bug has to do with inserting a Dynamic block using the explode option. So if you insert a dynamic block using the explode check box option you will infect your entire drawing with Dynamic block actions and parameters. Yes you drawings will think its a Dynamic block now when ever you open the drawing? This happens when you insert using the Dialog box explode check box, or even using the transparent -INSERT and using the "*"+blockname (*block1). If this accidentally happens to you, each time you open a drawing you'll be prompted to open the drawing in the block editor. Select YES. Once you enter the block editor, PAN and ZOOM around do some Regen's to adjust the parameter and action text size to locate the Dynamic block actions and parameters. Once you find them, select then and DELETE them. Once you're done location all the actions and parameters. Select the close block editor and save your drawing. The drawing will close down simply open the drawing back up using the OPEN command or the SSM and you should be back to normal. This one can be pretty annoying. So be careful especially when using the INSERT Dialog box along with Dynamic Blocks.

The other Dynamic block bug is inside AutoCAD 2007. If you insert a Dynamic block containing Attributes into your drawing. Next take the block and change a Dynamic block parameter, a linear rotate anything to modify the block. Now take that block and simply mirror it to the right, left, top or bottom of your drawing. Now select the newly created object from the mirror operations and use the COPY CLIP command, CTRL+C or edit pull down and COPY. Once your block is stored in the clipboard next switch over to a different drawing and paste the block into the drawing. You'll notice that ALL your attributes now show backwards. The only way I've been able to get a block into another drawing when it was mirrored is to XREF in the entire sheet into another drawing then use the BIND and INSERT option.

Hope this helps people out as this has come up many times here in our office.

P.S. GO SHARKS!!!

AutoCAD 2007 Tool palette additions

One of the nice things about AutoCAD 2007 is obviously the new 3D features. But one of the things I always found really difficult was setting up materials to apply to the model. I had a hard time trying to find material bitmaps and always ended up defaulting to VIZ or VIZ render to try and use their default materials. Well AutoCAD 2007 comes packed with materials. (Not sure how many, but I thought I heard over 400?). Anyways, when you install AutoCAD 2007 you'll get a bunch of tool palettes with many categorized materials at your finger tips. All you need to do is drag and drop them from the tool palette to your model. Then doctor them up in the new materials editor.

There is materials ranging from Site work, Doors and Windows, plastics, metals, concrete, and soo many more!!

AutoCAD 2007 Dynamic block enhancements

Well this will be a short post, sorry to tell all the "BLOCK HEADS" out there like me, there isn't many enhancements. The first enhancement is Dynamic block lookup tables now by default are set to "Allow Reverse Lookup". Pretty small addition but was annoying. The second enhancement is the ability to change Dynamic block properties during Insert. This is a GREAT and welcomed addition. Now you don't need to actually place your dynamic block then adjust sizes or visibility states. This makes it much faster to insert Dynamic blocks with parameter changes. Especially if you have the properties palette anchored to the left or right side of your screen.

There has been a handful of Dynamic block bug fixes. But hopefully next years release of AutoCAD will have more Dynamic block enhancements then these two. If you want to be heard and help shape the future of AutoCAD, head on over to Myfeedback.autodesk.com and sign up in the MyFeedback portal to get enrolled in Beta testing.

AutoCAD 2007 -DWF Attach....Ohh YEAH!!

The office I work in does very little 3D work. So we're primarily a 2D shop. Were constantly trying to take consultants 2D files and overlay them in ours. Well a lot of the times they wont send us DWG files, or they are on some CAD drafting application from Mars? You know how it is. So how do you get someone else's data into your files to update if you have no DWG's? Well no more wondering, you got DWFATTACH. DWF Attach allows you to browse and insert a DWF into your AutoCAD drawing as a DWF Underlay. You can import multi sheet DWF's and select which sheets to underlay. The precision is pretty good, but depending on how precise you want, depends on what the DPI setting of the DWF was plotted out at. So if you need EXACT, then you might want the DWG. If you need relatively close, or reference/ trace over, then DWF is the way to go. You can snap to geometry, clip the DWF, and change its contrast. (You CAN NOT however translate geometry from the DWF to the DWG unless you manually trace over all the lines, So your security of your DWF's are still kind of there.)

