Michael's Corner

30 Years of CAD

This month marks 30 years of my involvement with Computer Aided Design… and it's been quite a ride. Six continents, ten countries, and 40 states. Having worked in the architectural field in the Bay Area for 4 years after getting my Bachelor of Architecture degree at the University of Cincinnati, in May of 1982 I answered an ad in the San Jose Mercury News for an "Architectural CAD Trainer"… and here I am, 30 years later, still having a great time!

Needless to say, Computer Aided Design has come a really looooong way since I first touched a computer keyboard. Some of which are covered this month! Specifically…

…Autodesk 360 in AutoCAD 2013
…A more elegant way of importing a custom menu [CUI/CUIX]
…The problems that result if PICKFIRST is set to <0>
…Irregular viewports revisited

So here's to 30 more! (…although my traveling may be substantially reduced by that time.)

Small But Mighty

Anyone who's used AutoCAD for more than a week can tell you that you have to keep your eye on everything: Parameter grips on Dynamic Blocks, the presence of Layout tabs (or lack thereof), and the recently-included grip options in a shortcut menu.

They're all pretty small features, but the User Interface of AutoCAD is what enables us to bump our productivity up a notch. This month we'll look at each of those features, as well as the newly reinvigorated Command line. In a nutshell, this month's tools include:

…Understanding the new Command line in the newly-released AutoCAD 2013
…How to include a Rotation Parameter to make a Dynamic block
…Revealing where your Model and Layout tabs went if you happen to 'lose' them
…Using the multifunction grip on a Polyline to convert a segment to an arc

Hope you find these tools of productivity worthy of addition to your workbench!

Customizing For Fun & Profit

OK, it may not be necessarily for 'Profit', but I think customizing is fun, and hopefully some of you will agree. After checking out these ideas, perhaps your productivity will go up, and you will 'profit' from some time-savings!

The topics from the trenches (I just made that up; you can use it) for this month include…

…Automating the 'No Island' setting for hatching on a Tool Palette
…Making a button on the QAT to set your favorite Osnap conditions
…Configuring the Ctrl + F keyboard shortcut to be more 'Windows-compliant'
…Using the Delete Duplicate Objects command to clean up your drawing

Hope you're looking forward to Spring as much as I am!

Gotta Love Shortcuts

It's February, and love is in the air. You may love Winter (no comment), love horses, love skiing, love your significant other, love to read, love to fly Southwest Airlines, etc., but I think we can all agree: We all love AutoCAD shortcuts.

This month I reached back into the Corner vault to solve a couple issues that happened over the last 48 hours in my training seminars, and created some shortcut solutions using Lisp routines. My Lisp knowledge is extremely limited, but the little bit that I know – and that I'm passing along to you - can be extremely powerful. So here's what's in store for February 2012…

…Creating and automating several one-line Lisp routines
…Toggling the Selection Preview setting when you rollover an object in the drawing
…A possible solution for the disappearing cursor
…The Command line version of the Purge command

Give these a shot and I think you'll LOVE leaving the office just a wee bit earlier!

Oh-One/One-Two

I'm sure there's a math major out there that could make something clever out of that sequence – like the next pair would be Two-Three – and some probably want to state it as 'Zero-One'. Bottom line, the point of the exercise was accomplished: Get you thinking about your new year, 2012!

To that end, this month has some tips I picked up at Autodesk University – although I did teach my Hands-On lab twice (shown here, photo courtesy of H. Hernandez, Southwest Airlines), I did attend several sessions – as well as a few from my customers, to wit…

…Fun with AutoCAD 2012 Applications from Autodesk Exchange
…Make a Dynamic Block by Adding a Rotation Parameter
…The somewhat inconspicuous View controls in A2012
…Random productivity features from my customers

Of course, I hope this finds you back on track, several days into the New Year, and looking forward to all that it has in store.

Forward and onward into the 10th year of Michael's Corner!

