100

I should have prepared something special but it wasn’t enough time. Why so special? Because I just realized this will be post 100 and it would have been nice to have something special to blog.

Part of the boost up I intend to create a blog at the end of each year in which we will review the year, the posts we had here and whatever I feel has marked the year, good or bad.

And to push it a bit more, every 50 posts I plan to (shall I say try?) create a more different one, where we dedicate a lot of time to one subject covering an advanced topic, or maybe a low level post for new users or for those changing CAD and needing to get up to speed with Inventor.

So let’s do a review of 2014 and what I have been blogging about, since we missed it last year and because 100 found me completely unprepared.

January 2014 we looked at using trim-extend as one command, we added British threads to our design data, we looked at fixing missing references and renaming the browser nodes with mFManager and we view a large assembly trick on spinning the view by current component.

February 2014 was mostly a mFManager month, we covered the advanced file search functionality, the drawings function, extract-restore, and we covered a the really powerful rename function. On that month we had a different post on how we solved the Educational Product stamp on our drawings.

March 2014 was an mFManager exclusive month. We checked integrity of our files with Project / Assembly Verification tool, we detailed the rename function a bit more, and then Codify and Cloning. The last two are really powerful and I use them ALL the time to speed up my project completion.

April 2014 we came to our senses and we covered a bit of tube and pipe; more exactly adding ISOGEN Description and ITEM CODE to our authoring window automatically. We looked at customizing the part number and description of frame generator components, we added RAL colors to our design data library and also added Unistrut shapes to Content Center for use in Frame generator.

May 2014 we looked at importing and constraining AutoCAD geometry and while I know that you can constrain end points right after “paste” by using right click, we rather focused on using the auto-constraints function in Inventor. AutoCAD had a bit more coverage with selection tools, and the overkill command that I use to clean up the drawing before import. At the end of the month we speed up placement of fasteners by using favourites menu, ALT drag functions and associated patterns.

June 2014 is when we use ballooned filter on parts list, changed the recent file count on AutoCAD, hacked the registry to remove reflective shaded views, edit locked sketches with vb (like those for shaft generator) and we reviewed the magical code for creating Parts Lists with Thumbnails. Our mood dropped when Showcase was discontinued but it came back up when Autodesk revoked the decision and also when Space Mouse become wireless.

July 2014 has been covered by things like, dimensioning arc tangent, iLogic rules and code injector,  xml parameter edit and copy, Lee Mac’s advanced search replace for AutoCAD and full list of object selection tools for AutoCAD. It’s then when we located folders with iLogic, changed AutoCAD quick properties and Shift deselect variables, and we looked at rounding inventor parameters.

August 2014 was mostly iLogic, we edited parts lists, tagged valves and equipment on drawings, automated pdf/dwf publishing, and we looked at mouse usage and my crazy stats of over 5500 clicks and 3500 scrolls each day.

September 2014 was when we looked at, numeric increment for AutoCAD, changing flipped dimensions with “driven” toggle, how to edit dimensions difficult to select, authoring branch fittings for T&P, creating multi-line iproperties and how to use replace component on T&P authored fittings.

               

October 2014 we looked at adding part info on dxf exports, fixing sheet metal imports with delete face, the well acclaimed “item number on drawing views”, tagging components or renaming browser nodes, and I have asked you to vote for two ideas on Autodesk, more exactly “route centrelines for visible items only” and “multiple selection change size”.

November 2014 is when the 1hour video on Tube and Pipe was done, and we have detailed the video over two more posts here and here. We then looked at how to identify drawing view types to use in iLogic and we updated the code for the browser name.

               

December 2014 was short due to holidays and because of my son’s birth but we managed to detail tube and pipe video with a third post, we looked at how to sort, renumber and cleanup the BOM and on the final thought we had tube and pipe and a couple of unneeded errors.

               

I look forward to this year’s review, because it brings back a lot of good memories and I enjoy re-reading all the comments, emails, and messages you sent as well as seeing this as an opportunity to see if there’s new info or improvements I can bring in on the subject.

Later,

ADS

               

Compare drawing sheets

We had this weird problem the other day and deciding to investigate some more resulted in this post being created because it seemed helpful.

                Looking through our Vault I found one drawing that had not been dated and approved. So I open the drawing with AutoCAD and to my surprise it was signed and dated. I double checked on the physical copy that we file and confirmed that it has been singed and approved.

                Somehow in the publish process AutoCAD has messed up the dwf so Vault preview image would not see this changes. Not knowing what else might have been omitted I decided to compare the drawings and for speed and accuracy I choose to let the computer do this while I, like a good manager I am, supervised the process!

                The only way to compare files was trough Design Review so hit right click in vault on the drawing preview image and select “Open in Autodesk Design Review”. We are now ready to compare and it can only be done against other dwf/dwfx files.

                Open the drawing in AutoCAD and exported the file to dwf then I was able to use the Compare Sheets command in Design Review.

                By default any addition will be shown in green and deletion in red but you can change those colors if you want in the Options part of the Open window dialog.

                Luckily that was the only difference and after checking the drawing back in it all updated. You don’t need to use check out/in and you can just click on Update View in Vault to make it current.

Later,

ADS.

                 

AutoCAD MOCORO command

Are you using MOCORO command in AutoCAD?

I love it and use it all the time for speeding up my P&I D’s! Sitting nicely under the productivity tab it combines Move, Copy, Rotate, and Scale into one super command.

I just type MOC and the let the auto complete do the rest and finish with spacebar, enter or right click depending on your settings.

