Between the Lines

Place your DWG File on a Diet

I received an email from blog reader Steve Roberts with a suggested tip topic on how to reduce the size and clean up DWG drawing files using four AutoCAD commands. I wrote a quick blog post in the topic.

It’s going to become Summer for many of us around the world so those bloated and unhealthy DWG files don’t look very good on the beach, and certainly not on your hard drive. What do you do?

There are a few commands you can use to get rid of the file bloating references. Be careful you are not removing things you actually need at some point like an unreferenced dimension style or block.

To clean up drawings, reduce file size and making the the files more healthy use these AutoCAD commands.

AUDIT
This command will examine the drawing file and find errors and allow you to fix them.

PURGE
This command will allow you to purge any unused styles, blocks etc. Be careful you don’t actually need them later or a coworker does. When in doubt don’t purge it out.

-PURGE
This is the command line only version of the PURGE command and used in customized Lisp and scripts.

OVERKILL
This awesome and aptly named command looks for things like duplicated lines on top of lines and removes them.
There is a -OVERKILL as well to be used in Lisp and scripts.

If you have a tutorial on an Autodesk product they want to be posted to this blog and read by thousands of readers, please email me.

Cheers,
Shaan

The Very First AutoCAD Logo from 1982

I have one of the first AutoCAD manuals with this old logo and showed it at my keynote on the topic of Autodesk and Innovation #AutodeskInnovation at the ProSoft Powerlaunch event Thursday.

AutoCAD Tip - Create a Seamless Wood Grain Hatch

SUPERHATCH is a former AutoCAD Express Tool that is now included in the core AutoCAD product. You can create a hatch pattern from most anything without having to learn how to write a hatch pattern definition file.

This AutoCAD tutorial is by Autodesk’s own Cliff Young of the AutoCAD Test Development Team.

Step 1. Draw a rectangle and divide it into quadrants.

Step 2. Draw wood grain. Draw polylines across the rectangle to simulate a wood grain. Be sure that the number of endpoints at the top edge is the same as the number of endpoints at the bottom edge, and the number of endpoints at the left edge is the same as the number of endpoints at the right edge. (This is important, because you will be connecting these endpoints later).

Step 3. Make 3 copies   2 copies of everything (rectangle, quadrant lines and wood grain).     1 copy of just the rectangle and quadrant lines.

Step 4. Trim the wood grain and copy the quadrants.

Inside the first rectangle, trim or delete all the wood grain from the upper-right and lower-left quadrants. Inside the second rectangle, trim or delete all the wood grain from the upper-left and lower-right quadrants. Copy the trimmed wood grain quadrants to their opposite quadrant in the new rectangle (E.G. upper-right to lower-left, etc.)

Step 5. Clean up the wood grain.

Make any other changes you want to any of the interior vertices of the wood grain. The only rule is to never move any of the outer-edge endpoints. Move the interior endpoints so that they are coincident. Do not move any of the outer-edge endpoints - these need to remain where they are so that the pattern will tile seamlessly.

Step 6. Join all the polylines and convert to splines.

AutoCAD Command: PEDIT > Multiple (Select all wood grain polylines) > Join > Spline

Step 7. Create a Block.

Create a Block from the wood grain (do not include the rectangle and quadrant lines in the block geometry).

Step 8. Draw a boundary to be hatched with the wood grain.

Step 9. Using SUPERHATCH, apply the wood grain block to the boundary.

AutoCAD Command: SUPERHATCH > Block Select the wood grain block Place the block in inside the boundary Accept all the SUPERHATCH defaults Pick a point inside the boundary

Step 10. Experiment.

Try different SUPERHATCH scales (X and Y) and rotation angles. In this example: X scale = 1.2 Y scale = 0.7 Angle = 3

Download Wood Grain Tutorial DWG

Download Wood hatch other DWG

Thanks Cliff!

If you have a tutorial on an Autodesk product they want to be posted to this blog and read by thousands of readers, please email me.

Cheers,
Shaan

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AutoCAD Tip: How Do I Get the Old Array Version Back

AutoCAD 2014 & Revit 2014 Free Book Titles Released

Longtime AutoCAD, Revit and Architecture veteran, writer, trainer, consultant, photographer,and friend David Cohn sent me a note that he has released some iBooks on AutoCAD 2014 for those of you with Apple devices. These iBooks are multimedia rich with text, images, and video. You can even add your own notes while going through the iBook. There are also Point Cloud and Revit Architecture 2014 titles available free in the iBook store by CADLearning™ by 4D Technologies.

These titles are also available as free eBook titles on the CADLearning website.

