TECHtalk: autocad, technology and gadgets

becoming a simpson

Lenita Salgado — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 01:30:00 +0000

hello...who doesn't want to become a simpson? To try to see what you would look like in Simpsons world, go here and have fun!

How to Rename Files in Batches in Windows

Lenita Salgado — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 01:25:00 +0000

Although I have never written on this blog before, I am a team member and as such, I thought my first post should be about something I know. I'm sure I'm not the first to discover this, but I thought I'd share with the readers of this blog a little tutorial on how to rename files in batches in Windows.

I came upon this while downloading photos from the digital camera. I wanted to use a date system to name files, with a number for the file for that specific date. For example, March 31 - 2007 (1), (2) and so on. I had 50 or more for each day, so doing them one by one was not only time comsuming, it was annoying.

I looked around in Windows to see if there was a quicker way, and found one. Here's the tutorial part...

1. While browsing the files on Windows Explorer, select all the files you want to rename.
2. Go to File on the top menu and choose Rename.
3. This command will open one of the files to be renamed. At this point, type in the name you want to rename all the files to like March 31 - 2007.
4. Hit Enter.

Windows will then automatically rename the files for you, in no particular order, from 1 to whichever number of files you selected to rename.

Have fun!
Lenita.

PCP files

Fernando Salgado — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 01:18:00 +0000

Hello, it has been a while since I have posted anything on my blog and some friends have been asking if I still maintained this blog. The answer to all those that have been asking is yes. I have just been very busy with work and life, and of course it’s summer, which means my free time is close to zero.

For this posting I’m going to write about the best way to plot drawings received from other consultants and/or clients, which is something that one of my colleagues asked me recently. When I receive those drawings most of the time I also received the PCP files (PCP file is a pen settings assignment file).

So when you open the cad files you type in your command line the PCINWIZARD command that lets you import the PCP file that you want use in order to plot the file with the right settings and line thicknesses.

I hope this posting gone be useful to someone and please if you want to contact me use the email fsalgado@gmail.com and not my blog’s comments section. It’s easier, and you’ll get a faster response!

Rotate drawing in paper space only

Fernando Salgado — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 00:34:00 +0000

Today’s posting is about a resource that I use in my drawings. Every time I use this in my drawings, when they get reviewed by other technologists, they ask me how I was able to do it.

The resource I’m talking about it the ability to rotate my drawings in paper space without changing anything in model space.

Normally, people would rotate the UCS, which is never a good option, or they may choose to use DVIEW/Twist by using MVSETUP in layout/viewport. Instead, I use the Align/Rotate option. This only rotates the drawing in the viewport, not modelspace, thus preserving your coordinated setup and any preset UCS.

Feet and Inches Calculator

Fernando Salgado — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 11:46:00 +0000

In today’s posting, I am going to discuss a very good computer program for those AutoCAD users like myself that aren’t as familiar with the Imperial system as someone who went through North American schooling. I still have to use it everyday, which basically meant that I had to become familiar with it quickly. Feet and Inches Calculator, a program from Finch Software was and still is a great aid for me. You can download it from their web site at www.finchsoftware.com.

According to the company:

You can use this calculator to easily convert from inches to feet - feet to inches - inches to millimeters - millimeters to inches - fractional feet and inches to decimal feet or decimal inches! To convert between units just enter the number you want to convert and select the unit you want to convert to

It also includes other modules like the toolbox that can be useful for those involved in steel detailing and the resource browser which is nothing more than a resource library that you can build and is always accessible on your system tray. Try it, it’s a great tool.

Until next time,
Fernando Salgado

Use shift to add to selection

Fernando Salgado — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 16:14:00 +0000

A few weeks ago a friend and old coworker from Portugal asked me how to turn the entity selection in AutoCAD back the default. The purpose of this is so you don’t need to press the shift key to select a group of AutoCAD entities (which is very annoying!).

At the time I just emailed him the solution, but since I have received more requests related to the same problem I decided to post it today on my blog.

To control the entities selection mode in AutoCAD you must turn on or off the system variable named PICKADD. So when you use the shift key to add new objects to your selection the PICKADD system variable is set to 0 (off).

In other words, you can activate (or deactivate) the use shift to add to selection mode by setting the PICKADD system variable to on (1) or off (0).

New phase in my life

Fernando Salgado — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 14:06:00 +0000

Tomorrow, I am about to start a new phase in my life. I will be going to work at a consulting company which I have admired from the time I have moved to Canada.

