Now you see it… Now you don’t! Object Visibility in AutoCAD 2011

If you were a subscription holder in AutoCAD 2010 you got a sneak peek at this new AutoCAD 2011 feature that includes new tools that enable you to control object visibility independent from layer visibility control. The Object Visibility tools are accessible from the large light bulb icon on the status bar (Isolate Objects) or better yet, from the right‐click menu when objects are selected as well as when no objects are selected. When you use the Isolate Objects tool, only the selected objects remain visible in the drawing. All other objects are hidden.

Isolated Objects

 Alternatively, when you use the Hide Objects tool, the selected objects are hidden allowing you to work it from the other angle as well.

Hidden Objects

 You can use a combination of the Isolate Objects and Hide Objects tools to efficiently display only the objects that are relevant to your current task. For example, you might use the Isolate Objects tool to select an area of the drawing you want to edit and then use the Hide Objects tool to hide additional objects within that area. And when you add the power of the Select Similar command to it you can really take control and speed up the selection process. After completing your task, you can quickly restore the hidden objects using the End Object Isolation tool.

End Object Isolation Tool

 The OBJECTISOLATIONMODE system variable controls whether isolated/hidden objects persist between drawing sessions. Also the light bulb icon on the status bar indicates whether object isolation is active by turning RED in the drawing. If it is YELLOW than no object are currently being hidden in the drawing through the Isolate or Hide Objects functionally. But remember layers can still be hiding objects as well.

Object Isolation Status Icon

 In addition to the obvious benefits object visibility controls offer for 2D design, they’re just as valuable for 3D modeling. And it great new features in AutoCAD 2011 that make the magic happen. As always thank you for your time.

Know Your Boundaries…

Have you ever wanted to see where the exact outside perimeter of a paper space viewport is in relation to model space? Well I am going to show you how to generate a polyline using the Boundary command in Layout that transfer itself to the representing area in Model space.

Here’s how…

While you are in layout (paper) use the BOUNDARY command (Alias: BO) set to polyline; pick inside the viewport. [This will create a polyline around the perimeter, of the viewport; especially useful if you have custom complex shapes with some curves].
Now, using the Express tool CHSPACE, when it prompts you to select objects, type L (for Last) OR you could manually select the polyline that was just created.
This will move it through the corresponding viewport into the model environment. Now when you go into model space (TILEMODE 1) you will have the exact same shape that is sized appropriately to the viewport scale and position over the same area as the viewport display.

It’s a fast and easy way to know exactly where the edges of the viewport are in relation.

(*Note: you can NOT do multiple Viewports at the same time, because the transfer location and scale is based off the selected viewport, if you need more than one viewport done? Then you will need to do them separately.)
Also: Remember to have the viewports’ scale correctly set before creating the polyline, to ensure correct size… AND remember to place new boundary polyline(s) on the same layer as your Viewports or on a separate layer that doesn’t plot.

TIP: Also remember that the Boundary command with work in either environment (model/paper) so if you need to generate a polyline in an enclosed area regardless of how many separate objects it takes to close it… Then the Boundary command is your friend!!!
This is Isaac and once again, thanks for your time.

No More Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe… W/ New Object Selections in 2011.

Have you ever needed to select all of the same type of object in your drawing but needed to filter out certain properties, and felt like you were in the middle of a game of “Where’s Waldo?” One of the best features to be added into the AutoCAD core product in AutoCAD 2011 comes from the Subscription Advantage Pack from last year was the advanced capabilities of the new Select Similar tool enables you to select an object and automatically include all other objects of the same type and with the same properties, in a new selection set. And one of the best things about it is you can use it on the fly and it is less time consuming than Filter or Quick Select commands. You can access it from the right‐click menu when objects are selected.

Select Similar tool

A Settings option (accessible when you enter SELECTSIMILAR at the command line) enables you to specify which properties to filter. If only the Layer property is enabled when you select a circle, for example, AutoCAD automatically selects all circles on the same layer as the one you selected. If both the
Layer and Linetype properties are enabled, however, AutoCAD selects only the circles on the same layer
and with the same linetype as the selected one.