Matt Murphy let me know that the eBook announced on this blog (Free AutoCAD 2014 eBook) caused many downloads from my Between the Lines blog readers. Matt has now published a new Revit Architecture 2014 title:

Autodesk Revit Architecture New Features & Enhancements - Revealed! for you to get free.

http://www.cadlearning.com/revit-2014-new-features

AutoCAD Tip: How Can I Restore the "Classic" AutoCAD Interface, with Menus and Toolbars?

The Autodesk product teams receive several emails from the Autodesk Product Feedback Form. Your feedback goes to the products teams and they read them. In many cases team members respond if there is enough detail and time permitting but they can’t respond to every feedback submission, but do try to help when they can.

This solution on the Menubar and Toolbars is by AutoCAD Test Development’s Chris Miller.

So you like to have AutoCAD look and feel like previous classic release. This is one of the powerful traits of AutoCAD and that is it can be customized seven ways from Sunday.

You can restore the standard Menubar and Toolbars by using the command: WSCURRENT and setting this system variable to AutoCAD Classic. In the more recent AutoCAD releases this setting is available from the quick access toolbar in the upper left of the screen:

Once this workspace is restored you can right-click any toolbar and check to display other toolbars you may want.

You can even get your current AutoCAD to look like AutoCAD R12 many many years ago.

Related articles

AutoCAD 2014 Fit & Finish Enhancements

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AutoCAD 2014 Tips & Tricks Book by Lynn Allen

If you want to get the latest tips and tricks for the current AutoCAD 2014, then Lynn Allen's Tips and Tricks booklet is the prescription the Doctor ordered.  

 

 

Lynn Allen's Tips & Tricks Book for AutoCAD 2014 (free PDF)
http://autode.sk/lynntips2014

If you haven't kicked the tires of AutoCAD 2014, download the free full version trial here and give it a try: http://http://autode.sk/ZdRG2i

AutoCAD Tip: How Do I Get the Old Array Version Back

 

The Autodesk product teams receive several emails from the Autodesk Product Feedback Form. Your feedback goes to the products teams and they read them. In many cases team members respond if there is enough detail and time permitting but they can’t respond to every feedback submission, but do try to help when they can.

This solution on the AutoCAD ARRAY Command is by AutoCAD Test Development’s Daniel Kuhmann.

New ARRAY                                     Classic ARRAY Dialog

 

So you like the way the old pre AutoCAD 2012 Array command worked with the dialog. Even though there is more functionality in the new ARRAY version you don’t want to deal with the learning curve or change your ways. I understand as I still type DDARRAY as old habits are hard to break. No problem here is the solution to get the Classic ARRAY back.

The command you’re looking for is ARRAYCLASSIC.

If you are using AutoCAD 2012, you will need to install service pack 1 or 2 to use the ARRAYCLASSIC command. If you are using AutoCAD 2013 or AutoCAD 2014, you will not have to install a service pack.

Now wasn’t that just ARRAY of sunshine <bad pun>
-Shaan

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AutoCAD Stacked and Baseline Dimensions

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AutoCAD 2013 Service Pack 2 has been Released

In a continuing effort to improve customer experience and product quality, we released a Service Pack 2 for AutoCAD 2013. For detailed information on issues addressed in this service pack, installation, and notes on changes please make sure to review the ReadMe before installing.

AutoCAD 2013 Service Pack 2
AutoCAD 2013 SP2 (32-bit) (exe - 32429Kb) AutoCAD 2013 SP2 (64-bit) (exe - 41353Kb)

Readme

This Service Pack can be applied to AutoCAD 2013 installed as a standalone application as well as AutoCAD 2013 installed for the following Autodesk Design Suites.

• AutoCAD Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Building Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Factory Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Plant Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Product Design Suite 2013

Every time you experience an “unplanned exit” from AutoCAD, please make sure to send in a CER report. The CER is where we get a great deal of clues on the problems details and possible methods to fix it in a hotfix or service pack.

Download the Service Pack: http://autode.sk/18ZsXk9

Cheers,
Shaan

 

AutoCAD Tip: My Delete Key, Double Click & Layer Control are Not Working

 

The Autodesk product teams receive several emails from the Autodesk Product Feedback Form. Your feedback goes to the products teams and they read them. In many cases team members respond if there is enough detail and time permitting but they can’t respond to every feedback submission, but do try to help when they can.

This solution on the AutoCAD PICKFIRST System Variable is by AutoCAD Test Development’s Misha Belilovskiy.

Oh Pick Me, Pick Me, Pick Me” like a little kid being wanting to be chosen for the dodgeball game in gym class.