The company I worked for previously, Provincial Sign Systems was also a great opportunity and an experience I will not forget. I worked with a great team of individuals, within my department and in others, all of them quite knowledgeable, helpful and unique.

This is not my normal type of post, but I wanted to take the time to acknowledge those that I worked with for the past number of months, and to thank Provincial Sign for the opportunity to learn more about the sign industry.

AutoCad Shortcut keys

Fernando Salgado — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:20:00 +0000

I has been a while since I have published anything on this blog. Life has been quite busy!

Today, I will be writing about the AutoCAD function keys after receiving a couple of e-mails about it from a friend on this very subject.

For reference, the following is a list of special virtual keys that you can use in order to increase your productivity in AutoCAD:

F1 - Help
F2 - Text Window
F3 - OSNAP
F4 - Tablet
F5 - Isoplane
F6 - Coordinates
F7 - GRID
F8 - ORTHO
F9 - SNAP
F10 - POLAR

The AutoCAD AutoStack

Fernando Salgado — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 16:24:00 +0000

I have received a couple of e-mails from some friends asking me how to restore the AutoCAD AutoStack proprieties dialog box when you have suppressed the automatic display (by mistake, etc). So I resolved posting the solution on my blog.

First right-click over the stacked text and choose Properties on the shortcut menu.

In the Stack Properties dialog box, click AutoStack.

Once you click on the AutoStack bottom the AutoStack proprieties window opens and you can uncheck the checkmark saying “Don’t show this dialog again; always use these settings”. By doing this, you will suppress the constant pop-up of AutoStack.

Turn off the grey background mask of a field

Fernando Salgado — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 13:55:00 +0000

Last week I start using some fields on my projects for displaying and automatically updating the area every time I change the size of a new sign structures that I’m currently designing. This is in fact a cool feature that is available on the last couple of versions of AutoCAD. The only thing I don’t like is the annoying grey background mask. I know that it doesn’t print but for me it is still annoying. For anyone that agrees with me and wants to know how to turn off the grey background mask, simply type on the command line “fielddisplay” and then “0”.

<0> turn off grey background mask
<1> turn on grey background mask.
The default value is <1>.

Override the AutoCAD measurement

Fernando Salgado — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 02:21:00 +0000

Sometimes, in my current job, I have to go through old drawings. Since I wasn’t the creator of the drawings, I normally have to check all the dimensions to see if the CAD operator responsible for the project didn’t just override the text on the dimensions instead of drawing everything in the correct size.

As you can imagine, this is a time-consuming task because there is no way to tell when you open a drawing whether the dimensions are correct or not.

For this kind of situation, there is a fantastic, Express Tool that can check your drawings or even reset the dimension text to its true value.

You can access this tool from your top pull down menus:

Express Tool menu>Dimension>Reset Dim Text Value

Basically this tool executes the DIMREASSOC command, which if you are like me you may prefer to key in manually.

After executing the command it will ask you to select all the dimensions in question and AutoCAD will highlight the incorrect ones. You can also type in the word "All" to select all of the dimensions. Finally an additional enter will return the dimensions to their true value.

Good luck,
Fernando Salgado

Spline to Polyline

Fernando Salgado — Sun, 06 Nov 2005 21:37:00 +0000

I work as a structural designer for a sign making company so I receive lots of artwork made with other non-AutoCAD computer programs like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw. In those programs when you export to a dxf or dwg file they export the curves as splines, which, at times, is counterproductive.

For the kind of work that I’m doing splines aren’t the best kind of AutoCAD entities. After trying many different solutions to transform the splines in plines, I finally found one which I’d like to share. There some autolisp routines available for that task but after doing some research, I found a way to do it without using any routine or software.

By the way, a Spline is a curved line formed by two or more vertices, or "control points", and a mathematical formula describing the curve(s) between them. A Pline, or polyline, is a line created by a series of shorter straight line segments.

HOW TO CHANGE A SPLINE INTO A POLYLINE

Step 1: WBlock the Spline
Step 2: Open the Spline dwg and Save it as an R12 dwg
Step 3: Save the Spline as a DXF file
Step 4: Insert the DXF into your new file
Step 5: Explode the DXF
Step 6: Pedit the segments as a Pline.

Source: http://home.pacifier.com/~nemi/1tips.htm#HOW%20TO%20CHANGE%20A%20SPLINE%20INTO%20A%20POLYLINE%20(by%20Garry%20Fisher)

free DWG TrueView

Fernando Salgado — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 22:42:00 +0000

Finally Autodesk has released their free DWG TrueView, a software that allows you to open AutoCAD files without having AutoCAD installed on your computer. The program is FREE and can be downloaded at http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5921930&siteID=123112.

