Tips & Tools Weekly (Vol. 11, No. 35)
1 Oct, 2006What's New at Cadalyst.com Stop by Cadalyst Discussion
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Applications in Development New ACES User Group Launched Axiom Releases Online
GEOPAK Criteria Training Library |
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This Week's Software Tips Do you have a favorite tip or shortcut that you use every day in your CAD software? One that saves you time? Makes life easier? Share it with other readers and, if we publish it, we'll send you a “ Cadalyst: CAD the Way You Want It” t-shirt. Follow-Up to Your Favorite
Tools Follow-Up to Rename Those
Layers Reader Michael S. Jensen agrees and suggests, "Why not just get the AutoCAD plot style table (CTB or STB) from the other firm? We are an MEP firm that deals solely with outside architectural, structural and civil firms, and we ask for the plot style table to be able to plot the drawings correctly. Depending on the outside firm's type of plotter, a few of the lineweight settings may need to be tweaked to work with a plotter; but once that's done, you should never have to do it again for that firm's drawings. With renaming the layers and such as called for in the tip, this would have to be done each time you receive updates from the outside firm (which could be up to two to three times a week). ... By the way, using AutoCAD's eTransmit command, sending the plot style table is usually done without even thinking about it." Excel and AutoCAD Follow these simple instructions:
NOTES FROM CADALYST TIP PATROL: The patrol agrees that this is a very useful, albeit an underutilized tool. One thing to keep in mind is revision control. It might be best to change any data through the drawing rather than the spreadsheet. By doing this you ensure that any changes are covered by the latest revision on screen. If you don't update the drawing, then strict controls need to be in place so that when the spreadsheet is changed, the automatic change to the drawing is flagged. Viewport Lock NOTES FROM CADALYST TIP PATROL: Members of the Cadalyst Tip Patrol who reviewed this tip had different reactions. One patroller found that the LISP works well, but has these comments: It does lock or unlock the viewports. I used it quite a bit last week. However, if you want to work in model space from paper space, using the Maximize Viewport button at the bottom left of the screen is more efficient and won't mess up your scale. It might be helpful if this routine were linked to a function key. Another improvement would be a message that displays the action just taken. My viewports are on their own layer, named Vport, so I can turn them all off and not look at them. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who just place them on the Defpoints layer so they can be viewed live. Another patroller adds more about using AutoCAD 2007's Maximize Viewports instead of this routine: "Once your viewports are rotated and scaled as desired, they can all be locked and you can cycle through viewports at will -- zoom, pan, add and delete entities before switching to the next viewport and the like. This works equally with locked or unlocked viewports. Once finished, you can click the Maximize Viewports button to return to full paper space with all viewports returned to their original setup. The only drawback with this is that you may need to set dimscale, etc., if you want to add any scaled items such as dimensions and text. "If you must add dimensions through a viewport, one undocumented option is to set dimscale to zero. Then when you make a viewport active from paper space, its scale factor is applied to the dimscale so you can flit from one scaled viewport to another of a different scale and add dimensions as needed. Unfortunately, Maximize viewports does not have this feature." Avoid Keystrokes
NOTES FROM CADALYST TIP PATROL: One patrol member states, "I wouldn't be without my five-button optical mouse. I have had my left thumb button also programmed to Escape for some time now. Unfortunately, when I recently updated my mouse along with Microsoft Intellipoint 4 and, horror-of-horrors, the Escape option had been removed from the list. I quickly uninstalled v4 and went back to my original version, which works fine anyway. I hope there are no CAD operators out there still working without an optical wheel mouse." MicroStation Tip – Faster
Keyins with AccuDraw Tips & Tools Weekly software tips for AutoCAD are reviewed by Cadalyst staff and the Cadalyst Tip Patrol before publication. Use tips at your own discretion, please, and watch later editions of this newsletter for updates and corrections. Many thanks to our volunteer Cadalyst Tip Patrol members: Don Boyer, Mitchell Hirschklau, R.K. McSwain, Don Reichle, Kevin Sawyer, Ivanhoe Tejeda, Billy Wooten and Ben Young. |
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Program for KeyCreator |
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2007 Titles
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Virtual Reality General Software: Project
Clock CE Version 2 AEC: Proliance Version 3.5 Meridian Systems' update supports latest Microsoft and Brava technologies. Read more GIS: CartoPac Data Interchange
for ArcGIS MCAD: Agile e6 MCAD: eDrawings Professional MCAD: iCHECK R4 CAM: PCNC 1100 CNC |
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Seminars Datamat Group Tech Expo ASUG Fall Symposium Series Rhino 4.0 in Architecture
-- "Shape to Fabrication" ASTM Committee E57 on 3D
Imaging Systems BE Conference 2007 |