 

This has to be one of the most common of all AutoCAD questions and issues encountered by AutoCAD users. They become puzzled when this system variable is set to 0 by accident, errant Lisp or script or perhaps evil coworkers messing with them. The most common clue is their Delete key and double click and Layer control are not working.

The solution while not obvious is an easy fix.

Set your PICKFIRST system variable to 1. You do this by entering PICKFIRST at the command line.

The other most common is AutoCAD dialogs not working and that is due to FILEDIA variable set to 0 to instead of 1.

AutoCAD Stacked and Baseline Dimensions

The Autodesk product teams receive several emails from the Autodesk Product Feedback Form. The Product Feedback form is the one that I had mentioned in the a recent post: Send Your Feedback or BBQ Recipe to an Autodesk Product Team. Your feedback goes to the products teams and they read them. In many cases team members respond if there is enough detail and time permitting as they can’t respond to every feedback submission and are not product support but do try to help.

The AutoCAD QA Team wanted to address a couple of the common feedback form reported issues they have received in a few blog posts. This post on Stacked and Baseline Dimensions is by AutoCAD Test Development extraordinaire Chris Miller.

How do I create Stacked Dimensions?

There are a number of do this, depending on what you mean by “stacked dimensions.”

If you create a dimension, double-click it (or enter DDEDIT then select it) to edit the text, you can add a 2nd line of text below the dimension value by entering \X and then the string you want to add, or just move the cursor to the end of the text and hit Enter on the keyboard to enter a 2nd line of text.

Or...you can stack alternate units below the value so the dimension shows values in two different units (say Inches and mm). This is done in the DIMSTYLE dialog > Modify > Alternate units tab.

If what you're looking for is Baseline Dimensions:

In that case you want to use the DIMBASELINE command (Annotate Ribbon tab > Dimensions panel > 4th button is Continued and Baseline) and you can adjust the spacing between the dimensions using DIMSTYLE > Modify > Lines tab > Baseline setting.

Thank you Chris!

Don’t forget if you have feedback, to offer up a family BBQ recipe or even a good beer or wine suggestion. http://autode.sk/feedback

-Shaan

AutoCAD 2014 Fit & Finish Enhancements

AutoCAD F3 has stood for Fit, Finish, and Fix or Fit & Finish which would also include customer and AUGI Wish List requests. It is these sometimes seemingly minor changes in a new release that in many cases mean the most to some users workflow, yet are the least highlighted in advertising or marketing as they are just not all that sexy. Since we setup a team and list back in AutoCAD 2000i, I have considered these little golden productivity nuggets.

I reached out to Autodesk’s Jon Page of AutoCAD User Experience “UX” (Product Design) for some of the F3 items that were included in the newly released AutoCAD 2014.

Layer

• Layer Merge
• Natural Number Sort
• Ribbon Layer List Length

Xref Manager

• Double click Attach/Overlay
• Path conversion for multiple refs (logical, relative, none.) This is also scriptable.
• Xref linetypes – the option don’t show in ribbon linetype control or properties palette

Misc.

• Fillet/chamfer Polyline open ends <BAM! - Gold Strike>
• Arc Clockwise direction creation
• DIMCONTINUEMODE
• CONVERTPSTYLES - fixed to support plot styles with spaces in name

Stay tuned for more F3 gold nuggets in a future post.

Cheers,
Shaan

How Do You Say DWG?

The file format of AutoCAD is DWG. Over the years I have heard it pronounced so many ways and I wanted to hear from you, and why. 

Do you say the letters D W G? (That’s what I do.)

Do you say DraWinG

Or do you say Dwig, and make me cringe when you do?

 

On a related topic of DWG, the new 2014 version of Autodesk TrueView is available free to download and you can use it to view, plot complete with plot styles, and convert DWG files in batch between DWG file versions. It is built on the same exact code as AutoCAD.

Go get DWG TrueView for free 100% Autodesk DWG viewing & plotting.

AutoCAD Flashback Friday - R11 for Macintosh

Here is a fun rare flashback to 1992 and the rare AutoCAD R11 for Macintosh. Having the actual R11 and R12 for Macintosh physical versions is like having your own private unicorn herd, in a CAD geek way.

From the AutoCAD Release 11 for Macintosh March 20, 1992 Installation Guide.

In the vintage AutoCAD for Mac R11 and R12 versions, we used a mostly standard AutoCAD R11/R12 DOS User Interface on the Mac, but with the current AutoCAD for Mac we asked Mac users what they wanted, and they overwhelmingly wanted a native Mac UI experience with the menubar, palettes, and visors.