Inside AutoCAD 2007 you can enter DWFATTACH and simply browse for a Multi Sheet or Single Sheet DWF. Once you've selected your DWF you can then choose which sheet you would like to import, or select other options such as Path type, Scale, Rotation and Insertion Point. Pretty much the same options you see when attaching an Xref.
Note: One option many will probably be asking for is Layer control. Currently this is not supported and does make using the underlay a little bit hard to use. But if its a simple underlay it should work pretty good.

Here is an image showing some of the options you have when importing a DWF as an underlay. You can adjust the Contrast, Fade intensity, toggle the DWF between Monochrome settings, and Adjust its colors. Adjusting its colors helps you see the DWF with the type of background color you have.

What about getting a PDF into AutoCAD?

With the growing numbers of users out there using DWF, the majority are still transmitting with PDF. So what if I don't have a DWF and want to import a PDF? Well you can!! Just takes one extra little step. First step is to open your PDF inside Adobe Acrobat. Next you need to make sure you have the Free Autodesk DWF writer installed. Next simply plot your PDF to the DWF writer to create a DWF. Next just use the DWFATTACH command and simply browse for the newly created DWF to import your DWF into your DWG as an underlay. So now you can import not only DWF but PDF using the free Autodesk DWF writer.

More Intel on AutoCAD 2007

Hopefully everyone has been making it around some of the Autodesk BLOGS and other user BLOGS to see what's new. Soo many new features in AutoCAD 2007 for 3D its pretty overwhelming at first. But once you get your hands on it you'll never model 3D in previous releases again.

So here's some other new features. There's now some really nice 3D navigation tools such as 3DWALK and 3DFLY. How about some animation tools such as walk through and defining motion paths through polylines? You can also export this to desired resolutions and other video formats such as AVI, WMV, and MPG.

Theres a new feature called visual styles. Visual styles allow you to apply more styles to your drawings rather than the plain old SMOOTH PLUS edges we've had for years. Theres some default ones like Conceptual and Realistic that give you a pretty cool look that you can export if you want to a raster image. You can set overhangs to your lines, along with Jitter effects that can give you a pretty cool sketchy look.

Realistic:

Conceptual:

There are soo many cool settings you can change with the Visual Styles. Whats really cool is if you find the perfect setting you like, you can just save the Style and use it in other models!!

More to come tomorrow.

AutoCAD 2007 -Another release packed with features!!

Well whats new ....3D, 3D ohh and some more 3D. Ya AutoCAD 2007 is the year of 3D. Soo many new tools for 3D users. Some of the new tools range from a new Dynamic UCS, which automatically changes your UCS for you on the fly, a new Dashboard palette containing quick access to many 3D settings such as lighting, materials, render settings and more. Along with a really cool new rendering engine allowing you to render with Mental Ray/ Global Illumination.

Some other nice 3D enhancements I've heard many ask for in the past is grips on solids . Well they sure did listen, all the standard solid primitives that are created in AutoCAD 2007 now have grips on them to be changed. Height, Width, diameter, and many more are some of the options you have with the different types of solids.. Theres a new PRESS + PULL that allows you to also quickly modify your solids. (CTRL KEY is KEY in AutoCAD 2007...no punn intended)

More info to come in the next couple days!!

New AUGI Toolbar

Tonight I was searching around the internet looking for AutoCAD blogs and landed on Richar Binnings Besides the Cursor BLOG and noticed he developed a COOL Augi Toolbar for Internet explorer. This toolbar has access to the Augi Website, Augi Forums, Search Augi, AutoCAD Community, Revit Community, MSN Messenger, a Pop up Blocker, RSS Feeds with pre set feeds, and Autofill. This toolbar is pretty cool!! Nice work Richard!!

Link to Richards blog post: http://www.integr-8.com/besidethecursor/2006/02/are-you-using-augi-toolbar.html#links

Apparently he's working on one for mozilla\firefox also!!

New DWF BLOG

I was very happy to read on Shaan Hurley's BLOG that there is another new Autodesk BLOG called "Beyond the Paper". This one focusing on DWF!! Yes!! This DWF Blog is hosted by one guy who I can truly say probably knows everything there is about DWF. Anytime I have a DWF question its right to the Autodesk DWF Discussion group, post my question, wait 10 minutes and Scott Sheppard (1 part of the duo of "Mr.DWF", Brian Matthews being the other) has an answer for me!! Scott also knows a lot about plotting as he worked for Oce a couple years ago.

