Tag: autocad

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So you want a blank drawing at startup?

In AutoCAD 2015 (and LT), AutoDesk have introduced a welcome screen that is more difficult to turn off rather than just unchecking “Display at Startup”.

Welcome-Screen-in-AutoCAD

 

Now you get the New Tab “feature”. I quite like the integration of it, rather than it looking like an afterthought. AutoDesk are definitely working towards a better design for AutoCAD, over the last couple of versions there have been many visual improvements.

new_tab_screen

So if you look around the internet there are two methods to turn off this feature, one just turns off the tab and leaves you with a blank AutoCAD, as if you have closed all the drawings but not closed AutoCAD. I don’t particularly like this solution but if you want to go with this just type NEWTABMODE and set it to 0.

The other option which appears in the help and therefore seems to be the preferred method by AutoDesk is to change the STARTUP variable.

0- Starts a drawing without defined settings.
1 – Displays the Startup or the Create New Drawing dialog box.
2 – A New Tab is displayed. If available in the application, a custom dialog box is displayed.
3- A New Tab is displayed and the ribbon is pre-loaded when you open or create a new drawing.

3 is the default for 2015. 1 gives you a really old school dialog box that I haven’t seen since version 2002!

startup-01

0 is the option you will want to default to 2014 and previous style behaviour.

Closing the last open drawing in modes 1, 2 or 3 will bring up the New Tab welcome screen.

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Annoying Auto Zooming Viewports

Today I noticed that one of drawing I opened automatically zoomed the viewport to extents when double clicking in the viewport. This is extremely annoying, particularly if I wanted to pan after setting the scale.

The solution is that a variable was set wrong.

In order to fix this it is fairly simple (though if you have many viewports time consuming – see here for a LISP that might help with many viewports).

  • First lock the viewport using properties
  • Then double click in viewport
  • Then type UCSFOLLOW
  • Set UCSFOLLOW to 0
  • Click back to paperspace
  • Unlock viewport

 

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Proxy Objects

Previously I noted that you could remove deeply buried proxy objects (or zombies) using an exchange application. There are other LISP routines out there to remove proxy objects. However neither of these are possible unless you have the full version of AutoCAD but what if you have LT?

This site notes, that if you have LT you can re-save your file using the AECTOACAD command. This however might remove objects! Make sure you backup first.

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Selection Methods

Today one of my colleagues asked whether he could select an object and select all other objects on the same layer or by type without using quick select (QSELECT).

I found on another Blog some interesting selection methods, however as this was published in 2008 some of the features of AutoCAD LT in particular have been updated since.

The one in particular that is now avaiable in AutoCAD LT 2015 is SelectSimilar. This allows you to click on an object and select all items that are similar, whether by layer or by colour etc. SE within the command brings up the settings check box, rather than the usual S.

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Scale in one axis

One of my colleagues today asked, can you scale in only one axis or by differing in the X and Y axes? The answer is no if you use the SCALE command. However there is a workaround.

If you place the objects in you require to scale non-uniformly into a block the block can be scaled in the properties pallette.

block_property_pallette

Once scaled, explode the block and voila you have scaled your group of objects by only one axis.

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Pickfirst is on and objects just don’t select

Today I encountered a strange AutoCAD issue. At first it seemed to be the old pickfirst issue where if the variable is off you have to run the command then select, rather than the default behavior where you select and go.

The issue encountered today was similar but only seemed to happen on CTRL+C and mtext (MTEDIT). Otherwise all commands worked with select then run command.

After a bit of searching this error appears to be an issue with QAFLAGS. QAFLAGS is an undocumented system variable that appears to have no obvious use. It is problem an internal AutoDesk variable for testing. Though its strange behaviors can be used to assist in writing LISP and scripts!

QAFLAGS can be set to 1 or 2 apparently but the default should be 0. If it is not on 0 the strange semi-PICKFIRST=0 behavior will occur!

 

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Refedit Zombies

One of my colleagues was trying to edit an attached XREF file using the “edit in place” command button (which actually runs the command REFEDIT) and the file would appear to start to open by showing scanning drawing but then would just fail and go back to the host file with the XREF selected.

Upon review of the command line the following error appeared.

“AcDbZombieObject objects cannot be referenced.”

Nice. AutoCAD has zombies that cause issues!

refediterror

After a bit of research, AutoCAD zombie objects are leftover database entries from other AutoCAD variants, know as vertical variants, such as AutoCAD architecture, Civil 3D, etc.

When opening files created in a vertical version of AutoCAD in “pure” AutoCAD (or LT) an object enabler is used to read the extra information created and stored in the AutoCAD file by the vertical application.

Most of the time AutoCAD will pop-up the “proxy information” box to ask you what to do about this extra information.

proxy-dialog-window2

This proxy information seems to been referred to under R13 as AcDbZombieEntity, which is another way of putting AcDbZombieObject.

——

So let’s now translate the error message.

“AcDbZombieObject objects cannot be referenced.”

AcDb – AutoCAD Database
ZombieObject – Additional proxy information

“AutoCAD database additional proxy information objects cannot be referenced.”

Now AutoDesk, wouldn’t that error be much easier to sort? Instantly the user knows that the source file has some proxy information objects that are causing issue, and either the pure AutoCAD is missing an object enabler or the information is corrupt and needs purging.

I found in this case as the reference file did not pop up a proxy box it suggested to me that the proxy information was corrupt and needed purging.

Unfortunately AutoDesk has omitted to offer a purge of these databases from the purge command, or indeed offer any other way to clean up the database. Using WBLOCK to recreate the drawing won’t work as the proxy information is tied to the objects in the drawing.

Thankfully a program addon for AutoCAD full exists under Exchange to remove these corrupt entities. It is called Zombie Killer!

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Flickering LT 2014 solved

There seems to be two working solutions to AutoCAD LT 2014 flickering. One is to use a file from a previous version and the other which is far simpler to install is to use a registry patch.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\AutoCAD LT\R20\ACADLT-D001\Variables\AECPSDAUTOATTACH] @=”0″ “StorageType”=dword:00000003 “SecondaryType”=dword:00000001 “LowerBound”=dword:00000000 “UpperBound”=dword:00000001 “PrimaryType”=dword:0000138b

Copy and paste the above into a text file. Rename it to autocadlt2014regpatch.reg (named only for ease of finding, the .reg is the important bit) and double click to install on affected machines. I have found that whilst this file can be stored in a server folder for ease of access, installing from the server is not possible and Windows 7 throws out an error. Just copy to desktop and install each time.