CADvisory Online

MINUTES OF THE NOVEMBER GENERAL MEETING – George Epp

Richmond K.U.C., 1999

 News & Announcements

Ali Youssef, a civil/structural engineer, advised us that he is looking to join a new project as his current work is coming to a close (604-420-0254).  Ali has over ten years of experience in bridges and building design/drafting.  (With the easing of working restrictions in the USA, it is easy for employers south of the border to bring in Canadian professionals.  A company and an employee simply agree to terms before the individual heads off to Customs to ask for a TN-1 form.  Good wages, lower taxation, and cheaper housing are a big draw. – Editor’s Note)

A warm welcome was extended to all new visitors, including;

John Joseph – Technical Sales Executive, eTerra, Redmond, WA  à jjoseph@eterra-tech.com

Kevin Boyer – GIS Application Engineer, eTerra, Redmond, WA   à  GIS Expo, Seattle on Nov 16/99

Bob Morse, Juan Plata, and Dave Verret – Executives of the Bellingham AutoCAD User Group (BAUG)

Bill Fane brought us up to date on the labour situation at BCIT.  Bill observed that it is the intention of AutoDesk to one-day combine Mechanical Desktop and Inventor into a single product.  He also discussed the availability of service packs from AutoDesk. Norman Taylor had some questions and observations on VBA programming language.  Norman noted that the removal of an MSOffice function (program) may require the reinstallation of AutoCAD R2000 due to the VBA connection.  John Sprung announced several upcoming events:

• Jan. 19 thru 21, 2000 – Comdex

• Nov. 9 & 11, 1999 – GIS Conference.

Internet connectivity to these events require a telephone line and the proper browser.

Tips and Tricks: Highlights of the Meeting 

Splitting the meeting up into four groups, we discussed strategies used to become more efficient. 

• The architectural group came back with a tip to resolve menu items such as the command line prompt box or the layer quick pick box.  If you have ever grabbed one in haste and “flung” it off the viewing screen, then you know the feeling.  One fix was to reload AutoCAD.  Another idea was to visit the McNeel website and download a ‘1/2MB fix’ that can be used on the fly to restore order to your view.

• The mechanical group discussed the loss of dialogue boxes.  Using FILEDIA, they reset the default value to resolve the problem.  They also talked about layer management for large part assemblies to control plot settings.  Starting a drawing with the proper template was also found to save valuable time due to availability of standard text styles, dimension styles, layers, and blocks.

• The general drafting group liked the idea of reprogramming F11 and F12 buttons to zoom in 0.5 and zoom out 2.0 times with each click.  And reprogramming mouse button combinations for view and edit changes met with their approval.  .  Commands could also be entered in the POP 0 menu to make selections easy at the pick of the middle mouse button.  Setting up the working folders from Preferences in R14 or Options in R2000 was further recommended.  And editing the ACAD.PGP file was still a favourite due to the quick access to common commands through two-keystroke entry.

• The civil group gave one big tip for converting lines in contours into section/profiles.  Contact the VAUS website for a LISP routine that Norman Taylor wrote.  It quickly converted 2D lines into profiles with control over many variables, including text and graph size.

• John Sprung’s tip: MBUTTONPAN command for R2000.  Toggle the value to 0 to return Overriding Osnaps to your middle mouse button.  Return the value to 1 for; Pan as you drag or Zoom Extents on a double click. 

•  Bill Fane’s tip: a LISP routine that he wrote to fix text width.  Bill figured out how to convert a group of text from one font to another without changing the width requirements.  It made switching fonts for client drawings very easy.

Door Prizes: This Month’s Winners

 Basam Rafu - ACAD 2000, 30 Day Demo Disk
Albert Lamothe - CD David Cohn’s Encyclopedia on AutoCAD

Tom MacGowan – ACAD 2000 LT, non-upgradeable

Ross Marrington - ACAD 2000 LT, non-upgradeable

The contour cross section program developed by Norman Taylor and shown at the November 1999 VAUS meeting is now available for download at: http://www.vaus.bc.ca/downloads/xsect.zip

Article by: Norman Taylor

XSECT.LSP generates a cross-section from a cutting plane and a selection of objects in plan view. The cutting plane is defined by a line, 2D-polyline or 3D-polyline. It is assumed to extend normal to the XY-plane of the current UCS, and to be of infinite extent in the Z-direction. Polylines may have multiple segments. The selection of objects can consist of lines, 2D-polylines, 3D-polylines, meshes, 3Dfaces and solids. The routine picks off the Z-coordinates (in the current UCS) of their intersections with the cutting plane. The objects in the selection of objects do not have to be parallel to the XY-plane of the current UCS. The section is drawn with user-specified vertical exaggeration, using the current layer, color and linetype settings. The section axes are annotated for elevation and distance along the cutting plane. Vertical lines, representing cutting plane endpoints, are also drawn and labelled. The author would appreciate any feedback, and you can contact him at the address at the beginning of the .LSP file

