LT Unlimited

Sub-units in Dimension Styles

Another new feature in AutoCAD LT 2010 that falls into the small-but-potentially-very-significant category is the ability to use sub-units in dimension styles. This means that you can show different magnitudes of dimensions with different units.

(This is not the same thing as Alternate Units, which is designed to show two different families of measurement at the same time, i.e. inches and millimeters. More on those another time.)

For example, check out these two walls, currently dimensioned in meters.

But let's say I want to show the shorter wall in centimeters instead. In the Dimension Style Manager, under the Primary Units tab, there's an option to suppress leading zeros.

Check the box, and the Sub-units options become available. Now, I can enter a sub-units factor of 100 (the conversion factor between meters and centimeters) and a suffix of "cm" (with or without a space). This helps to distinguish between the regular dimensions and sub-unit ones.

When I close out of the Dimension Style Manager and go back to the drawing, the shorter wall now shows up as 45.72 cm instead of 0.46 like it did before.

Restore Dimension Association

A while back, I posted a video tip on the benefits of associative dimensioning in AutoCAD LT -- where if you modify a dimensioned object, the dimension updates.

But what if, for whatever reason, your dimension loses its association? You can either recreate the dimension, or you can use the command DIMREASSOCIATE to fix it.

This is another easier-done-than-said tip, so here's a video to show you how it works. But my microphone is broken today, so it's the silent-film type.

I recorded it in an HD resolution, so it's too wide to put on the blog.

YouTube (note: watch in HD mode for best view)

Non-YouTube: Download dimreassociate.mp4 (2015.5K)

Small tweak to Multileaders

A tiny change was made to the behavior of block-type multileaders in AutoCAD LT 2010.

On the Content tab, when the type is set to block, the leader can now be attached to the actual insertion point of that block. In the following example, the Attachment has been set to Insertion Point, and the leader landing has been suppressed (from the Leader Structure) tab.

Old attachment:

New attachment:

If you don't need this type of leader, you might not have noticed this change...but it's there if you need it.

Select Individual Multileader Segment

In AutoCAD LT 2010, you can now select individual segments of multileaders to give them different properties, such as color or arrowhead.

To do this, hold down CTRL while left-clicking on the multileader segments.

When you do this, the segment is highlighted with dark red grips, and the Properties palette shows the available settings for a "Multileader Leader".

In this example, I've changed one of the four leader segments to be blue with a blank-dot arrowhead (instead of black with closed filled arrows like the others).

A more real-world example is this one, where rebar running in two directions can be called out with different arrowheads from the same text object. Both segments are associated with the geometry they point to as well as the text, so that when any of them move the leaders stretch and rotate to maintain the association.

Scale Text in Place

In Wednesday's post I talked about the Justify Text command, which enables you to change the justification of text objects without changing their location. Today I want to follow up with a similar command that enables you to change the size of text without relocating it.

The command is Scale Text, and it's also on the expanded portion of the Text panel on the Annotate tab. (Or by SCALETEXT at the command line.)

Unlike the regular Scale command, Scale Text doesn't ask you to pick a base point with the mouse. Instead, it asks you to choose one of several base point options. You can choose to use each text object's current insertion point, or scale them all by one of the standard justification points (left, right, center, etc.)

After you choose your base point, you need to enter a new height. You can either enter a new absolute height or a scale factor. If you enter an absolute height, it will be called "model height" (for non-annotative text) or "paper height" (for annotative text). Entering a scale factor provides a ratio for scaling all text, whether it's annotative or not.

Change Text Justification

There are a couple ways to change the justification of a text object in LT. (And why not? There are a couple ways to do anything in LT.) But in this case, the method you choose can have different end results.

The first is to select the text and use the Properties or Quick Properties palette to set the justification. Here are before-and-after images for changing the justification of a single-line text object from left to center:

Before:

After:

And for changing the justification of a multiline text object from top left to middle center:

Before:

After:

Notice that the single-line text relocated itself around its insertion point, while the mtext just moved the insertion point.

Personally, the second scenario is the one I usually want. I don't want to move the text, I just want to change the justification so that I can edit the text and have it expand in the direction I choose.

Mtext does this automatically. And fortunately, there's a command that will do it for single-line text (or multiline text, or attributes, too): Justify Text.

In both LT 2009 and 2010, it's located on the expanded portion of the Text panel of the Annotate tab, or at the command line (JUSTIFYTEXT). When you run it, you simply select the text to change and enter the new justification option. Here's a new "after" picture of the single-line text, this time using Justify Text to change the justification to center:

After (take 2):

Much better!

