Chartered Architect
There has always been a way of adding areas of polylines up in AutoCAD as far back as I can remember but it was always hard to remember with lots of areas which were included.
Not any more. AutoCAD has subtly added a new feature (I like these sort of improvements) where it now highlights the areas added.
Area –> A (for add) –> O (for Object), gets you to the add mode for areas and this is what you get, a nice green highlight when the object is selected. Ah, that was satisfying!
A while back I noted that the new array system is overtly complex. I have since then reviewed this and have a reformed opinion. The new array system is extremely useful and has some neat features. Array along a path is awesome, and replacing an object within an array is great, this allows for “holes” to be cut into the array or changes made but the rest of the array still works.
The arrays are now dynamically editable and move as a cluster. So before my bricks could be created as a dynamic block with an array modifier, now I just create a dynamic array. Its quicker and simpler!
One of my colleagues asked this morning how to easily rotate the view (and UCS) to help with drawing, now in full version of AutoCAD this is simplicity itself.
Just click on the arrows above the Viewcube to rotate the view and UCS simultaneously.
In AutoCAD LT this is more difficult, you can either use one of several command line methods, either using PLAN or UCS by object etc.
OR, this method seems to be easier (though it needs a little setting up). And here is how to do this.
Firstly, AutoCAD (LT) 2013 seems to come “out-of-the-box” with certain Panels turned off in the Ribbon. One of which is the UCS coordinate panel (why would they do this?) on View Tab.
Click on the View Tab and then right click anywhere on the panels below, then go to Show Panels, Coordinates. Now you have the coordinates panel which should have been there in the first place.
Secondly you need to make sure the view rotates with the UCS when you change the UCS. To do this click on the little arrow to bottom right of the Coordinates Panel, this brings up the UCS options box, Click “Update view to Plan when UCS is changed.” Click OK!
Now we are ready to go! (Phew!)
Click on the drop down menu which has Axes and a rotate arrow. Click on the Z icon and voila you can now rotate around the Z axis and the drawing will follow. The default selection is 90 degrees so hitting enter after clicking will rotate by 90 degrees.
So now its “one click and enter” to rotate the view and UCS in AutoCAD LT versus the “one click” in full version, hopefully a simpler method than all the command line options!
A slight tangent on my usual posts, but today I noticed that I had a 2nd hard drive in my Windows Explorer that I knew did not exist. This phantom drive turns out to be a mapped drive for AutoDesk Cloud Sync (360)! I think this came from a Beta version of AutoCAD that I have now uninstalled but my AutoCAD 2013 is still using Cloud Sync! I had no idea this was even running. Very annoying. Its been syncing data that I didn’t even want to be copied to the cloud.
This article showed me that I could find out what the Phantom drive was by running “SUBST” from the command line (CMD.EXE) in Windows 7. The results of this were as follows: (xxxx indicates personal info removed)
C:Usersxxxx>subst
Z:: => C:UsersxxxxAppDataLocalAutodeskAutodesk SyncCloudxxxx@xxx.com
That means, Z drive is actually a folder which is my AutoDesk sync folder. Hence the hard drives were identical in properties. Confusing.
Solution: Sign out of Autodesk 360. Drive and syncing stop. Awesome!
One of my colleagues today could not work out why he could not draw vertically on the screen. All that would happen is the lines would draw horizontally. First I though it was a glitch and restarted AutoCAD but the problem persisted. It was not ORTHO or POLAR problems but actually a UCS problem.
The UCS had been set so that the drawing was being viewed from the side. All lines were being drawn on another plane! A quick, UCS (enter), W (enter) corrected the problem!
If you, like me have been using AutoCAD for too long, you will find warning messages annoying as you already know from experience something is wrong. For example when plotting a drawing from another company, you will know that the plotter will be set wrong as you don’t have the same plotter! But a nice friendly pop-up says, “this plotter cannot be found”.
So you want to turn them off? Here’s how!
There are three variables in AutoCAD (that I have found) that control pop-ups. First is EXPERT, second is PEDITACCEPT and the third is PLQUIET. I will go into depth on what they do below.
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When looking up these variables in the help system, the answer is quite helpful! These are listed below (copyright AutoDesk).
EXPERT
0 Issues all prompts normally.
1 Suppresses “About to regen, proceed?” and “Really want to turn the current layer off?” (-LAYER)
2 Suppresses the preceding prompts and “Block already defined. Redefine it?” (-BLOCK) and “A drawing with this name already exists. Overwrite it?” (SAVE or WBLOCK).
3 Suppresses the preceding prompts and those issued by the LINETYPE Command prompt (-LINETYPE) if you try to load a linetype that’s already loaded or create a new linetype in a file that already defines that linetype.
4 Suppresses the preceding prompts and those issued by UCS Save and VPORTS Save if the name you supply already exists.
5 Suppresses the prompt, “That name is already in Use, redefine it?” issued by the -DIMSTYLE Save option when you supply the name of an existing dimension style. Suppresses the same prompt issued by the -SCALELISTEDIT Add option.
When a prompt is suppressed by EXPERT, the operation in question is performed as though you entered y at the prompt. Note: Setting EXPERT can affect scripts, menu macros, AutoLISP, and the command function.
PLQUIET
0 Displays plot dialog boxes and nonfatal errors
1 Logs nonfatal errors and doesn’t display plot-related dialog boxes
PEDITACCEPT
0 Displays a prompt that gives you a choice of converting selected objects into polylines
1 Automatically converts selected objects into polylines without a prompt
AutoCAD 2012 and 2013 use an associative array system which is overtly complex. The old array dialogue was hard enough to understand but the new one needs some serious study.
If like me and several of my colleagues when clicking or typing array are confronted with this new confusing array system and just want to get the old array dialogue back then type ARRAYCLASSIC, this will give the old dialogue box back and all is good.
I have heard good things about the new array system, plus its editable so maybe give some time to learning it!
Lineweights and plotting has always been a bit tricky with AutoCAD. Then they added named plot styles and confused it a little further. A while back they added lineweight by layer which really negated the need for plot styles altogether. I have never really understood the use for named plot styles (STB) as they just name a line thickness as “thick” or “road”. But this would be apparent from a decent layer naming system as you have a layer called “road” with the line thickness set in the layers dialogue.
But sometimes someone sends you a drawing using a named plot style without the plotstyle and as its vastly quicker to set up a CTB than a STB (for me anyway) I like to convert them. To do this type CONVERTPSTLYES and then accept the the changes. This is not really an undo-able thing so save before changing!
A colleague of mine today had a problem with plotting, all plots came out with a singlular line thickness. First I thought, that will be no plot style being used? Not the answer. Then I thought, all layers set to a really thin line? Also not the answer.
Then it occurred to me! Is it actually plotting the line weights. The answer was no, that box was unchecked! Though you couldn’t check it again as it was greyed out. Huh?
The answer is as follows:
Type PLOT (or CTRL-P, etc), uncheck Plot with Plotstyles, check Plot with line weights, check Plot with plot styles again! Now you will be able to plot with line weights again!
This behaviour does however seem to be fixed in AutoCAD 2013 and line weights and plot styles can be individually checked! Thank you Autodesk!
Polylines are very useful and can help drawings immensely. Unless someone decides to fiddle with the settings!
Today I found that someone had changed the default polyline width (i didn’t even know you could do that0# on drawing I was working on and also turned on show lineweights which made drawing details really difficult!
So if you want to turn the default polyline thickness back to “normal” or make it thin, change the PLINEWID variable to 0.