LT Unlimited

Edit Command Aliases

Despite the increasing responsiveness of the ribbon and the new flexibility of multifunctional grips for polylines and hatches, the command line is still one of the fastest ways to enter commands. And it gets even faster if you add your preferred 2- or 3- (or more) letter command aliases to your PGP file.

I’ve posted about the editing the PGP before, but the command to launch it has moved. It’s now on the Manage tab, Customization panel, “Edit Aliases.”

Once the file opens, scroll all the way to the bottom for the user-defined section. If you add your aliases here, they’ll override any that occur earlier in the file. That way, you have all you custom shortcuts in one place, and there’s no need to modify any existing ones

Be sure to use the proper format for your shortcuts: <alias><comma> <spaces> <asterisk> <command>. The exact number of spaces doesn’t matter, but the rest of does.

After you save your changes and close the file, go back into AutoCAD LT and run REINIT.

Check the box, click OK, and your new command aliases will be ready to use.

Convert Drawings Between CTB and STB

If you’ve ever gone to print a drawing and saw CTB files in the Plot dialog when you expected STB, or vice versa, then this post is for you.

AutoCAD LT drawings can only use one kind of plot style table at a time – you have to choose between named styles and color-dependent styles.

Switching from STB to CTB is very straightforward. Simply run the command CONVERTPSTYLES, acknowledge the warning (“Yes, I really want to do this.”), and you’re done.

Going the other way, however, is a little trickier. Before you can use CONVERTPSTYLES to change a drawing from CTB to STB, you first need to convert the appropriate CTB file with the CONVERTCTB command.

If it’s successful, you’ll see this alert:

Then you can run CONVERTPSTYLES to change over your drawing. This time, though, there’s one more step to take – selecting an STB file.

Here’s where the tricky bit comes in: you *must* choose an STB file that was converted from a CTB file. You can’t use any of the out-of-the-box STB files that ship with AutoCAD LT, or any that you created yourself from scratch. If you try, you’ll see something like this:

For this reason, I tend to think of CONVERTPSTYLES as a temporary solution – for drawings you receive from clients, for example – rather than a permanent one.

If you want to change your workflow to always use STB files instead of CTB, I’d start from scratch with an STB template file (several are included with your AutoCAD LT installation).

Minor Change to PICKADD Variable

For a long time, PICKADD was a simple on/off variable.

When it’s on, or set to 1, every object you select is added to the current selection set. To remove objects from the set, you can hold down Shift and select them again.

When PICKADD is off, or set to 0, the most recently-selected objects – either by clicking directly or by windowing around them -- become the new selection set. Anything previously selected becomes unselected, unless you hold down Shift while clicking.

(An unexpected toggling of PICKADD is probably by far the biggest trigger of questions on the discussion groups…that and PICKFIRST.)

In AutoCAD LT 2011, a third setting was added to the PICKADD variable: it can now be set to 2 as well, and in fact is set to 2 by default.

The only thing this affects is the Select command. With PICKADD set to 2, objects selected with Select remain selected, so they can be used in another command right away. (Before 2011, you needed to use the “P” selection modifier to pick up objects from the Select command.)

It does *not* affect macros, though, which is why you still need the “P” in the macros I posted on Friday.

Mimic Express Tool “Flatten”

Despite the fact that AutoCAD LT is a 2D drafting program, not all the files you receive will be exactly 2D…even if they should be. Sometimes some accidental Z coordinates get into a drawing, making it challenging to add new geometry or pull accurate distances from existing objects.

Full AutoCAD has the Express Tool FLATTEN to help with this situation, but as you’re aware, AutoCAD LT does not have Express Tools.

Fortunately, this is one of the cases where it’s fairly easy to replicate the Express Tool behavior with a CUI macro. Here’s the syntax:

To flatten selected objects:
^C^C_UCS;;_select;\_move;_p;;0,0,1e99;;_move;_p;;0,0,-1e99;;

To flatten the entire drawing:
^C^C_UCS;;_move;_all;;0,0,1e99;;_move;_all;;0,0,-1e99;;

These macros work by moving geometry waaaay up and then waaaay back down – far enough that any residual Z coordinates get rounded down to zero.

External Reference Highlighting

If you work with drawings that have lots of external references in them, chances are you’ve spent a good deal of time trying to figure out which name in the Reference Manager matches a particular reference in the drawing.

A new feature in AutoCAD LT 2011 aims to help with that. When you select a reference file in your drawing, the corresponding name in the Reference Manager is highlighted. And when you select a item in the Reference Manager, the corresponding reference is highlighted (but not selected – you have to do that yourself).

I admit the highlighting is a little subtle, which is why I’m not even going to try to show it full-size in the blog. Instead, I’ll let you click on the image to see the detail.

Audit and Recover Drawing Files

Today’s post is delayed since I spent the morning at the repair shop waiting to get my car fixed. While I waited, it occurred to me that cars aren’t the only things that break down sometimes…drawings can too.