Select Similar Settings dialog box

The Select Similar tool also enables you to select more than one object and create the matching selection set accordingly. For example, if the Layer filter is enabled and you select two circles, each on
different layers, AutoCAD selects all the circles on both layers. If, instead, you select a circle and a line,
AutoCAD selects all the circles on the same layer as the selected circle and all the lines on the same layer
as the selected line. In addition to general object properties, you can filter selections based on objectspecific properties, including object style and reference name. Object Style properties apply to text and mtext, leaders and mleaders, dimensions and tolerances, and tables and multilines. Reference names apply to blocks and externally referenced files, including xrefs and images as well as PDF, DWG™, or DGN files.

In addition to the new Select Similar tool, a new option has been added to the PICKADD system variable. When PICKADD is set to a value of 2 (as it is now by default), objects that you select using the SELECT command remain selected in a “pick first” state even after you end the SELECT command.

Easily select overlapping objects using the new selection cycling functionality. You can enable selection cycling from a control on the Status bar. When you try to select an object that overlaps other objects, AutoCAD displays a list of all the overlapping objects. Notice as you pass the cursor over an object in the list, the relevant object in the drawing highlights.

Selection cycling tool

As you see that selecting objects are much more intuitive in AutoCAD 2011, and should speed up your production and editing time drastically. Until next BLOG thank you for your time.

Poor Performance and Running out of memory error…

Today I wanted to talk about some things that you can do to try and avoid the memory error that you might have received and perhaps also improve your computers performance. So after doing some research from our own findings, Autodesk Discussion Groups, Customer Support cases and straight from the Analyst team at Autodesk, I have found that there are lots of things that one could do to help your memory and computer performance issues. Here are a few things that might help you out. By no means, are these “cure all techniques”, but they should help…

1. Empty your Temp folder on a regular basis; using Xrefs leaves a lot of data that can slow down your machine.

2. Set FIELDEVAL to 4, this will only evaluate the fields when plotting, and avoid constant regenerations.

3. Set INDEXCTL to 2, this will index the drawing making it much quicker for future work.

4. If you use a lot of Layouts in your Drawing, then check your Caching Layouts settings in the options dialog box under the System tab, set the “Layout Regen Options” to “Cache model tab and last layout” so when switching layouts it does not regenerating the entire drawing every time.

5. Check your Scales List; we have had cases were someone using an older version with a lot of Xrefs in their drawing caused the scales list to climb to almost 3800 scales; which drastically decreased the performance. I all fairness this issue has been addressed in the newer versions but to could be coming from older content. So, if you go to Annotation Scale button and the list is overwhelming? Then you can reset this list by clicking the “Custom…” option near the bottom OR the “Edit Scale List…” under the “Users Preferences” tab in the “Options” dialog box. Once the Edit Scale List dialog box opens hit the “Reset” button.

6. Another thing that you could try is to close and re-open Autocad software through out the day. This will free up some virtual memory that is being stored; I would say at lunch time and again at the end of the day at least.

7. Make sure you are running the latest service pack for this software. You can do this easily buy clicking the “Communication Center” icon at the top-right of your Autocad screen located in the “InfoCenter” toolbar. Please note you will need to have internet access.

8. I have also been told that some people that need to work on multiple drawings at a time were able to work around this by opening a couple of sessions of the software and only running a few drawings in each; rather than working on a bunch of drawings in one session of AutoCAD.

9. Run a registry scanner and cleaner regularly. This can help track down issues and get rid of them. If your registry is good, you will see better performance. Also, run a cleanup utility to help get rid of unnecessary junk. The following site has an excellent product to check out: http://www.stevengould.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=69

10. You can also reduce the amount resources taken by Windows by going into the Control Panel and click System, In the System Properties dialog box, go to the “Advanced” tab, set “Visual Effects” to “Adjust for best performance”.