Fun Winter Memories

Hopefully this finds you all looking forward to a fun Christmas season! Be it on the beach sunning and swimming or on the mountain trails skiing and schussing, winter activities are always fun. I think my favorite snow-related memory is here at home in Kentucky, after a pretty good snowfall, sledding down our steps, down the front yard, across the road, down the hill, then rolling off before getting to the creek at the bottom. The walk back, however…

On the AutoCAD front, perhaps you will find something in this month's offerings (presents?) that you will remember and use to make you a wee bit more productive, get the job done sooner, and get to spend more time at home! Consider the following…

…How to use the Revolve command to create a Surface Model
…Features of the Navigation Bar that you may actually be able to implement
…A more efficient way of toggling on and off Isolated objects
…Docking your windows to be more productive, especially when checking your drawing

My schedule at the end of December will be not unlike Santa as he jets around the planet; Guam one week and New York City the next. Nonetheless, I'm sure it will be a wonderful - and memorable - adventure. My lovely bride of 25 years keeps telling me to "Enjoy the Moment". Good advice to one and all.

Blessings to you all for a delightful Christmas season and a great New Year!

From Autodesk University, to Folsom Prison, to Guam!

My travel schedule gets pretty wacky (not as wacky as Shaan's, of course), but this is probably the most exciting sequence of events and locations I've had in awhile. At Autodesk University, I'll be presenting The AutoCAD Toolbelt lab twice, the following week I have been invited to do some AutoCAD training at Folsom Prison (stay tuned to Michael's Corner for more on how that goes!), then I'll be heading down to Guam again to train customers of the New Horizons Learning Center. Ee-Hah!

This month I'll be covering the following topics of interest expressed by folks in my recent training sessions…

Mapping materials to 3D furniture blocks comprised of 3D faces
Adding a button to the Quick Access Toolbar that will reload all Xrefs at once
Putting the workspace name back on the Workspace Switching icon on the A2012 Status bar
Subtleties of the Join command

Really looking forward to presenting at Autodesk University again, as we learn to Export a customized tab from the Ribbon. After AU, I'll be posting the presentation on my Home page, next to the ones from the previous 2 years.

Ah, and a Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

Colorful Settings

Not quite sure how I ended up with 3 out of 4 articles involving color, but that's how it turned out. I then discovered that I had not been specific about the type of text object that works best with a Dynamic Block (covered in Michael's Corner, August 2011), so I covered the creating of an attribute so the Dynamic Block will be a wee bit more effective.

So, for my birthday month (October 12th, thank you), here's what I have in store:

…Creating a button on the Quick Access Toolbar to load your favorite linetypes automatically
…Follow-up on the stretching Dynamic Block and how to create an Attribute Definition
…The curious case of a transparent Command line
…How to color new dual-element Command line in AutoCAD 2012

I'll be turning in the content for my AutoCAD University labs soon, so stay tuned for the posting of that workbook on my Home page in December.

Hope your October is great!

Settings & Information

As I reviewed the content for this month, I realized that 3 of the four articles cover running some type of inquiry on a drawing, and the other one shows you how to customize the Osnap setting for quicker access.

Curiously, that's what a significant percentage of your day probably boils down to: Queries, the result of which then enable you to respond appropriately, and settings which enable a quicker response. So here's what I have for you this month:

…Customizing the QAT for quicker Osnap changes
…Configuring Quick Select to use a Wildcard search for text
…Adding the Area property to Quick Properties when selecting a Hatch
…Using Bcount to automatically tally up all your blocks

The cooler evenings make for much more pleasant grilling these days. Hopefully these insights will give you a wee bit more time to experiment with a new recipe, or whatever you may find to do with all that extra time!

Happy Fall to one and all!

Hot Fun

Some of you are filling in the rest of the song, "…in the summertime", the 1969 hit single recorded by Sly & the Family Stone. As I'm writing this, I'm beginning to appreciate — dare I say 'long for' — the oft-quoted "dry heat" of Phoenix, after spending time in the Caribbean, Florida, and now this curious hot spell we've had here in Kentucky the last several weeks.

Customizing takes the first three spots this month as I looked back over some of the requests I received from my customers recently.

…Creating a dynamic block that can be sized (using a Linear parameter) to accommodate the text string
…Adding a command to an existing drop-down list on the Ribbon
…Organizing the position of the columns in the Layer Properties Manager
…Using the 'Hold' feature in Layer Walk

Hopefully these will make your summertime a bit more productive!