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30.1.15

Dispatch from Support: Controlling the UNDO Command

You might be wondering how on earth I have time to be blogging so much this week. Well, these "Dispatches from Support" are little how-tos that I've written up for my Enterprise Priority customers. With minimal tweaking I can one-button publish from MS Word 2010 to Blogger.

The Question:

My UNDO command seems to be misbehaving. Every action is accounted for when I try to UNDO. For example, if I create and object, pan with my middle mouse wheel and then and to undo the creation of the object I have to hit undo 2-3 times! With Civil 3D it seems even worse!

My erudite answer:

The behavior of UNDO in Civil 3D uses the same settings as AutoCAD. In all versions of AutoCAD panning and zooming are considered actions so you will always need to undo several steps if you have panned between actions. 


There are few things that will help you.  First, in the AutoCAD Options area, make sure that the options for “Combine zoom and pan commands” is checked. 


Also, when using UNDO, you can undo multiple actions by using the pull-down menu in the Quick Access Toolbar. Many Civil 3D commands will result in a “Group of Commands” entry in the UNDO list because the Civil 3D portion of the program is performing multiple tasks. Inellizoom and Intellipan are the listings seen when using the middle mouse wheel for panning and zooming actions.


Lastly, typing UNDO (the full word, not just U) at the command line will offer additional options. By default, the All option should be on, but you can use the options in the UNDO command to set a mark so that you can quickly get back to a point in time earlier in your AutoCAD session.

Many users have expressed the wish that panning and zooming get ignored altogether in the undo command. I hope that in the future this could be an option, but for now multiple UNDOs are usually necessary. 

28.1.15

Dispatch from Support: "Vanilla" AutoCAD vs Civil 3D Scaling

Users Question (slightly modified to protect the innocent):

I do not fully understand is the relationship between AutoCAD and Civil 3D as it relates to scales.The Issue: When a drawing file is created in AutoCAD with mm scale and is opened by a user running Civil 3D the scales get messed up; blocks, text, linestyles all related elements seem to be affected. 

My sage answer: 

Your question is not uncommon. Civil 3D can only create objects in feet or meters. The below screengrab is from the Civil 3D drawing settings. 

However, Autocad can work in any units. The following dialog box can be found by typing UNITS in the command line. These are the base AutoCAD units.


When you open a drawing in Civil 3D where the base AutoCAD units are not meters, it still creates roads, topography, and all other Civil 3D objects as if you are in meters. As a result, you will have scaling issues.  A road that should be 6 meters wide will only draw in as 6mm. 

The reason blocks, linetypes and text get goofed up is because of  Annotative scaling. If you open a base AutoCAD file in Civil 3D, it will not have correct scales set up to display properly relative to the large size of a civil jobsite.  A typical drawing scale for a metric civil project might be 1m=2000m plotted. When working in mm, typically you are plotting closer to 1mm=1mm. 

The best way to work with Autocad and Civil 3D is to XREF the Autocad drawing into Civil 3D (or vice versa).  The XREF command recognises that the files are created in different scales and will adjust the file accordingly. Similar scaling will occur if you insert the AutoCAD file into the Civil 3D file as a block. I recommend XREF over block insertion because the files remain separate and can be edited by multiple users.  



Additional problems will occur in Civil 3D if the file originated in base AutoCAD and is opened directly.  A base AutoCAD drawing does not have the Civil 3D styles that control the layers, colors and display of Civil 3D objects. 

If you absolutely MUST edit a file that originated in base AutoCAD in Civil 3D, you can do so but you must be careful to change some settings and change them back.  

First, make sure the Civil 3D styles are present.  If you start with a template (DWT) intended for Civil 3D, that will retain Civil styles. If it is too late, and you've already made progress on the base-Autocad file, you can use the IMPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS command or, better yet, start a new file from a Civil 3D template and insert the AutoCAD file as a block. Explode the block upon insertion.  I like the latter option for getting at the Civil 3D styles better because expressions don't come across in the IMPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS command. 

Keep in mind that base AutoCAD drawing tools are unitless. Changing the unit type in the UNITS dialog does not scale the objects.  If I draw a polyline and tell the software that it is to be 6 units, the size of the object in that drawing are relative to other objects. AutoCAD doesn't care if I mean 6 mm, 6 feet, 6 meters or 6 light years! The only time AutoCAD pays attention to the units specified in the UNITS dialog box are when you are using the XREF or INSERT command.

I hope this helps. 

22.1.15

Dispatch from Support: "Not enough free RAM for HIDE--some lines will be hidden incorrectly."

Today one of my users got the error in AutoCAD 2014: Not enough free RAM for HIDE--some lines will be hidden incorrectly.  

This was on a brand new laptop with 16 gig of RAM. In the support request, the user did not mention the make or model of the video card, but my suspicion went directly to it.

Here is my answer to the problem:

The most likely cause for the error you are seeing is the graphics card. Knowing that the new machine is a laptop, I'm concerned that the video card that is being used does not meet the hardware requirements for Autocad 2014.  In the following link, you can check to see if your graphics card is supported.  http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/syscert?id=18844534&siteID=123112

If you find your card on the list, check the recommended driver version against the installed driver version. **It is important to note that the recommended graphics driver for use with AutoCAD is not always the most recent one that Windows update automatically finds from the manufacturer.  Your IT folks will need to log in as admin to change the graphics driver.


If the graphics card and driver both check out as supported, the next thing to check is that you are using the dedicated graphics card and not the onboard graphics. Right-click the shortcut to find the Run with Graphics Processor options as shown in the below image:

Be sure AutoCAD is using the dedicated graphics card and not the integrated card.

If your video card does not appear as one of the supported cards, or if you only have an integrated graphics card, you will likely see other performance and graphics "quirks." The good news is that there is a work-around for your specific issue. In Autocad, you can work in the 3D wireframe visual style (rather than the default 2D wireframe visual style).


So hopefully that did the trick.