LT Unlimited

Layer Tools (formerly known as Express)

Full AutoCAD ships with a set of commands called Express Tools, which are little routines that have been around forever but never managed to make their way into the core program.

Sometimes, though, a command (or set of commands) proves so popular that the team moves it over to become part of the base program. Then they show up in LT too, even though the rest of the Express Tools aren't available.

The most obvious examples of this are some of the Layer Tools. They're on the Layers II toolbar, or the Layers panel of the Home tab of the Ribbon. These commands let you control a layer's visibility and other properties by clicking on an object on that layer, instead of having to track it down in the Layer Properties Manager. Even better, the visibility commands work on objects in blocks and xrefs too.

Here are the Layer tools, introduced in 2007, that were formerly only part of Express Tools:

• Layer Off (LAYOFF)
• All Layers On (LAYON)
• Layer Freeze (LAYFRZ)
• All Layers Thaw (LAYTHW)
• Isolate Layer (LAYISO)
• Un-Isolate Layer (LAYUNISO)
• Lock Layer (LAYLCK)
• Unlock Layer (LAYULK)
• Merge Layers (LAYMRG)
• Delete Layers (LAYDEL)
• Copy Objects to New Layer (COPYTOLAYER)
• Layer Walk (LAYWALK)
• Layer Match (LAYMCH)
• Change to Current Layer (LAYCUR)
• Isolate to Current Viewport (LAYVPI)

Did you need one more reason to go to AU? Okay, here it is!

AU is launching an "Economic Stimulus" program to help more people get to AU.

Starting on November 5th, anyone with a non-discounted AU pass can request a Buddy Pass, which provides full access to all AU events, but without hotel (so maybe pick a “buddy” who you wouldn't mind sharing a room with) or pre-registration of classes. It might be a bit tough to get into labs without pre-registering (although you can always try), but there's almost always extra seats in the lecture classes.

The Buddy Pass program begins at 9:00 EST on November 5th, and the first 100 requested will be free! After that, they're just $595 -- really a bargain.

For more on Buddy Passes, check out the AU website.

Hope to see you in Vegas!

Set Hatch Draw Order

Since AutoCAD LT 2005, you've had the ability to set the draw order of hatches as they're created. In the Options section of the Hatch dialog, you can choose one of the following:

• Do not assign
• Send to back
• Bring to front
• Send behind boundary
• Bring in front of boundary

The default is "Send behind boundary", which means that the hatch is placed under its boundary object but over any other existing objects.

This setting is important for both viewing and plotting -- objects that are "under" other objects are hidden behind them on the screen and during plotting, if your plotter is set to "overwrite lines". Overwriting means that if an object with a thin lineweight is drawn over one with a thicker lineweight, only the thinner line will be printed. Depending on your industry and the final effect you want, this can be a good or a bad setting.

If you have your plotter set up to use "merge lines" this setting doesn't matter as much -- thicker lines win all the time. Even so, I like to keep the "send behind boundary" option set, so that it's easy to see the hatch boundaries on screen.

Looking for Images of Designs Created in LT

The LT team is looking for images of start-to-finish designs created in LT. If they started out as a hand-sketch, so much the better.

An example would be a sketch of a building facade, the same elevation drawn in LT, and a photo of the finished product. Or the same type of images for a mechanical part, or a landscape design, or anything cool that was drawn in LT and turned into a finished product.

If you have cool stuff like that (and I bet you do!), and would be willing to talk with us about getting some images, drop me an e-mail: [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

Think that AU isn't for LT? Think again!

So I'm positive you've heard of AU before, and I'd be willing to bet that you thought, "Oh, AU, there's nothing for LT there. It's all about AutoCAD and verticals." Well, I've been to several AU's now, and I can tell you that that's not the case at all. There's plenty for an LT user to do, see, and learn.

To prove it, I've gone through the schedule and pulled out classes that would be relevant to LT people from any industry. There are several CAD Management classes, a few on Customization, and a bunch more on features like fields and dynamic blocks. There were only two blocks of time (out of 15) where there weren't good LT classes, and one of those is full of different industry-related keynote addresses (so nobody really has classes there). For that last block, you could always find another class related to your industry, and learn about other Autodesk products that are used in it -- or you could just take a break and get ready for the Beer Bust that evening.

Here's my sample schedule. Most slots have more than one class listed -- I wanted you to see all the options you had. And there's even more than are listed here -- I just picked the major ones.

A few I want to highlight are:

• CP315-2: Customization 101: AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. This one's my class!
• CP115-2L or CP101-5L: Custom Object Snaps and Other Geometry Calculator Tricks in AutoCAD®. This one's taught by Darren Young, and I'm one of the lab assistants.
• CD311-1 Extreme DWF™: Top 10 Ways You Can Upgrade your Workflow using DWF and Autodesk® Design Review. This is all about electronic drawing review, and is taught by my colleague Cliff Medling.

And there are many more where those came from! An LT user should have no problem filling up a schedule with good classes.