Now Back to the Future of today:

The current AutoCAD 2013 for the Mac

The current AutoCAD 2014 Windows

Free AutoCAD 2014 eBook

Matt Murphy emailed to let me know that CADLearning has launched a FREE 144 page streaming eBook on the new AutoCAD 2014. The new eBook titled “AutoCAD 2014 New Features & Enhancements Revealed” is an interactive eBook with video, text, and images throughout the 33 included lessons. More Autodesk product titles are in the works.
http://www.cadlearning.com/autocad-2014-new-features

Thanks Matt for sharing. I love providing learning resources or book announcements to Between the Lines blog readers.

-Shaan

Attention ObjectARX Developers

The AutoCAD 2014 ObjectARX SDK is now available for download from the "Autodesk Developer Network “ADN” web site. Many of the  2014 products in multiple languages are also available for download by ADN members.

The 2014 ObjectARX SDK will also soon be available to everyone at http://www.autodesk.com/objectARX but currently there is a web page issue being looked into.

“The ObjectARX® programming environment provides object-oriented C++, C#, and VB .NET application programming interfaces for developers to use, customize, and extend AutoCAD® software and AutoCAD-based products, such as AutoCAD® Architecture, AutoCAD® Mechanical, and AutoCAD® Civil 3D® software. A version of ObjectARX for AutoCAD® for Mac® software is also available, though not all APIs are available in the Mac version.

ObjectARX programming environment libraries provide versatile sets of tools with which AutoCAD API developers can take advantage of the open architecture of AutoCAD software. They also provide direct access to the AutoCAD database structures, graphics system, and native command definition.“

Feedback on Using Math in CAD

Math and design go hand in hand like cream in a Twinkie. Autodesk is conducting research about how CAD designers and engineers use mathematical software and tools in their design workflows. We are especially interested in hearing from people who use tools like Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, Excel or QuickCalc. Perhaps you calculate electrical capacity, material weight, center of gravity, required tube count and pitch in a heat exchanger tubesheet, or heat transfer loads, and we want to know what tools you are you currently using. We are also interested in hearing about other types mathematics software tools support the design process.

We want to find out:

1. Do you use mathematics software or tools
2. If so, which mathematics software or tools do you currently use
3. How you incorporate the results of mathematical calculations in your design workflows
   

The survey only you a paltry 5 minutes but go towards improving future Autodesk products.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QDTCPR7

Download AutoCAD 2014 Free

You can now download a completely functional 30 day trial version of the newly released AutoCAD 2014.

Take the 28th release of AutoCAD for a test drive with no missing features or strings attached. It has the same DWG and API versions as AutoCAD 2013, so you won't be creating incompatible file issues. You can run it through its paces to decide for yourself if you are going to upgrade or purchase it as a standalone or in a product suite.

Download AutoCAD 2014 30 Day Free Trial Now
http://www.autodesk.com/products/autodesk-autocad/free-trial

Checkout the AutoCAD 2014 Preview Guide to get a overview of some of the new features and changes.

AutoCAD 2014 & AutoCAD LT 2014 Preview Guides

 

The AutoCAD 2014 and the AutoCAD LT 2014 Preview Guides in PDF format are a nice highlight of the new releases written by Autodesk’s very own Heidi Hewett. The Preview Guide is like an exceptionally nice cliff notes guide for the new product releases under 30 pages, but not a 700+ page complete how to use the product.

Download the AutoCAD_2014_Preview_Guide

Download the Autocad-LT-2014 Preview Guide

 

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AutoCAD 2014 System Requirements

AutoCAD 2014 File Tabs

AutoCAD 2014 System Requirements

So you have just heard about AutoCAD 2014 and looking to purchase or upgrade, one of your first questions are is “does my current system meet the system requirements?”

Below are the system requirements for AutoCAD 2014, but like anything it all depends on what type of data you work with. If you do small 2D work then you have less system horsepower. But if you work with large files, and especially 3D then the system requirements really should be considered the minimum to get good performance and stability.

 

AutoCAD 2014 File Tabs

Yes its true! Drawing Tabs are now part of the core AutoCAD 2014 product and now named File Tabs.

Back on Halloween (31 October 2006) I posted on this blog a Bonus Tool named Drawing Tabs also MDITabs. The Bonus Tool was very very popular and when some API versions changed in AutoCAD I would have to make calls encouraging someone to please assign a developer to update it. We re-released it several times for new versions until we added it to the Autodesk App Exchange last year for AutoCAD 2013. But now it is built right into AutoCAD 2014 as File Tabs. Thank you AutoCAD Team for incorporating this.

Here is File Tabs in a nutshell

File Tabs are the little tabs located at the upper left of your drawing window that allow you to select the file tab you want to switch to. It shows a File Tab for each open drawing as well as has some other built in functionality.

