tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-110137262009-11-26T08:21:48.939+01:00Different information, observations, news and comments to the popular CAD application by Autodesk - AutoCAD. Related information to AutoCAD LT, Inventor, Revit, Map and Architectural Desktop.AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-10339687742273787002009-11-26T08:10:00.002+01:002009-11-26T08:21:48.950+01:00

My collegue has found an interesting problem in one of the drawings he worked on (AutoCAD 2010). Every operation on this rather large file started with a delay (about 10 seconds) accompanied with a progressbar "Scanning the drawing".We have checked all usual suspects - purged the drawing, annotation scales, loaded applications, references - but nothing helped. It was strange that the same drawing

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-83921470588738407482009-11-10T07:47:00.003+01:002009-11-10T08:17:02.501+01:00

I admit, I like to experiment. So I was happy to test AutoCAD and other Autodesk software in the new Windows 7 operating system.AutoCAD (and even more Inventor) is known to be rather touchy to the version of operating system and even to some OS service packs. You cannot simply upgrade your operating system and rely on that your AutoCAD version will keep to be compatible. It probably won't.As our

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-45650773070327971512009-10-22T19:48:00.002+02:002009-10-22T19:59:26.575+02:00

All Autodesk software of the 2010 family got a facelift. Subscription customers can now download their "Subscription Advantage Pack".This extension adds several functions to your software. These functions differ from product to product. A small group of commands is added to AutoCAD 2010. Much larger set of functions is added to AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010, Inventor 2010 and Revit 2010. Architecture and

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-70495401590738606962009-10-22T19:33:00.002+02:002009-10-22T19:47:29.426+02:00

Project Cooper is a new Windows 2D CAD (or rather CADD - drafting) application by Autodesk. What is special about this application is that it is free.Cooper is a simple sketching application which can be also controlled through Windows 7 touchscreen. It works with the DWG file format so you can use it as a sketching tool for your AutoCAD, Revit or Inventor projects.Project Cooper is time bombed (

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-91520883799970200492009-09-16T16:12:00.000+02:002009-09-16T16:12:00.409+02:00

Do you live within 1,000 miles of the San Francisco Bay Area? And do you have 5Mbps or greater internet bandwidth?Most of us do not. But if you do, you can test drive the latest versions of AutoCAD 2010, Inventor 2010, Revit 2010 and Maya 2010 without installing. Autodesk now offers trial versions of some of its applications in a "hosted" mode - where clients access the applications in a "

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-84125349386050845482009-08-20T07:46:00.001+02:002009-08-20T07:46:00.186+02:00

I didn't know that some subtle changes in the shape of the UCS icon tell so much information.There is a nice overview of all possible shapes of the UCS icon on the CAD Forum blog:Read more on The many shapes of AutoCAD UCS icons

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-33942080604537680912009-08-19T22:47:00.000+02:002009-08-19T22:47:00.167+02:00

Autodesk has just released the first Service Pack - or "Update" how it is called now - for AutoCAD 2010 and AutoCAD LT 2010. It fixes a quite unusual number of problems including some potentially serious ones, so install it ASAP.The calculation bug seems to be fixed as well - see ill AutoCAD.Don't try to install this SP on non-vanilla versions of AutoCAD (Mechanical, Civil...).(via Between the

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-32841829033907706232009-08-17T23:43:00.000+02:002009-08-17T23:47:53.557+02:00

The Budweiser blog refers about an updated Xanadu tool "TRANS" that translates drawing texts to another language.The manual translation is quite standard, although more useful in most situations.What I like much more is the automatic translation mode of this tool. It integrates AutoCAD with the online tool "Google Translate". This integration is a quick way to automatically translate large

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-42830049706641789582009-08-09T08:55:00.001+02:002009-08-09T08:55:00.270+02:00

There are new reports of malicious code spreading through the spurious file ACAD.VLX. It seems to use the same mechanism as the older virus hidden in the ACAD.FAS file (both VLX and FAS are compiled LISP files).This LISP virus writes random texts to your DWG files and it tries to spread itself by modifying the automatially loaded files like acad2010.lsp or acad.mnl.Antivirus software should now

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-4051379157405629772009-08-07T18:49:00.002+02:002009-08-07T18:53:47.556+02:00

There is a new Autodesk web site for us "AutoCADders" - AutoCAD Exchange - under the easy to remember address autocad.autodesk.com .AutoCAD Exchange puts together tips, videos, interviews with AutoCAD users, blog postings, comics and other useful resources. PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait...wait... Rank: wait... Traffic: wait... Price: wait... C: wait...

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-35774411348443138882009-07-27T08:04:00.003+02:002009-07-27T08:22:06.631+02:00

One of the tools I use to convince my collegues (trying to replace AutoCAD with IntelliCAD or ProgeCAD) about the incompatibilities of these AutoCAD clones is the BUDWEISER.DWG test by Xanadu. This AutoCAD drawing contains many tests which clearly prove that AutoCAD clones are not compatible with the original DWG format.As a CAD manager, I refuse to solve future problems resulting from combining

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-42595017725215284342009-07-21T17:54:00.003+02:002009-07-21T18:18:45.843+02:00

I was (and I still am) against developing a separate Mac version of AutoCAD.It seems that the risk of developing a Mac version is now over. Autodesk has found a painless method of having a "Mac version" of AutoCAD and not having to invest in the development - running it in the Windows dual-boot tool "Apple Boot Camp" shipped with Mac OS X. See the Autodesk Labs posting: Autodesk announces

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-46369705989076510992009-06-10T08:21:00.003+02:002009-06-10T08:38:17.752+02:00

