LT Unlimited

Are you certified?

In a lot of industries, it helps to have someone who will attest to your professional knowledge and expertise. (Preferably someone with authority in that industry – my mom thinks I’m great, but that hasn’t ever helped me get a job.)

Usually, the easiest way to acquire these credentials is to take a test: architects have the AREs, engineers have PE exams, lawyers take the bar exam…what about CAD professionals?

They take Autodesk Certification Exams. Becoming an Autodesk Certified User is a way to show your boss, your colleagues, and even potential employers that you know your stuff.

Associate- and Professional-level exams are available for the following products:

• AutoCAD 2011
• AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011
• Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011
• Autodesk Inventor 2011
• Autodesk Maya 2011

Both exams are multiple choice, but the Professional exam requires you to complete tasks in the software to obtain the correct answer.

There are lots of resources available to help you study (although a lot of it’s based on things you do every day…you shouldn’t have to cram), including practice tests to help you see if you’re ready for the real thing.

You can take the tests online, or at an Autodesk Certification Center.

Once you pass, you get a certificate, permission to use the Autodesk Certified User logo on your business correspondence, and a listing in the directory of Certified Professionals.

All in all, not a bad investment in your professional career development!

AutoCAD WS 1.2 Mobile App Update Now Available

Autodesk is pleased to announce that AutoCAD WS 1.2 is now available for download on the iTunes App Store.

What’s new? Lots!

• Eight new languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish
• Support for layouts
• Inventor DWG support
• Improved markup tools

That last one covers quite a bit of ground, actually. Snap is better now, and you can double-tap on an object to select it for cut or copy. The Free Line tool has also been updated, so it’s easier to create freehand lines, symbols, or text.

Get it now – still FREE: http://autode.sk/get_acadws_app

Maximum Active Viewports

Ever make a new viewport and realize that another one has suddenly gone blank? And when you try to turn it back on, a different one goes blank?

Meet MAXACTVP.

This system variable, stored in each drawing, controls the number of viewports in a layout that can be displayed at one time. These days, the default value is 64, but it used to be 16, and since it’s a per-drawing setting you might still have a bunch in your library with that setting.

So if MAXACTVP is 16, and you create a 17th viewport in the layout, one of them will have to be turned off.

This does not affect plotting, fortunately, but it’s still a little disconcerting to see those blank viewports floating around. Chances are your computer has enough power to show all the viewports you could possibly want to create, so go ahead – set it to 64. Or higher. (But I think it’d have to be a pretty big sheet to get more than 64 viewports on it!)

Use Leaders for Jogged Grid Lines

Today’s tip is from Cadalyst’s newsletter Tips & Tools Weekly. I get this by e-mail every week, and while a lot of the tips involve custom LISP routines, there are plenty that deal with regular commands or command macros which can be used with AutoCAD LT.

The basic idea behind this tip is that grid bubbles that display great at one scale don’t do so well at others. For example, same grid, different scales:

    

Using annotation scaling solves part of this problem – if your grid bubble block is annotative, it can easily have a different location at different scales. But the grid lines are a bit of a different story. If the grid bubble moves, the line also has to move in order to stay connected.

But lines and polylines don’t support annotation scaling. What to do?

Well, Richard Lim suggests using an annotative leader for the jogged portion. If you create a style with no arrow, you can create a 3 point leader (for a variable landing length), put it on the grid layer, and adjust its location appropriately for each scale. Then you don’t have to deal with duplicating objects on separate layers to accommodate the different scales.

Pretty neat, isn’t it? Here’s a link to the full tip.

And if you want more, you can sign up for the Tips & Tools and other newsletters here.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Creating New Layers

I know a bunch of you out there are keyboard junkies, so here are two quick tips for creating new layers without clicking a single mouse button.

Assuming you have the Layer Properties Manager open:

1. Use Alt+N

This creates a new layer called Layer1, but the text is highlighted so you can type over it right away and don’t have to reselect it.

When you’re finished typing your new layer name:

1. Enter a comma (,) instead of pressing Enter.

This creates another new layer (also named Layer1), with its text highlighted too.

And if you forgot, and pressed Enter anyway (force of habit), you can still use Alt+N to create another new layer. The comma is just one less keystroke.

New Poll on the Facebook Page

I just put up a poll on the AutoCAD LT Facebook page asking our community there what version of AutoCAD LT they’re using.