AutoStack Fractions in Mtext

I posted a long time ago about the special characters that control the three types of stacked fractions in multiline text: horizontal, diagonal, or tolerance (no dividing line). That post made brief mention of the AutoStack settings dialog, but didn't explain it, so I thought I'd come back to it now.

The first time you ever type a fraction-like characters in an mtext object, the AutoStack dialog appears to ask you how you want those characters to be treated.

The first choice to make is whether to turn AutoStacking on at all. If you don't want it, all fractions will stay exactly as you type them out, like this:

Next, you can choose to condense complex fractions by removing the space between the whole number part and the fractional part. Depending on the font you use, one way probably looks better than another:

Most people type out fractions using a forward slash (/) as the divider, but in LT's world, this could be displayed as either a horiztonal fraction or a diagonal, so you get to choose. You can see in the above image the difference between the two types.

Lastly, you can choose whether to have LT remember your choices or to prompt you with the dialog every time you type something that might or might not be a fraction. If you use a lot of fractions, you'll definitely want to check the box.

If you change your mind later, or if you want to unstack something that shouldn't be stacked (dates like 3/4/2009 get interpreted as fractions too), select the fraction, right-click, and choose Stack Properties.

Here, you can edit the upper and lower values of the fraction, adjust its style (diagonal, horizontal, tolerance, or decimal, which is a variation on tolerance), its position in the line of text (at the top, center, or bottom), and its size (as a percentage of the size of unstacked text). The defaults for Position and Text size are Center and 70%, and I find that that works well in the vast majority of situations.

The Stack Properties dialog is also where you can find the AutoStack settings after that initial pop-up.

Associative Dimensioning

I thought I'd try something a little bit different today: instead of writing a blog post, I recorded one. You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, I've begun to realize that a video is worth a thousand pictures accompanied by a thousand written words. (Not that my regular blog posts ever have that many words or pictures, but you get the idea. Sometimes screenshots just don't cut it.)

So here's today's tip on Associative Dimensioning -- enjoy!

Maintain Text Orientation Relative to Layout

Have you ever needed to rotate a view in a viewport, but wanted the text in that view to stay horizontal relative to the paper? If you're using annotative text styles, making this happen is as simple as checking a box.

In the Text Style Manager, an annotative text style can be set to "match text orientation to layout" -- in other words, no matter what the angle of your view is, the text will always stay horizontal.

This property can also be set on the fly for individual annotative text objects. When it's set to Yes, you can see that the Rotation property has been grayed out, because the orientation is now determined by the view angle.

The screenshot below shows two views of the same plan area, with the view on the right rotated 90 degrees. "Den" has been set to maintain orientation, while "Office" has not. (Note: this works best if you use the UCS and PLAN commands through a layout viewport. If you try to work with this in modelspace, you won't be able to rotate the text, but you also won't necessarily see the text at the correct orientation. Makes sense, really, since it's the layout and not the model that determines the rotation.)

Well, this is it -- the last post of 2008! Autodesk traditionally takes the week between Christmas and New Year's off, and the way it worked out this year, we'll be off all the way to January 5th. So, Happy Holidays to all my blog readers, and look for more tips, tricks, and news in the new year!

Placement of Alternate Units in Dimensions

First off, I'd like to thank everybody who attended yesterday's webcast, Annotation Unlimited! I don't have the final attendance numbers yet, but it looks like almost 200 people were watching to learn all about the various annotation tools in AutoCAD LT.

If you missed it, don't worry -- we recorded it, and it'll be up in about a week at www.autodesk.com/autocadltwebcasts.

Second, though, I need to correct something I said in the webcast. (Oops.) I was talking about alternate units in dimension styles, and mentioned that it's possible to put the alternate units below the dimension line, instead of next to the primary unit value. You can do this -- I just misspoke about how to accomplish it.

If you go into the Dimension Style Manager, there's a toggle on the Alternate Units tab for placing them "After primary value" or "Below primary value". In LT 2008 and 2009, "Below" automatically puts the alternate number below the dimension line -- no extra prefixes or suffixes necessary.

In earlier versions, you need to set that toggle to "after primary value", and use "\X " (without the quotation marks, but with the space after the capital X), as the suffix of the primary unit.

I hope that helps, and I'll see you at the next webcast! (As always, if you have a topic you'd like to see covered, drop me an e-mail.)