If the price has you worried, yes, I know it look steep, but remember that it includes the hotel and almost every meal. That means the total cost is completely in line with similar events, or even less.

Hope to see you at AU!

Get Rid of Unwanted Layers

There are several ways to rid yourself of unwanted layers in AutoCAD LT.

First up, the Delete button in the Layer Properties Manager. This is useful when you only have one or two specific layers you want to get rid of -- otherwise it's a little tedious. You also can't delete a layer if it has anything on it, whether in the main drawing or in a block reference.

So if you want to delete multiple layers at a time, check out PURGE. It will go through your drawing and remove all unused layers, so you don't have to guess which ones might be eligible for deletion. Purge has a checkbox at the bottom to "confirm each item to be purged" -- unless you feel like clicking "OK" for every single layer to delete, you'll probably want to uncheck this.

But what if that layer just won't purge? It must have some geometry on it somewhere, or you could just delete it. But maybe those lines/arcs/whatever are hard to find, or nested in one of the hundreds of block definitions in the drawing, or...you get the picture.

You could use QSELECT to get all objects on that layer, and then purge or delete it, but if the only geometry on that layer exists in a block reference, this method won't work.

Instead, try two former Express Tools (LT 2007 and up): Layer Merge and Layer Delete. Layer Delete (LAYDEL) will blow away any layer you want, along with any objects that might exist on that layer. Using it is a little dangerous, since you don't ever get to see what was actually deleted.

Layer Merge (LAYMRG), on the other hand, combines your unwanted layer with another that's already in the drawing. The layer definition goes away, but any geometry that was on it gets moved to the other layer. So if I were to start the command, select layer HAM as the "layer to merge" and layer CHEESE as the "target layer" (hey, it's almost lunchtime), all objects on HAM would be moved to CHEESE and HAM would be deleted.

It seems to be popular to use layer 0 as the target layer, so you don't get any strange objects on your existing defined layers.

AUGI Wishlist Open!

Everybody has a list of features they'd like to see in AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT.

Now is your chance to vote for your favorites, and see the winners get sent directly to us here at Autodesk. A lot of features in recent releases have been directly influenced by wishlist voting, so make your voice heard!

Vote soon -- polls close on October 31st.

Any Readers in the San Francisco area?

If anybody out there lives in or near San Francisco, and has a couple hours to spare to have some fun with brand-new Autodesk products, I have an invitation to pass along from Frederic Loranger of Autodesk Labs:

Autodesk Labs is a division of Autodesk that engages in exploring all sorts of cool and new technologies. One of our goals is to gather feedback about these upcoming technologies that, we think, have great potential for our customers.

Autodesk recently opened a brand new Usability Lab in our office in San Francisco, and Autodesk Labs will conduct a usability study on October 30th and 31st. I would like to personally invite you to participate in this study, which will be all about rating new delivery methods for our heavy desktop applications. The study will involve rating the user experience through a series of small exercises using AutoCAD 2009 and/or Inventor 2009, and will take a maximum of 1.5 hours. Previous experience with either product is not necessary.

Please contact me by email If you would like to participate in the survey ([email protected]). I’ll make  sure to provide you with a time slot that fits your schedule.

Thanks for considering this opportunity,
Frederic Loranger

Be the first on your block to test-drive a new product! I hope if you have a few extra hours you'll consider signing up.

Customize the Quick Access Toolbar

AutoCAD LT 2009 introduced the Quick Access Toolbar as yet another way of putting frequently-used commands in easy reach. It's located up at the top-left corner of the screen, next to the Menu Browser, and by default it looks like this:

You get New, Open, Save, Plot, Undo, and Redo -- but what if you want to put something else up there? No problem!

Simply right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar and select "Customize." A condensed view of the CUI pops up, enabling you to browse for the command you want or search the command list for it.

Once you see the command you want, just drag-and-drop it into the Quick Access Toolbar.

If you change your mind, you'll need to go into the full CUI editor to take a command off the toolbar. Under the contents of each workspace is a node for the Quick Access Toolbar. Click on "Customize Workspace" to make changes, and on "Done" when you're finished. Notice that this means that you could have a different Quick Access Toolbar for each workspace, if there are times when you need quick access to different sets of commands.

AU Early Bird Discount and a Dynamic Blocks Tip

Are you all registered for AU? If not, and you're planning on it, you might want to do it today -- the $500 early bird discount expires at the end of the day. If you go, be sure to find me to say hi -- I love meeting blog readers. :-)

I learned something new about Dynamic Blocks this week, so I thought I'd share it with you. You probably know that you can use the Properties palette to change the custom properties of inserted dynamic blocks (like picking an option from a lookup table, or entering a value for a linear parameter). But did you know that you can use the Properties palette to change those settings before you pick your insertion point?

Try it: Begin to insert a block (from a menu, tool palette, or with the insert command), but before you pick your insertion point, open up the Properties palette. Look for the section called "Custom" -- this holds the parameter-based properties for your block. Change one of them, and watch the preview of your block update before you place it.

Anyway, I thought that was a pretty neat tip. I hope some of you find it useful!