If you’re a fan, hop on over and cast your vote! (If not, what are you waiting for?)

Direct link to the poll.

Repair Damaged Drawing Files

I’ve posted about the audit and recover commands before, but I thought I’d use today’s post for a quick rundown of the commands and system variables associated with the process.

• AUDIT. Finds and fixes errors in the current drawing.
• RECOVER. Audits and opens the selected file(s).
• RECOVERALL. Like RECOVER, but includes xrefs.
• RECOVERAUTO. Controls whether you’re warned that the drawing you’re trying to be opened needs recovery, and whether AutoCAD LT automatically tries to recover it.
• RECOVERYMODE. Controls whether the information needed to recover a drawing is saved, and whether the Drawing Recovery Manager is opened when needed.
• DRAWINGRECOVERY. Opens the Drawing Recovery Manager.
• AUDITCTL. Specifies whether report files are created after AUDIT.
• REPORTERROR. Controls whether error reports are sent to Autodesk after crashes.

For the system variables, I’d leave all the default settings alone. They’re set to give you the maximum help (automatic recovers, Drawing Recover Manager, error reports) when a good drawing goes bad.

For the commands, I still hope you never have to use them…but they’re there if you do.

Quick Dimensions

The Quick Dimension command (or QDIM) is one of the long-standing AutoCAD commands that made its way into AutoCAD LT 2011.

In essence, QDIM lets you apply dimensions to an entire series of objects at once, without having to execute an individual dimension command multiple times.

Here’s a short animation showing QDIM in action:

The default option for QDIM is to create continuous, linear dimensions, but if you take a look at the command line (after you select your geometry) you’ll see you have a bunch of other options:

• Continuous
• Staggered
• Baseline
• Ordinate
• Radius
• Diameter
• datumPoint
• Edit
• seTtings

Continuous, Staggered, and Baseline all create linear dimensions. “Staggered” moves from the inside out, while “Baseline” measures all distances from the same point.

“Ordinate” creates ordinate dimensions, identifying the X or Y coordinates of the objects you select. (It’s smart enough that all objects that share an ordinate are marked with a single dimension – it won’t clutter up your drawing.) Radius and Diameter, obviously, are for arcs and circles.

The last 3 choices are for more general options. Datum Point lets you pick the starting point to use for Baseline or Ordinate dimensions. Edit basically lets you change your mind if you realize you forgot to select some objects or points, or picked some that you didn’t need. And finally, Settings lets you specify whether endpoints or intersections should take priority when determining where to create the dimensions.

I can think of a bunch of places where I might use QDIM – column grids, hole sizes, beam spacing…what would you use it for?

Friday Fun – New iPad App, Updated Homestyler

Autodesk introduced a couple new things this week: a mechanical engineering game for the iPad and an update to Autodesk Homestyler.

Autodesk Homestyler (www.homestyler.com) is an online tool for home design & interior decorating. Lay out floor plans, add furniture, appliances, and decorations from actual manufacturers, and visualize your new space in 3D quickly and easily. It’s a web-based program, so there’s no software to install. Just log in and go!

The new release includes a faster, expanded product catalog (where you can save your favorite items to your personal catalog), and profiles that organize your design information for easier access later and for view on mobile devices.

Check it out today at www.homestyler.com/designer.

Autodesk Tinkerbox (www.tinkerboxnews.com) is a physics puzzle game designed to get teens and young people excited about engineering.

STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) are growing faster than ever, but they’re perceived as “hard” subjects.

Hopefully toys like Tinkerbox will put the “fun” back in physics…for kids of all ages. (If you have more fun with it than the teenager it’s supposed to be for…I won’t tell if you don’t.)

Download your copy on the app store (http://autode.sk/g1hm9e) today!

Plug-in for AutoCAD WS

Did you know that there’s a plug-in for AutoCAD LT 2011 and 2010 that provides in-product access to AutoCAD WS?

You can get it from the AutoCAD WS downloads page. It loads a new ribbon tab with options for uploading or sharing the current drawing, going straight to your WS account, and getting the mobile app versions of WS.

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this yet – it really makes sharing your drawings with AutoCAD WS that much easier. (Not like it’s hard without the tab…it’s just easier if you have it.)

Are you using AutoCAD WS? We still want to hear about it!