So jump on over to Scott's new DWF BLOG, http://blogs.autodesk.com/beyond_the_paper

Welcome to Blogging Scott!!

New BLOG full of tips from the one and only Ellen Finkelstein

If you haven't checked out her new BLOG I strongly suggest you head on over there. Ellen is also the author of the AutoCAD Bible books & wrote those 3 GREAT white papers for Autodesk on Dynamic blocks. She has a website that shes now taken a bunch of tips and tricks and sorted it by date to create her Tips and Tricks BLOG. Ellen is not only a great resource for AutoCAD but Powerpoint and RSS. (She helped me understand what all this RSS stuff was about for my BLOG here, Thanks Ellen..:)..)

Link to BLOG http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/autocad_tips_blog.html
Link to Website http://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/index.html

Hatch patterns in your Dynamic blocks got you down?

As one of my fellow bloggers Barry Ralphs (BazzaCAD Clog) said its been crazy here at work also. We've had most the CAD staff working on one project each day trying to get our selves back ahead of our projects. So I've been neglecting my posts. But no fear, I have many more Dynamic block posts coming in the future.

So, I've received many e-mails over the last 6 months about people having issues with hatches in dynamic blocks. Some advice I have is try two methods when your creating you blocks. First use the associative hatch "Pick Points" option to hatch in a desired area that you're going to apply your action to. Another option you can try is add draw in a boundary on a non plotting layer and apply you hatch using the "Select Objects" option.

All around I've seen many different problems with hatches. Some can also be fixed by simply doing a REGEN ALL to get the hatch to appear right. And some they need to be re-created??

TIP: If you're using a SOLID FILLED hatch pattern and having problems with you hatch patterns, a suggestion is you can use a old legacy command called SOLID aka 2D Solid. This will allow you to select a triangular, rectangular simple shape and shade it in with a 2D SOLID. This should work pretty well in you Dynamic block limiting the frustration in your block Authoring. Unfortunately if you want to use a different pattern that a SOLID FILLED then you're kind of outa luck. Hopefully the next release will fix some of these problems.

AUGI CAD Camp coming to NorCAL

YES, finally the Augi CAD Camp is coming to Northern California!! I'm very excited to finally see what this mini AU or CAD Camp is all about. You'll see there are many different types of classes ranging from AutoCAD 2006, Civil 3D, Revit, Inventor, CAD Management, and more. I may try and sneak in on a Dynamic Blocks class while I'm there to see if there's anything I missed that I can BLOG about? (Need to keep the Dynamic Block content going) There are also some really good instructors, Robert Green, David Cohn, Matt Murphy, Sheet Set Wiz Heidi Hewett, and of course the all around AutoCAD guru Lynn Allen. The CAD Camp is only one day long so its a nice little way to get a break form the office. Were in the mist of trying to send our whole CAD department so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully it doesn't fill up too fast. Early registration is now open so if you're a AUGI member get on over to the site to sign up and get the early bird fee.

Hope to see everyone who can make it there!!

AUGI Web Site: http://Augi.com
Link to AUGI CAD Camp: http://cadcamp.com
Link to AUGI San Francisco CAD Camp: http://cadcamp.com/sanfrancisco/default.asp

DWF Send Finally!!

If you haven't installed DWF Viewer 6.5. Make sure you do!! They now have a nice little tool called SEND. No more having to save a DWF and go back to the job folder in explorer to find the DWF. You can now send a DWF directly from inside DWF Viewer. This was a huge wish list item on my list and happy to finally see if included in the product. Now just cant wait to see it included in DWF Composer so we can markup and send directly after marking up.

You can also now select a DWF in windows explorer, right click and hit SEND to email a DWF directly from windows explorer. After the DWF is added to your email it will automatically add in a signature that has the address where the person your sending the DWF to can automatically install the DWF viewer.

Create Custom Parameter Sets in Authoring Palette

Now that many are probably more comfortable with the new Dynamic block Authoring environment (Block Editor). I wanted to try and answer a question some may be wondering. What are these parameter sets all about? Well a parameter set is basically a quick way to build your dynamic blocks. They allow you to set up parameter & action sets for your dynamic blocks. So you could set up a button that will prompt you for a Linear parameter then have it immediately run the stretch or move action afterwords. These parameter sets come in real handy if you're trying to replicate a bunch of dynamic blocks. They do at times seem to be a little limited but the general functionality is there. I personally rarely use these but some may find a liking to them.