This is to apologize for not updating this blog for a couple of weeks and leaving your valuable comments unmoderated (hidden). I was ill and now I am recovering. But it is a lot better now.It seems that I am not alone in my illness - AutoCAD has a light headache as well. It errs in one of the basic operations any engineering software should perform - integer arithmetic.Try yourself - open the

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-84966661182410457272009-05-04T08:27:00.001+02:002009-05-04T08:27:00.350+02:00

When you say "AutoCAD", most people think about the only Autodesk software they know - the basic plain AutoCAD. Quite a lot of people do know also the most popular mechanical and architectural flavors - "AutoCAD Mechanical" and "AutoCAD Architecture". GIS experts may also know "AutoCAD Map 3D". But in fact this patisserie offers much more flavors (including a couple of exotic ones) you can

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-82373298071941872252009-04-02T11:45:00.000+02:002009-04-02T11:45:01.014+02:00

I have somehow hoped that this an April Fool's joke only - Shaan Hurley has published a AutoCAD & Mac OSX Survey on April 1st.Unfortunately it seems to be meant seriously. Why unfortunately? Well, I am sure that Mac users will be happy about some AutoCAD 2011 for Mac but what about the 99% percent of the rest of us? With any software development, the pace of the development depends on the

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-35027677260455868362009-03-30T16:24:00.001+02:002009-03-30T16:24:00.184+02:00

If you need a list of the new commands and variables introduced in AutoCAD 2010, there is a README file displayed at the end of the AutoCAD installation. Traditionally, this Readme doesn't list all of the new commands nor variables. And traditionally, a more complete list can be found on Hyperpics and CAD Forum (and variables).This time the Readme doesn't list any obsoleted commands in version

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-89397541075946887282009-03-26T11:17:00.004+01:002009-03-26T11:35:46.693+01:00

A good book writer (author) has many readers - and similarly a CAD designer (good designer) has many consumers (viewers) for his CAD data.That's why it is important to have applications capable of reliable viewing of CAD formats. Autodesk has two of them, both of them free, and both were just released in a new "2010" version.Autodesk DWG TrueView 2010 is a free DWG viewer. It is basically a cut

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-17977074322089599202009-03-24T16:13:00.003+01:002009-03-24T16:29:27.303+01:00

The 24th version of AutoCAD - AutoCAD 2010 - was released today, March 24th.There are lots of smaller enhancements and a couple of big ones in ACAD 2010. The biggest are 1) 3D modeling and 2) parametrics.The 3D modeling capabilities now available in AutoCAD are better (and easier to use) than 3D tools of many specialized "3D" CAD software applications, including the existing versions of

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-88345311020016654392009-02-11T21:36:00.002+01:002009-02-11T21:46:55.461+01:00

The new AutoCAD 2010 should use the SSE2 extended instruction set in modern CPUs. This instruction set allows hardware-assisted (read: faster) computations of some mathematical functions and transformations which are quite frequent in CAD applications. Software source-code compilers have usually a simple switch for support of the SSE2 set.The SSE2 set is supported in Pentium 4, AMD Athlon 64, AMD

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-43558851080547872182009-02-06T07:45:00.006+01:002009-02-06T08:16:55.902+01:00

Yesterday, Autodesk has revealed the secrets of its new flagship product - AutoCAD 2010.Well, some of the secrets were already known or were expected - see e.g. my posts about the new DWG format, about dynamic blocks, or constraints, plus the usual common practice of embedding the Extensions (Bonus Packs) from the previous version. But this doesn't lessen the fact that the new AutoCAD 2010 (aka "

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-85872017260588084762009-01-14T23:47:00.002+01:002009-01-14T23:56:45.151+01:00

Parametric constraints for AutoCAD geometry is something that has been discussed for several releases already. There were even some beta tests when AutoCAD 2009 was to be released last year. Remnants of these tests has been inadverently left in the code of the released version - this is why AutoCAD 2009 knows the variables CONSTRAINTRELAX and CONSTRAINTSOLVEMODE (with no apparent functionality -

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-19124134703299310542009-01-06T10:03:00.002+01:002009-01-06T10:07:28.541+01:00

I have recently updated some of the CAD links in the left column. The CAD Panacea blog now runs on a new domain. And there is a new blog for CAD uzers, especially AutoCAD and Revit users - CADuzer.com (looks promising).

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-91929980915879980452008-12-23T12:56:00.004+01:002008-12-23T13:14:55.262+01:00

Most of you have probably come across a drawing where annotations and dimensions were randomly split in multiple layers with cryptic names.AutoCAD should have a mechanism to force users putting right objects into the right layers. Otherwise it can be very difficult to manage drawing information and edit such DWG drawings.If you use an add-on application, it probably employs some standards for

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-76170883934317916012008-11-18T21:10:00.003+01:002008-11-18T21:19:52.229+01:00

It is hard to believe but AutoCAD LT has about 580 less commands and variables than the full version. Some of the missing commands are not important but many of them are - so make sure you know the limitations before you choose LT over AutoCAD Mechanical, Architectural, MEP or Map for simple price reasons.See LT - missing commands PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait...wait... C:

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11013726.post-69381881854063807082008-11-14T23:40:00.003+01:002008-11-14T23:54:51.601+01:00

Yes, I know. You think AutoCAD 2009 doesn't need to learn PDF - it is already there. But the results of its PDF printing/publishing were less than perfect in many situations.With the release of "AutoCAD 2009 Subscription Bonus Pack 2" AutoCAD is much more fluent in PDF. This bonus pack (available to subscription users only, and - strange enough - only for the plain AutoCAD) adds new functionality

AutoCADderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15129132847149199163noreply@blogger.com0