When hovering over the File tab you can see all the Layouts in the drawing using the QuickView Drawing and easily select the one you want active.

You can also QuickView Layouts in other File Tab open drawings, not just the active one. This allows you to quickly find visually what you are looking for.

You can Plot & Publish from the preview as well.

Right-click on the File Tab and you get the options:

Create a New drawing
Open and existing drawing
Save As
Save All drawings

Close the current drawing
Close All drawings
Close all but the selected drawing tab

Copy the file path
Open the file location in Windows Explorer

An asterisk on the File tab indicates the drawing has changed since last save.

So from now on people wont have to search my blog or install an app to get the File Tabs (Drawing Tabs) functionality they loved.

Cheers,
Shaan

AutoCAD Reference File Management

How can you update and re-path AutoCAD drawing reference files such as other drawing files, fonts, or plot configuration files after a path has changed without launching AutoCAD?
Use the stand alone Reference Manager

AutoCAD drawings can reference several types of external files including other drawings (XRefs), images, fonts, images, PDF, DWF, DGN underlays, and plot configurations. The paths to these referenced files are saved in each AutoCAD drawing.

You can locate the Reference Manager from the Windows Start Menu > Programs > Autodesk > AutoCAD 20xx > Reference Manager

Note: this tool is not included with AutoCAD for Mac.

You can load a great deal of drawings into the Reference Manager and verify all references are found or change paths.

On opening a drawing with references you can choose to show all reference files or just the first level of references.

You can search, select all, invert selections, edit selected paths and even use find and replace paths in batch. Identifying and fixing problems or just changing reference file paths is easy!

I can isolate the problem reference files and in this case it is a missing Xref that is now in a new folder. I can click on it and enter a new path, or even browse for the new path.

I can also Find and Paths if for example I was re-pathing all my files to a new network directory or relative paths.

One last bonus is that you export a report of the reference files in CSV or XLS format.

Cheers,
Shaan

Cross Platform Licensing of AutoCAD Mac & Windows

Did you know that if you purchase wither AutoCAD 2013 for Windows or AutoCAD for Mac 2013 you can activate both using the same license? Yes you can use same license to activate both (2 machines in 12 month period). The same goes for AutoCAD Product Suites.

Example:
You use both a Mac and Windows machine and want to use native AutoCAD versions on both platforms. You purchased AutoCAD 2013 for Windows. Do you need to also purchase AutoCAD for Mac 2013, the answer is no. Just activate the AutoCAD for Mac using the serial from the AutoCAD 2013 for Windows. You can activate 2 machines in a twelve month period. So you could purchase AutoCAD for Windows or the AutoCAD Design Suite then download the trial AutoCAD for Mac and activate it. Both Windows and Mac versions can also be licensed on a network license server.

The DWG files are exactly the same. Many of the customizations such as LISP, Scripts, Sheet Sets (Project Mgr. Palette on Mac) are compatible so you can work in a mixed environment.

So if you have users in your company that prefer a native Mac version of AutoCAD, they can easily do so and use the AutoCAD for Windows license and/or server.

Cheers,
Shaan

AutoCAD Tip: Using an Updating Text Field to Display Area of Hatch

In this example I am using AutoCAD for Mac 2013 but it is also applicable to AutoCAD for Windows.

So you have an area of a drawing in AutoCAD that is closed and has a Hatch pattern applied. What you want is an easy updated way to show the area in text even when the area hatched is changed. No problem use an AutoCAD Field.

Compare DWG File Changes in AutoCAD

Have you ever ended up with two drawings of the same name, just different time stamps on the file or an added suffix on the file name? Perhaps another team member was trying to be helpful (or not) and edited the file, now you need to know what changed.

Lucky for you there is an Autodesk App for that, and FREE.

I am using AutoCAD 2013 which is the version compatible with this app. Go to the Autodesk exchange from within AutoCAD using the icon in the upper right.

Or you could go to the Autodesk Exchange page http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/

Search for DWG Compare App, and the install it. while there grab the Drawing Tabs App.

After setting the original source drawing and the second version you select the little green arrow in the top of the DWG Compare plugin palette.

Now the results will be listed on the palette and you can select them and it will highlight that specific change. You can see what has been added, modified, or deleted as they are colored green, yellow and red and to make it obvious the non-altered objects are changed to a grey.

Cheers,
Shaan

Attention AutoCAD Developers

If you develop customization or apps for AutoCAD please take a few minutes and provide your feedback on the AutoCAD Developer Documentation Survey. The team is looking for your feedback to help prioritize topics.

http://svy.mk/12gUMny