Hot AutoCAD Tip 
by Frank Zander

In AutoCAD 2000, setting the "zoomfactor" to 50 or 75 will result in less scrolling with a wheel mouse to zoom in and out

 

 

Mark LLoyd

North Land Properties has a requirement for a perspective rendering. The project consists of a two plan perspective for a 14 story apartment taken from street level in colour. If you or someone you know is interested in doing this project (budget of $1000.00 Canadian funds) please contact: Mark LLoyd at: 604-730-6617

Alternate dimensions for decimal feet

By Frank Zander
Contract CADD Group

Recently I was asked if I knew "how to create dimensions for decimal feet" with out having to scale the drawing?  With a little tweaking of the dimension settings...  Here’s how!

Example 1:	Example 2:
Settings: Primary Units dim Suffix: = \X\f	Settings: Primary Units dim Prefix =\f dim Suffix: =\f
Alternate Units dim Alt Prefix = ; dim Alt Suffix = '\f dim Alt enabled = ON dim Alt format = decimal dim Alt Scale Factor = 0.0833  dim Alt Precision = 0.0000	Alternate Units dim Alt Prefix = ; dim Alt Suffix = '\f dim Alt enabled = ON dim Alt format = decimal dim Alt Scale Factor = 0.0833 dim Alt Precision = 0.0000
or in traditional AutoCAD lingo DIMALT On DIMALTD 4 DIMALTF 0.0833 DIMAPOST ;[]'\f DIMLUNIT 4 DIMPOST \X\f	or in traditional AutoCAD lingo DIMALT On DIMALTD 4 DIMALTF 0.0833 DIMAPOST ;[]'\f DIMLUNIT 4 DIMPOST \f<>\f

 

 

 

P. Backus

December President’s Column – Paul Backus

Welcome to CADvisory’s last edition for the 20st Century. We finally made the transition from printed to electronic media. While reducing printing costs we are now allowed more time to compile articles due to later deadlines. We can also make last minute adjustments to content or changes to meeting locations such as occurred in November and will again in December. And we are able to hear your voice on important issues by interacting on our webpage. Welcome to ‘The Age of Communication’. Communications and technology are shaping our everyday lives at a hectic pace. Sometimes we get snipits of information that tell us only part of the whole story. I once worked for a company that processed edible oils. The business produced a variety of food products including margarine and cooking oil. Alas, there was evidence at the time that showed butter to be much better for your health. The margarine retailers, however, did not lose any sleep as they created a healthy market for their product by focusing on clever advertising. That scenario appears to be happening with Internet service today. A poll of attending members showed data tranfer speeds from their cable service to be in the range of 0.4 to 0.6 MB per second. The competing ADSL lines were performing with speeds from 0.8 to 1.4 MB per second. In the meantime cable advertisers are portraying telephone connectivity as being slow. Obviously they are right only when comparing their cable system to a standard dial-up connection. So I ask the question, “Why doesn’t the ADSL seller do a better job of advertising the truth?” Couldn’t they handle all the business it would bring them. Or is it a moot point? Last month I ran a comparison check against a friend’s download time. My dial-up connection took over two minutes to download a large packet of information compared to 0.7 seconds on his cable connection. Most of us just don’t need anything faster. In this scenario a cable connection would appear to be just as fast as the ADSL (telus) since both downloads would occur in less than one second. When comparing cable to ADSL telephone connections, however, a different story needs to be told. Distribution of large files that may occur in the workplace or when ordering software may require optimum speeds and should be considered before you order one of these services. One thing is for sure though, I wish for a faster ISP connection and will be ordering one of the above in the new year. At $40.00 per month with ADSL for example, I will gladly double my ISP costs for speed gains that are nothing short of amazing. Looking to the membership this month, we saw an even distribution between architectural, mechanical, and general CAD users. As drafters/designers/engineers, they handle more than just drafting in the workplace. Internet and MS Office functions now comprise a large part of their workload. But we still have a few AutoCAD R12 users holding out from making the change to the R14 platform. Through use of their Acad.pgp file and 3 button mouse reprogramming, they enable shortcuts that give maximum performance in a DOS environment. Their AutoCAD design speed comes more from experience than from software. The thinking goes like this, “If the hardware is still working and the software speed is fast, why change? And resale of an old computer compares to the value of a used toothbrush.” So for some an upgrade in software is only done at the same time as a purchase of new hardware. Falling hardware prices have made this an option. The old computer is kept as a backup with software that still works efficiently. The main consideration one must address with remaining in a DOS environment however is, “Can I live without the convenience of Windows on this computer? Must I have quick access to the Internet as well as the latest version of MS Office in order to do my job?” Oh yes, and there is one other. “What does the client want?” If you are clever, there are answers to these tough questions. On behalf of the executive, we look forward to your enthusiastic participation and support. See you at the next meeting.