After you select the things to modify, you need to specify base point and then you can start placing it. Right click after each place if you need to modify the last item and you can either select with the mouse on the drop down menu or type c for copy, m for move, u for undo, etc.

And the video

Later,

ADS.

Numeric Increment for AutoCAD

Another post on incrementing tags for valves, equipment and instrumentation on P&I D done with AutoCAD.

I hate repetitive boring jobs so I much rather spend a couple of hours researching for a quicker, faster solution before doing the mundane.

In this case I wanted to automate the assignment and incrementing of tags numbers for valves, instrumentation and general texts in electric schematics.

So after a bit of research I came across Lee-Mac's website. This site is full of goodies and for my problem I stopped at "Incremental Numbering Suite".

You really need to open the webpage to see the full capabilities of this routine but here’s how I've used it.

Fits, I've selected all my instrumentation and added “000” to the tag number so that the function can pick it up as a number that needs changing (incrementing).

Type numinc to get the options window.

We start all instrumentation at 500 so I have 501 for my fist number with 1 as increment. You can type it anywhere in the prefix, middle or suffix as long as you tick the correct section to increment bellow.

I have then clicked the “pick on screen” to select the block type that needs changing, selected my block and clicked OK.

At the command prompt type “R” in order to replace an existing value, in my case “000”. Click on each object that you want modified in the exact order you want it incremented.

I have placed a temporary valve tagging block and started the numinc again. I have used “V” as prefix and 101 (we start all valve tags at 100) as middle incrementing middle by 1 each time. Select the temporary valve block with “pick on screen” for objects to modify and click “OK”.

I haven’t used “R” because I need the program to place new blocks on the fly just like in the image bellow. 

Totally love Lee Mac’s website and if you find it useful, it won’t hurt to donate especially since he keeps his source code free. It's nice to see the code that does all this magic.

ADS

Quick Properties and Shift Deselect

Short posts today on a couple of issues I had with Autocad.

                First tip is disabling the Quick Properties Window. If every time you select an object on Autocad you get a pop-up properties window then you’ve enabled the quick properties display option. What’s worse is that it doesn’t have a name or title so you can’t really tell what you've activated.

                You can type QPMODE and change it to 0.

                Or you can click on the customisation menu on the right down corner, add Quick Properties to the expanded menu and then click on the new icon to turn it on/off.

Here’s the help page description.

Type:	Integer
Saved in:	Registry
Initial value:	1

Sets the on or off state of Quick Properties palette.

0	Turns off the display of the Quick Properties palette for all objects. When turned back on by clicking Quick Properties on the status bar, QPMODE is set to 1
1	Turns on the display of the Quick Properties palette for all objects
2	Turns on the display of Quick Properties palette only for objects that are defined in the Customize User Interface (CUI) Editor to display properties

Note When this system variable is set to a negative number, the feature is turned off but the value is retained.

                Second tip regards the wrong behaviour of shift to deselect objects. It seems Raster Design has an option to “Shift+Left Click to Image select”. The shift hijack can be turned off by typing IOPTIONS and deselecting the “Shift+Left Click to Image select” in the User Preferences tab.

                ADS

AutoCAD advanced search replace

A couple of words on Autocad search replace. Autocad has the functionality built in and for simple things is good enough.

For example when I need to change pipe size on a P&I D I can select the labels and use the properties (CTRL+1) to change the attribute text all at once.

If you need to change different types of notes, blocks, texts, multiline-text etc. then you can use the Search/Replace functionality

You can search in Entire drawing / Current space/layout or in selection (pre selected object or on the spot)

On the result list you can select just part of the items before doing replace.

But what if you need to do a complex search replace? This won’t do.

I had to change Cable Schedule in several acad drawings and all I was given was an excel file.  Luckily I had the previous revision of the excel file and I could make a list of old - new name. Lee Mac has created a script that can do that for you. The script is called BFind and here’s how I used it.

                 This is what the Acad looks like.

                 And this is what we will end up with.

Once you load the BFindV2-0.lsp script in you acad session (you can drag drop it on your drawing) run it by typing BFind and you should get the following window.

In here you can search replace in current drawing, all open drawings, folder,  folder with subfolders. You don’t want to type all text changes one at a time but rather use a text document with the values from excel so here’s how to do that.

You need to add something in the search replace fields and save it as a text for reuse late. You can then open the reuse text document and add your texts. Load it back in the BFind window an hit ok.

Let’s add Find: ADS ad Replace with: ADS1 then click Save. Click OK for changes to take effect and then open windows explorer and let’s locate the file.  Do a search on C: drive for a file name that contains LMAC BFind. Mine was located here:

C:\Users\adrian.salariu\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\AutoCAD Mechanical 2015\R20.0\enu\Support\LMAC_BFind_SavedSearches_V2-0.txt

Open it up and check to make sure it contains our saved Search Items List.

Add your text in and save the document. In Autocad run BFind and click on Load to load your list.

After selecting your search location (drawing, folder , etc.) click OK and go get a coffee till it’s done.

This saved me a couple of hours of boring, mind-numbing work. Hope it helps you as well. Here's the link to Lee's web page.

ADS 

AutoCAD 2015 recently used files

Just had Product Design Suite 2015 installed and went trough the hassle of setting my options when I found a bug.
I wanted to set the number of recently used files to 50 as the tooltip suggests it maximum and it didn't want hear it.
Error popped out saying "Enter a digit between 0 and 10".

Nice one.

ADS