Once you activate the Authoring palette "Parameter Sets" you can then Copy a tool and paste it back in to create another parameter set. You can also select properties to change actions or parameters associated with the tool.

If you choose the properties option you can change the name of the tool, and also the associated actions for the tool. You can modify the amount of grips, or the properties type of parameter the tool uses.

Here you can add actions that are associated with the new tool.

AutoCAD 2006 TAB to see "MY" custom programs

This last week I've been attempting to learn some basic VBA skills. Well I developed a couple simple programs for our office and prior to deploying them out to our users I stepped back and thought "How are our users remembering all the codes?" We have nearly 200 lisp codes that our users use throughout the week. I'm sure there are company's out there who have a ton more, who use nothing but Lisp, VBA, ARX, what ever programing language you prefer. But I was interested in how everyone is remembering all these names? Well I asked around to some people who I've talked to from Forums and many say, Toolbars, Toolpalettes, Menu Pulldowns through the CUI, or just writing up some good documentation. I think all of those are great!! But I wanted this time to try a new method. Well I remembered that AutoCAD 2006 introduced the TAB feature at the command line to cycle through command names. Which comes really in handy especially when you forget what a command name is. Or you can remember what the command name starts with but cant remember the rest. Anyways, I decided that this time I would name my codes a little differently. I decided to append "MY" to the beginning of the code. Why you ask? Well by naming my code with MY before anything will allow the users to TAB through ONLY "MY" custom codes (Except MYDOCUMENTSPREFIX). So there is no more cycling through a bunch of Standard commands when you're looking for a company code. Now I'm not saying you need to append MY to every code. But for the specialty codes that aren't used everyday this has come in real handy for our users to quickly find our company codes. So just wanted to share with everyone because this little method might end up working out for your office as well. Some other ideas you could append instead of MY is an abbreviation of your company name? Ours for example, MKMLAYERS, MKMBEAM what ever it is.

My #1 favorite Lisp code

Well its close to Christmas time, so I thought I would share my #1 favorite lisp code with everyone who's read my BLOG this year. So what is this code? The code is called TLEAD. TLEAD stands for Text leader. The difference between this code and may AutoCAD commands like LEADER and QLEADER is this one actually allows you to control the way the leader is placed.

When you issue the TLEAD command you are prompted to select a string of text. Here you can select the left or right side of the string of text. You then select the start point for the leader, and you'll now get a rubber band effect with a horizontal tracking. You then can select the point you want to place the landing for the leader, and thats it. This command I probably use hundreds of times a day. By far the most popular command in our office.

I hope everyone enjoys this little routine, and has a wonderful holiday.

You can download the file here: Download TLEAD.LSP

(defun c:tlead
       (/ tobj tlist dtlist dtinsp dtenttb p1 p2 dthalfwidth+gap)
 
  (setvar "cmdecho" 0)
   (setq tobj (entsel "\nSelect Top or Bottom Line of Text: "))
  (setq tlist (entget (car tobj)))
  (if (= (cdr (assoc 0 tlist)) "TEXT")
    (progn
      (setq dtenttb (textbox (entget (car tobj))))
      (setq dtlist (entget (car tobj)))
    )
  )
  (if (= (cdr (assoc 0 tlist)) "MTEXT")
    (progn
      (command "explode" tobj)
      (setq mtline (ssget (cadr tobj))) ;warning! This uses the cursor's position, not an actual object point!
      (setq dtlist (entget (ssname mtline 0)))
      (setq dtenttb (textbox (entget (ssname mtline 0))))
      (command "u")
    )
  )
  (setq dtinspt (cdr (assoc 10 dtlist)))
  (setq p1 (list (/ (+ (caadr dtenttb) (caar dtenttb)) 2.0)
   (/ (+ (cadar dtenttb) (cadadr dtenttb)) 2.0)
   (cadddr (assoc 10 dtlist))
    )
  )
  (setq inspt (list (+ (car dtinspt) (car p1))
   (+ (cadr dtinspt) (cadr p1))
   (+ (caddr dtinspt) (caddr p1))
    )
  )
  (setq dthalfwidth+gap
  (+ (/ (- (caadr dtenttb) (caar dtenttb)) 2.0)
     (* 0.03625 (getvar "dimscale"))
  )
  )
  (prompt "\nSelect Leader Start and Bend Points: ")
  (command "leader"
    pause
    ".Y"
    inspt
    pause
    (polar inspt (angle inspt (getvar "lastpoint")) dthalfwidth+gap)
    ""
    ""
    "n"
  )
  (princ)
)

