AutoCAD

The system variable PICKADD has been changed for 2011. Most people probably will not notice, but I like it. Previously, there were 2 choices for this variable, 0 and 1. A setting of 2 was added. See the summary below.

• 0 - means that only your last selection is valid. In other words, if you select a entity, then select another entity, the first one becomes unselected.
• 1 - is what most people use. This allows you to continue to add entities to a selection set.
• 2 - works just like 1, expect that when using the ._Select command, the entities remain selected when the command is over. Previously when you used the ._Select command then executed a command, you had to use _P to refer to the previous selection set. Now you can use the ._Select command, create a selection and then launch the desired command with the selected objects pre-selected.

For more details, see: PICKADD - AutoCAD 2011 Documentation

Today is not April 1 is it?

OK, I really had no idea in my earlier post and was simply poking fun at Wikipedia, but lo and behold - there will be a Mac version of AutoCAD soon. [System Requirements] | [4 page brochure]

I have to admit, after several years of debate on the Autodesk newsgroups [* see bottom of post] and in other places, I did not see this coming.

I hope the Mac effort did not take anything away from the effort being spent on the next version of AutoCAD for Windows (due in March 2011?). Is the code base being shared or developed side by side? I've only seen the highlights of this announcement, so this may have already been answered. Read more »

According to a well trusted source, there will be a Mac version of AutoCAD 2012.

Ok, I guess Wikipedia is not a well trusted source, but someone named Rzęsor added this bit of info to the AutoCAD wikipedia page on July 26 2010 - so either this is wishful thinking, or Rzęsor is telling the world something he/she shouldn't be.... or I suppose it could be a good guess that comes true... (Here is a screen capture if you prefer)

So what do you think? Do you want a Mac version? Do you care?

Disclaimer: No, I do not have any 'inside info' on AutoCAD 2012, this post is purely about the Wikipedia article. Read more »

Well, not that either one ever slows down...

Donnie Gladfelter of Cad Geek fame, not to mention author of the new book, AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011 - No Experience Required, is the AutoCAD Expert of the week over at AutoCAD Exchange. C'mon, head over there and ask him a question - he literally wrote the book on it! :-)

Next Tuesday, Heidi Hewett is presenting a webcast on AutoCAD 2011, highlighting the latest productivity enhancements, estimated at up to 44% over previous versions in a recent productivity study. Sign up here for the presentation, and check out this post over at the blog nauseam. I'll see you (well, sort of...) on Tuesday at the webcast. Read more »

Earlier today I updated a 3 year old post on Drawing Tab add-on applications for AutoCAD. I still see a lot of people not happy with TASKBAR=1, or the "Quick View Drawings" feature and fortunately there are still vendors updating these "Drawing Tabs" apps. One of the apps is no longer available, and a few have been updated over the years to work with newer versions of AutoCAD.

Click here to view the updated post Read more »

You may have read here and other places where I have been critical of some of the new features in AutoCAD over the years. Things like the Ribbon, the Action Recorder, Infocenter, Quick View Drawings instead of simple tabs, etc.

But the purpose of this post is to discuss some things that really make AutoCAD better, some real time savers. Here is my Mt. Rushmore of new features. Read more »

Over the years, I have seen some confusion over the definition of a "closed" polyline in AutoCAD. Let's try to clear it up...

If you start drawing a polyline and at the end, snap back to the original endpoint, you have not created a closed polyline. It is closed in the sense that it forms a closed area, but AutoCAD does not consider it closed.

To check this, run the ._PEDIT command and select the polyline. Notice that the only choice for the Open/Closed option is Close, meaning that this polyline is OPEN. If you close it now, you will have two vertices at the same point.

Try this again and when you are ready to close the polyline, use the "C" option. This will create the final closing segment and correctly "close" the polyline.

You may be thinking... "Why do I care... as long as it looks closed?" - and for some cases that can be true. But I have seen some 3rd party applications that require closed polylines for certain operations, hatching can do strange things with open polylines that only appear closed, and area calculations could be affected. I understand CNC machines are particular about closed polylines also.

For the lisp gurus, examine the group 70 DXF code for POLYLINE and LWPOLYLINE entities. If the 1 bit is present, then it is a closed polyline. Read more »

If you are a long time, experienced user of AutoCAD, how many times have you stepped back and looked at the program from a novice point of view? Think about some of the tasks that seem trivial to you and then consider how you might perform them if you were new to AutoCAD.

I ran into this case recently, when the question was brought up "How to bring in a raster image in the shape of a circle?" Easy, right? But think about being a new AutoCAD user and not knowing about the various commands used to do this, or even how to go about finding them. I have not search Help, but I doubt this particular task could be found in the User's Guide.

On to the problem. Read more »

When freezing layers inside of a viewport using the ._LayFrz command, pay attention to the Settings before clicking an object. One of the available settings is whether or not you want to freeze the layer just in this viewport or freeze the layer overall for the entire drawing.

Command: ._layfrz
Current settings: Viewports=Vpfreeze, Block nesting level=Block
Select an object on the layer to be frozen or [Settings/Undo]: _S
Enter setting type for [Viewports/Block selection]: _V
In paper space viewport use [Freeze/Vpfreeze] :
Select an object on the layer to be frozen or [Settings/Undo]:
 Read more »

If you are working mainly in 2D and the ViewCube is getting in your way, you can turn it off by entering NAVVCUBE at the command line and setting it to OFF. This is a per-viewport, per-drawing setting so if you want to disable this feature for future drawings, be sure to change it in your template drawing(s). Read more »