If you have a drawing giving you trouble (whether it’s the equivalent of an annoying noise under the hood or a full-blown breakdown on the side of the road), there are two commands you can turn to for help: Audit and Recover.

Audit can be run on open drawings. Auditing a file generates a description of the problems present and recommendations for fixing them. But if you say “yes” to the “Fix any errors detected?” prompt, AutoCAD LT will go ahead and fix them for you. Any objects with errors are placed in the Previous selection set for easy access, and a log file is created if AUDITCTL is set to 1.

Not all errors can be fixed with Audit, which is why there’s also Recover. Before you run Recover, you have to close the affected file. It’ll open up again when the command is finished. “Recover with Xrefs” (highlighted in the image above) included any referenced files in the recovery process. Some things to remember when using that option:

• Drawing files are saved in the current drawing file format.
• Copies of the original drawing files are saved as BAK files.
• If the object enabler is present, custom objects are updated.

The results of the recovery are displayed in the Drawing Recovery Log window.

Each drawing file checked includes a Drawing Recovery Log that can be expanded or collapsed. The entire log can be copied to the Windows clipboard with the Copy to Clipboard button.

Examples of things that can be fixed with Audit and Recover are invalid block or layer names, errors in the internal database, missing xdata, that sort of thing. Typically they’re things that you’d never think twice about (or even once), until you start seeing errors in your drawing.

So remember Audit and Recover the next time you have a drawing in need of repairs…I guarantee they’re faster than the average mechanic!

July/August AUGIWorld Now Available

AUGIWorld, the official magazine of AUGI, is published bi-monthly and available for free to all AUGI members.

Click here to download the July/August 2010 issue.

This issue includes the 2010 Wish List, a compilation of user-submitted (and voted-on) wishes for AutoCAD and Revit Architecture.

Other features this month:

• An Easy Way to "Do the Math" - Don't overlook the AutoCAD Calculator, suggest author Jeff Bartels. In this article, Bartels shows you all the things this tool can do.
• Oops! You Just Spent Too Much for Your CAD Workstation - Judah Jackson explains how you can score a great workstation for far less than you probably imagine.
• The CAD Manager - CAD Manager Mark Kiker presents the items on his wish list.

New Look for AutoCAD Exchange

If you haven’t stopped by the AutoCAD Exchange lately, now would be a great time to check it out – it’s got a brand-new look!

Along with the color scheme update, the content has been reorganized to make it even easier to find helpful tips and tricks and network with fellow AutoCAD users.

The “Ask the Expert” feature is still going strong too – Marc Boyer, this week’s expert, has already answered 24 questions. (Whew!) A good addition to the 6 pages of archived experts over the life of the Exchange.

Think you’d make a good expert? Sign up today! (If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, I bet you know enough to qualify…or at least where to look for the answers to the questions you’ll get.)

100 AutoCAD Tips all in one place

I usually just post one tip at a time over here, but Edwin Prakoso of CAD Notes decided recently that that’s not enough. He compiled a massive list of “The Best, the Rest, the Rare: 100 AutoCAD Tips You Should Know'” and put it up for everyone to see and use.

There are a few AutoCAD-only tools hiding in there (Express Tools, 3D, some add-ons), but there are far more that apply equally well to AutoCAD LT.

Some of my favorites are #16, #37, and #83 – what are yours?

Updates to the Spline Command

The new 3D modeling tools in AutoCAD 2011 required some updates to the spline command, and while a lot of them are most applicable to 3D situations, some of them have trickled over to the 2D side.

You’ll notice the first change right after you start the command, if you pay attention to the options at the dynamic prompt or command line.

“Object” has been around for a while (it turns a polyline into a spline), but “Method” and “Knots” are new to AutoCAD LT 2011.

“Method” lets you choose between “Fit Points” and “Control Vertices.” Fit Points is the old familiar way, where the spline passes through each point that you select. With Control Vertices (CV), you essentially define bounding lines and the spline fits between them. (That’s an overly simplistic explanation, but let’s just say that CV splines are important for 3D modeling, and you should go check out Guillermo Melantoni’s What A Mesh blog if you want to know more.)

Here are examples of the two methods, first with fit points, then with CV.

Whichever method you choose, you can change the display later.

Knots affect the shape of a fit spline as it passes through fit points. There are 3 options (Chord, Square Root, and Uniform), but I’m honestly not sure how to explain the differences.

Maybe the biggest change you’ll notice is that when drawing a fit spline, the start and end tangencies are now assumed. You can change it with the Tangency options if you want to, but you don’t have to. (Admit it – when you finish a pre-2011 spline, you just hit Enter-Enter-Enter anyway, right?)

Splines also have some new fancy grips, and they’re multifunctional like the ones for polylines and hatches.

The options you’ll see are a little different depending on whether you’re working with a fit spline or a CV one, but the concept is the same.

In the image above, the triangular grip is for switching between Fit and CV display. The “plus” on the left-hand grip indicates the beginning of the spline (to help identify “start” and “end”). For the square grips, you can stretch, add, and remove fit points, and for the start/end grips you can change the tangent direction.