LT Unlimited

Drawing Recovery Manager

I mentioned the Drawing Recovery Manager in a recent post, but only in passing. Today seemed like a good time to come back to it, because I needed it yesterday!

I was in Orlando to help out at an event by Imaginit, where Lynn Allen gave her popular "60 AutoCAD Tips in 60 Minutes" presentation. Although the agenda was pretty full, we managed to find 20 minutes that I could use to give a super-short demo of the new features in AutoCAD 2010.

I was halfway through my first topic, freeform modeling, when AutoCAD crashed. :-( Actually, what happened is that the program froze -- I had to use Task Manager to kill it and restart AutoCAD. (In my several weeks of beta testing, this is the first time this has happened, honest!)

But it turned into a great opportunity to show off the Drawing Recovery Manager. As soon as AutoCAD restarted, the DRM was right there with all the files I had open at the time of the crash. No searching, no worries, and I was right back up and running. Whew!

The Drawing Recovery Manager will show you the following file types (if available), listed from newest to oldest:

• DrawingFileName_recover.dwg
• DrawingFileName_a_b_nnnn.sv$
• DrawingFileName.dwg
• DrawingFileName.bak

You can choose to open any of these and re-save them to continute working. When you have your file back, you can right-click on the drawing in the list and select Remove.

One catch: if you haven't saved your drawing at all, it won't be included in the Drawing Recovery Manager. You have to have saved it at least once to recover it.

Even though you have this great safety net, there's still no excuse for not saving your drawings. So save early, save often, and remember the Drawing Recovery Manager!

Calculate Area Enclosed by Objects or Points

AutoCAD LT includes a number of "inquiry" tools to help you pull information out of a drawing. One of these is the AREA command, located on the Inquiry panel of the Tools tab, or under Tools-->Inquiry-->Area.

When you start the command, you're prompted for corner points. Just keep clicking in the drawing until you've defined your polygon, then press Enter to see the area and perimeter in the current units.

If the object whose area you want is already drawn, you can use the Object option instead (very helpful when the object has a lot of corners).

And if you'd like to see the sum of multiple areas, you can use the Add option. Keep in mind that you have to know in advance that you'd like to add areas -- if you pick a point or object first, the command will end with the results of that object. There's also a Subtract option, which you can use either if you make a mistake adding objects, or if you'd like to see the net area defined by smaller objects within a larger one.

Quick Select

Quick Select is one of my favorite tools, but from what I've seen, it's among the most under-used commands out there. In my opinion, it's the fastest way to populate a selection set of objects that share specific properties.

I've often used Quick Select as a method of checking drawing standards. It's happened that (more than once) I've been happily annotating a drawing, when I look up to discover that I had the wrong layer set current. Oops. The fix is simple, though, with Quick Select.

First, it helps to verbalize what you want to find. "I want to find all dimensions that are not on the DIMENSION layer." Then start Quick Select, choose "dimensions" as the object type, "layer" for the property, "not equal" as operator, and "DIMENSION" as the layer. See how each of those pieces came straight out of the sentence above? They're in a slightly different order, but all the information is there.

Click OK, and you're left with a selection set consisting of nothing but dimensions on all layers other than DIMENSION. Now all there is to do is put them on the right layer, and you're done.

That's just one example of how Quick Select works. The possibilities really are endless. You could select all polylines with an area less than 100 sq. ft., or lines with a length greater than 10, or blocks named LIGHT, or anything. You can even run Quick Select multiple times to add property filters. For instance, all circles with a diameter less than 5 whose color does not equal ByLayer. See?

Play around with Quick Select, and soon you'll wonder what you did without it!

Rename named objects

You can change the name of “named objects” (such as layers, blocks, linetypes, etc.) with the RENAME command. It brings up a dialog listing the object category on the left, the specific object types on the right, and two fields at the bottom for the old and new name.

After you select an instance to rename (wildcards such as * work to select multiple instances) and have entered in the new name, you have two options. Clicking “rename to” applies the change to the selected objects and leaves the dialog box open for more selections. Clicking “OK” applies the change and exits the command. (I’m not sure why they didn’t just have an “apply” button like most other dialogs of this nature.)

This tool should be used with care, since most of the objects here are usually defined in accordance with company standards & shouldn’t be modified, but it’s nevertheless a useful command to know.

Dealing with Error Messsages

Error messages are important! Yes, I know they occasionally show up with such frequency that we just want them to go away, but you need to know what it said so you can fix it.

So the next time you get a pop-up message you’re not expecting, take a second to read it. If you understand what it says, go ahead and click OK or cancel or whatever you need. If you don’t know what to do with it, though, either go find someone who might know, or take a screenshot (see below) and send it to them. Ideally, you’ll also jot down exactly what you were doing before the problem popped up. This way, those of us doing the troubleshooting can have a better idea of what happened, and maybe how to fix it.

To take a screenshot:

1. Hit Alt+PrintScreen to capture the active window.
2. Open your favorite image software (Paint works just fine).
3. Edit-->Paste or Ctrl+V.
4. Save.

If you just need the text of the error message, Mike Perry pointed out that Ctrl+C will get just the that, which you can then paste into an e-mail or text file. It works for Vista & XP; more info is here. The nice thing about this is that you don't have to mess with an image file if you don't really need one.

Distance in Layouts

If you’re in a layout and want to measure a distance in modelspace, you don’t need to activate the viewport or switch to modelspace to get it. Instead, just snap to your modelspace points, and AutoCAD will automatically return the real distance. If you want the “paper” distance instead, you’ll have to snap to layout geometry – an easy way is to draw a construction line and measure it.

(This tip is for users of 2007 & 2008 only.)

Close All Drawings

To quickly close all open drawings, use CLOSEALL (another example of creative command names, I know). Also available under Window-->Close All. You will be prompted to save changes if necessary.

Proxy Objects

Sometimes when you open a drawing, you get a pop-up notice warning you about "proxy objects" in the drawing.

Technical explanation: Proxy objects are placeholders for custom objects that are created by ObjectARX applications in such programs as AutoCAD Architecture (ACA, formerly known as Architectural Desktop). Basic explanation: In the originating program, these objects carry additional data or properties that are not supported in plain AutoCAD.

For example, a wall created in ACA can have height, thickness, windows, etc. -- much more information than is displayed by the two or more lines of the proxy. Regular AutoCAD can copy or move these objects, but they can create problems for xrefs or osnaps. If that is the case, the best thing to do is explode the proxy object. (I know...I said "explode"...shocking, isn't it?) However, you have to be careful, as the "intelligence" of these objects is lost when you explode them, and sometimes adds lines where they weren't before.

In short, the best thing to do with a proxy object is to ignore it, if you can. If you can't ignore it, ask the person who sent you the file to "Export to AutoCAD" before they send it. This will strip out the custom information and let you use the file more easily.