11. Performance options – adjust paging file size. Right click on “My Computer”, and select “properties”. Then inside the system properties dialog box select the “advanced” tab. From there under “performance” click “settings”. Next, in the “performance options” dialog box click the “advanced” tab. Under “virtual memory” click the “change” button. Now, look at the initial size setting. This value shout be set to 1.5 times the amount of RAM in MB value. (1GB is equal to 1024 MB). For example if the computer has 4GB of RAM, this value in MB is 4096. SO, take 4096 times 1.5 and this value is 6,144 MB. This is the initial value to put in. Next, look at the maximum size in MB. This value should be 3 times the amount of RAM in MB value. SO, for a 4GB machine multiply 4096 times 3 to get the value of 12,288. Once these values are plugged in, click the “set” button and then all of the “ok” buttons to get out of the routine. One thing to note is that you will be prompted to restart your computer before the changes will take effect.

12. Another thing that you can check on your computer is to see if you have the 3GB switch turned on, if your computer has at least 3 GB of RAM. If you don’t go to this link to turn it on. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=9729516&linkID=9240697

There are other things that may work as well (purging unused content, cleaning up the drawing file of unneeded duplicated entities with the “Overkill” command in the express tools, or even “Wblock” the file out to rebuild the content in oversized files, or file with corrupted entities. The list goes on.). But all of the suggestions listed above are the most recommended workarounds for memory and performance issues for now.

Also make sure you are sending in your error reports to Autodesk, Inc when you crash so they can review and suggest additional comments to try and submit them to the proper software developers to find a possible solution to the problem.

So if you are having these types of issues; please try these steps and let me know if these alleviate some or all of your problems?

Thank you,
Isaac Harper, CD
Cadsoft Consulting

Welcome to our new AutoCAD users section…

Welcome Everybody.

I wanted to introduce this new area just for AutoCAD users; I know what you are saying, “Why create a section for CAD, when the word on the street is BIM?” Don’t get me wrong Revit is a great product and does some impressive things, and will become a big part of the future, but it is still fairly new compared to the CAD market. Also I have found that a lot of Revit users still use AutoCAD platform drawings (about 20%) to complete their deliverables because of many reasons, from comfort levels (meeting deadlines), software limitations, or just already having pre-existing content that they don’t want, or have time to recreate. Not to mention there is still a lot more CAD users then there are BIM. So this area of our Blogs will concentrate on the CAD to keep you up to date, make your day to day operations run more smoothly, and hopefully show you a few tricks along the way. However, I have some good news for the AutoCAD user since the introduction of the new Revit interface it now looks similar to AutoCAD with the new Ribbon tool in place to better make the transition to BIM when you are ready.

But welcome to the new AutoCAD Blog and I am always interested in what you want to hear more about, or anything that you may want to share like “Tips or Tricks” you have learned with all of our readers.  In fact, we have even moved some previous content from our BIM BLOG that dealt more with AutoCAD content than Revit. So if you never checked them out before because it was under the BIM title and you were not using BIM; take some time and check them out. If you have an idea for a future posting then please contact me at:
isaac.harper@cadsoft-consult.com
Until next time… Thank you for your time.
Isaac Harper

AutoCAD Tips and Tricks – MULTIPLE Command

The MULTIPLE Command
I’m sure there are a lot of times you want to use the same command over and over with out having to manually restart the command over each time by right-clicking or pressing the spacebar. You need the MULTIPLE command! This is not a new command, however, it is not on the Ribbon either, so I wanted to let you know it still exists, or introduce it to you, if you were not aware this command at all.

Here is how the “Multiple” command works. Let’s say you need to draw a lot of circles in various locations and sizes. (This also applies to any command you want to repeat.) At the command line type MULTIPLE and then hit the [enter key].  Now, type in the command you want to repeat (like CIRCLE) and hit enter. Voilà!
There you go! Now, you can keep on creating circles without having to manually start the command over and over. When you are done, just hit the ESC key and that will end your “Multiple” session.

So now if people say the you’re redundant; that you repeat yourself; that you do things over and over… just tell them you’re use the Multiple command.