Thanks for reading!

I’ve been running this blog since 2007, and it’s been quite enjoyable. I’ve never been dedicated to providing continuous updates, but I have enjoyed dishing out an occasional post with some useful AutoCAD tips.

I’m now in the process of making a career transition, so I don’t expect I’ll be making any more updates to this blog. I hope that the information here continues to be a useful resource. Thanks to my readers for your patronage!

If anyone is curious, my new career is in counseling. I graduated from the LIOS Graduate College of Saybrook University in January 2011, and I now operate a private practice as a mindfulness-based therapist here in Seattle. I’m still working the old job, but my intention is to leave after I build up my practice. If you are interested in finding out more about my work, please visit http://fosteringconnection.com . I’m especially good at working with engineers, architects and CAD techs.

Happy CADing!

AutoDesk labs plugins

AutoDesk Labs has a bunch of cool plugins for AutoCAD. The one that that looks especially useful to me is RefUcsSpy. From the site:

Many AutoCAD users have reference files set up in World coordinates. Attaching such files when in a different User Coordinate System (UCS) can result in the contents appearing at incorrect locations. This plugin can be used within AutoCAD to detect when reference files are being attached when the UCS is not “World.” If it is not, the user will be prompted whether they would like to temporarily set the UCS to World for the duration of the attach command.

100 AutoCAD Tips You Should Know

From CAD notes, here’s a handy list of AutoCAD Tips:

http://cad-notes.com/2010/06/100-autocad-tips-you-should-know/

Matching Names in Purge

I discovered recently that it is possible to use regular expressions in the purge command. If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will.

A regular expression is a way to define a pattern. The pattern can be used to include or exclude the name(s) of a layer, linetype, registered application, or anything that can be purged.

Publish troubles?

Is the output of your Publishing endeavors not what you expected? Are multiple sheets being printed to a single PDF file, when you really want multiple files? Try setting PUBLISHCOLLATE to 0. If it is set to 1, AutoCAD will process the entire set of drawings being published as a single job.

I actually had a lot of problems when PUBLISHCOLLATE was set to 1 when I was using AutoCAD 2009, where the last sheet output would overwrite each previous sheet. This behavior seems to have been fixed in 2010, though.

Editing Hatches in 2010

I’ve been using AutoCAD 2010 for a few months now, and I’ve found some value in a few of the new features.  One that a colleague pointed out to me is the new grip editing features for hatches.  You may have noticed that when you click on a non-associative hatch, you’ll see grips appear.

It’s a handy way to quickly change those hatches without having to redraw the boundaries.

If you are into things that are cool

…then you might like this.  For those of you who don’t have Google Earth Pro, I found an application that will automatically download and stitch together Google map tiles (as well as Microsoft maps).  This means you can create a high resolution image of your map area, limited only by the maximum zoom level of Google Maps.

Here’s what you need:

gMapMaker, available here.  (latest version is 0.7.3.2 as of this writing)