Between the Lines Holiday product donation for students

Its that time of the year again. Shaan Hurley of "Between the Lines" is holding his 3rd annual holiday product donation for students. This little giveaway is not only for AutoCAD, but for other Autodesk products suck as Revit Structure, Inventor and many others.

About 2 years back for Shaan's first annual product donation and give away I put in a nomination for a friend of my from college & high school. At that time, he had just injured him self working  at a sporting goods store and suffered from a slipped disk in his back at only 20 years old. Well he was bed ridden from working for about 6 months and went through many surgery's to repair. I submitted a short little story explaining my friends situation and Shaan graciously acknowledged by sending him a seat of AutoCAD 2004. My friend was able to learn AutoCAD while injured and bedridden, studying the help book and was able to get his first drafting job only 4 months after being approved to begin working again. Now after a year, he's just gotten on board with our firm MKM & Associates and is continuing to improve each day. Just a short little success story from this donation.

So, if you have a student or know someone who could really benefit form one of these free NFR copies of Autodesk products, make sure to jump over to Shaan's site to get your nomination in.

Save, Close and Quit with Speed!!

If you're like me, speed is one of the main areas I always like improve in. Whether its finding new little macros or simply standard AutoCAD or Express tools to quickly do repetitive tasks. Well an AutoCAD 2006 Express tool I frequently use is SAVEALL. This nice little code will Automatically do a QSAVE on all the currently open drawings you have open. Whats nice is some people (Like me) usually leave that pesky drawing1 open. Well the SAVEALL will cycle through all your drawings, once it hits drawing1 it will prompt you for a save as. You can save, or just hit cancel and the routine will continue to run and save the rest of the drawings. Its a very speedy command. Along with being very handy when working with many XREF's, where you can make sure your base drawing and all the extra XREFS you have open are saved, then can be reloaded into your base drawing.

If you need to close all your drawings there is a command for that also. CLOSEALL will simply close all your currently open drawings back to the blank AutoCAD state. This command I don't usually use but some may find it to their liking.

The one I commonly use (Typically when getting ready to go home) is the QQUIT command. This command will attempt to close all open drawings, offering to save any modified drawings, then exit AutoCAD. If a drawing has not been named yet, QQUIT will prompt for a file name. Then will shut AutoCAD down for you.

All these commands can be found in the AutoCAD 2006 Express tools pull down under Express>>File Tools then your desired command.

Copy Objects to ALL Layouts

We use paperspace for a lot of our sheet information. Whether its for Title block information, sheet numbers, keynote legends, plan titles or even general note information. And sometimes we'll have 1 to 20 layout tabs all contained inside this one drawing. So managing this information when revisions are made can be a pain. How much time alone has it taken you to cycle through 20+ layout tabs? It takes me a good amount of time. Each time you change layouts your viewports need to regenerate and depending on how much geometry or viewports this can get slow. There are some system variables you can use to help and we'll cover that in another post later.

So what do you do when you forgot to add a date field to you're title block information? Or forget to add the "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" note to you're drawings? Well you could create you're field and start opening each layout tab. Or you could use this simple code called COPY2LAYOUTS. COPY2LAYOUTS will actually prompt you to select any amount of objects from the current layout tab, build a selection set then apply those objects to each layout tab in your drawing. Using the same base point that objects from the first layout tab used. So you can get a bunch of information applied to all layout tabs with ease.

Click here to download the Lisp file Download copy2layouts.lsp

(defun c:copy2layouts (/ objects x layouts)
(setq objects (ssget))
(setq layouts (getvar "ctab"))
(command "_copybase" "0,0" objects "")
(command "erase" "p" "")
  (foreach x (layoutlist)
(setvar "ctab" x)
(command "_pasteblock" "0,0")
    (command "explode" "l" "")
)
(setvar "ctab" layouts)
(princ))