CADD Manager Journal – November 2005

Just published! Are you on the mailing list?

In this months issue:

BAD CAD

Finding the Flaws

CSI – CAD Standards Investigator

Beyond the CAD Standards

Oct. Survey Says!

Go to the November Issue

Where do you go for answers? If you are like many of us you just try to dig a little deeper and probe a little more to get around some tough spot in the software.

But from time to time you may get stumped – I do.

Where do you go when you are stumped and need some outside help. Where is your lifeline? Who is your guru? Where do you turn.

Let me know by taking the CADDManager.com Survey for November.

Click here…

LAYMRG is an Express Tool that I use to fix drawing that have way too many layers.

It moves all objects on the first layer selected onto the second layer selected. The first layer will be deleted and purged from the drawing.

Issue the command and select an object or objects that are on the layer(s) that you want to move (merge) to another layer.

All of the objects on the selected layers will be moved to the new layer. The layer names that were used will be gone from the layer dialog box.

It works quite well.

I was poking around my express tools and found one that I think is very useful. It allows you to check and change a system variable via a dialog box.

Just type in SYSVDLG after loading the Express Tools.

You will get a dialog box listing all of the system variables.

This dialog box will show you each system variable one at a time and you can review them or change them (unless they are read only).

It will show you where each is stored and the type of data needed. It also has a brief description of the variable.

You can scroll down or type in the variable in the box at the top.

This tool has been around for a while. Check out Shaan Hurleys blog on SYSVDLG for more info

It is a very useful tool.

I got a couple of feedback items on my post about Exploding and Scaling check box locks in 2006…

“I made a block in LT 2006 and checked that it could not be exploded or inserted with different x-, y-scale values, saved the dwg, opened in Acad 2005 and could explode the block, scale it and insert it with different x-, y- and z scale values.”

From Ragnar Thor Mikkelsen – designdata, Norway

Another reader noted that you actually could explode blocks in 2006 even if someone sets them up to not explode… Shhh… Don’t tell anyone…

“Just use the edit block function and in the properties bar re-check that box and then exit out of the function. It took me a moment to figure that one out… where there is a will there is AutoCAD”

From Michael Dattilio from CHI Engineering, Portsmouth, NH, USA

I trust that that amount of effort will slow people down and maybe they will rethink the exploding idea. Then again, maybe not. I have found that many users will go to great lengths to do what is ill advised.

When is a lock not really a lock? There is a workaround for everything…

I journal.

Now I blog.

But I still journal.

What I do is write down every event that happens in my day at work. I keep track of major conversations with people. Meetings. Phone calls. Even E-Mails.

I use Word and save it as a continuing document. I start each day by opening the file and I keep it open all day long, adding information as I go. Sometimes I forget a day. Sometimes I don’t fill it out until the end of the day. But I try to keep up.

I went back and looked at my archives and I have my daily lists from way back to 1997. That is when I started doing it electronically. Before that I kept it in a steno pad.

It is not a TO DO list. It usually just a record of who I talked to, what I did and what events happened related to my day. Not a long list of details. Just enough to remind me of an event. I do put in names and phone numbers. Website links. Company names.

I have often gone back and found entries related to issues that have come up with dates and times and such. It refreshes my memory.

Here is an example…

Wednesday Aug 13

• Helped Jerry create e-transmit for Marriott
• Scanned and printed color for Tim Imber
• Added charge number for Reach for the Stars
• Printing Client files for Strother
• Made PDFs of CTA for Rhajan
• Worked on the QUAD
• Fixed 36×60 plotting for Jaylen
• FTP for Nicholas Condo

Have you checked out the latest efforts of AUGI.

It is BLAUGI – the newest Autodesk related blog.

We launched it in stealth mode at the beginning of the month and have had a lot of traffic so far. I am serving as the general editor and we have several guest authors that you may recognize.

Check it out at www.blaugi.com

I attended the South Coast Revit Usesr Group last week and had a great time. The turnout was very large, about 35 people or so. It could have been the topic – Revit Families.

It was a general discussion of various areas related to Family creation and use. Steve Stafford did a fantastic job of showing us how to build families and some of the troubles we may encounter along the way. Check out his blog at RevitOpEd.

We had a visit from Bill Brown of Santiago High School in Corona, CA. He is the teacher of their Architectural department. He brought a student with him and they discussed briefly how the school was using Revit in the advanced classes for High School students. I had a chance to speak with him after the event and he shared how he was planning for the future as it related to his students graduating and going to college. By the time they get into an Architectural office, he expects Revit to be a mainstream tool. So he has a long range focus on what tools will be used in 4-6 years. What a great perspective.

We had another person share a project that they worked on from ArchitectsOC. Jared Dudley was his name and he shared some 3D renderings done in Revit with VIZRender. Impressive stuff. He also shared how valuable a tool AUGI was for getting him going.

No matter what tool you are using you should try to find a User Group in your area. They are great opportunities to learn and share.

You thought that the greatest new Block enhancement was dynamic blocks? Here is an upgrade that will save you hours of headaches when working with folks that over use the explode command.

The BLOCK (bmake) command has been enhanced to include a couple of options that I think should have been there long before 2006.

When you decide to create a block the dialog box opens as before but there are additional items in the middle on the right side… They allow you to control the use of your block after it is added to files.

The first will allow or disallow scaling item uniformly. So keeping the same aspect ratio is easier now. Just click this check box and the block will scale uniformly no matter what.

Then second is to prevent users from exploding the block. When this is unchecked, no one can accidentally explode your attributed blocks and loose data.