A great tool for anyone having to view, and not create AutoCAD drawings.

TASKBAR System Variable

Fernando Salgado — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:06:00 +0000

Since most of my work as structural designer means working with Autocad on a daily basis, it is must better for me to have separate multiple drawings on my taskbar rather than having all open in one CAD session.

If you are in the same predicament, you can set this up in AutoCAD by turning on the TASKBAR variable, which is normally <0> by default. You can normally use the CTRL-TAB or CTRL-F6 to switch between drawings, but with the change in the variable to <1>, you will be able to use the CTRL-ALT key combination as well.

To make the change, type in “TASKBAR” on the command line (while AutoCAD is running). Then, change the variable. The two options are:

0 - one taskbar item for all open drawings
1- multiple taskbar items for all open drawings.

Until next time,
Fernando Salgado

AutoCAD order of objects and text dimensions

Fernando Salgado — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 00:32:00 +0000

In my current job I use a lot of solid hatches and I noticed that when printing, I can spend one hour or more changing the DRAWORDER of all dimensions in the drawing.

After doing some research I discovered the TEXTTOFRONT command, that brings all text and dimensions to the front without having to select them all first, which is an amazing improvement compared to the DRAWORDER command where you must first select all the text and dimensions in the drawing and then use the "Front" option.To use this command you must type on the command line TEXTTOFRONT and then choose one of the three options:
Bring to front [Text/Dimension/Both]

This is truly a very simple command to use which will save lots of time in future projects.

Until next time,

Fernando

Starting the session of AutoCAD with Template pre-loaded

Fernando Salgado — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 23:32:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I published a posting about “AutoCAD and the Command line switches”. Today, when I started my system, I found that I’ve got too many old templates. This is why my tip for today is how to start AutoCAD 2005 with a specific template.

The switch to create the default drawing when you first startup AutoCAD is /t .

Since at my actual work I only need to use one template and in today’s world we all know how precious time is so anything you can do to help yourself is important.

To use the switch, start off by right-clicking on the AutoCAD program on your desktop, and selecting properties. When the window pops up, you will see three tabs – make sure to select the Shortcut tab. Under this tab, there are certain fields filled in. The one you need to change is Target.

When you make the changes in the target box you must be careful not to remove any section of the application path or the filename while ensuring that you have a space after the path, the file name and before your switch (see image). You will also need to make sure that there is a space between each argument of your switch statements.

You can use a relative path (e.g. “MyTemplate.dwt”) for the template path, if AutoCAD has the path to the template within its support paths. If the template is not within the support paths, then you will need to enter the absolute path (e.g. “C:\CADTemplates\ MyTemplate.dwt”).

Once you’ve made all the necessary changes, click on OK and you are all set. I hope you will find this useful.

Until next time,
Fernando Salgado

Status of your network ports

Fernando Salgado — Sun, 21 Aug 2005 15:49:00 +0000

I have been a little busy during the past month, so I haven't published anything on my blog. Today, I was configuring my home network, and I thought it would be a good posting about a fantastic online tool called shields up (http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2). This tool basically tells you what port you have open on your system in order to help you set up your network correctly. It is definitely worth a try.

AutoCAD and the Command line switches

Fernando Salgado — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 15:05:00 +0000

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Speed doesn’t hurt when working with AutoCAD. If your workflow includes the use of more than just AutoCAD you may start to notice that using AutoCAD out of the box doesn’t give you much speed.
So normally on my computers I use the command line switches in order to specify different options when AutoCAD starts, so for example AutoCAD can run a script, start with a specified template drawing, and display a specified view when a drawing is opened.
You must also know that with the command line switches, you can also set up several AutoCAD icons on your Desktop, each one with different start-up options.
Below is the table with valid switches:

The syntax for using command line switches is:
"drive:pathname\acad.exe" ["drawing name"] [/switch "name"]
Giving oneself an extra edge through shortcuts is always beneficial.

Fernando Salgado — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 23:58:00 +0000

Align objects in Corel Draw using shortcut keys!

When I’m doing graphic design with Corel Draw I frequently need to align my objects on my workspace. I know that it’s possible to do this using the top menus, but in the real world speed is what differentiates you from the others.
So for those who use Corel Draw as tool in their everyday work I think that it’s worth the time to read this posting.

First create a new file and draw a square and ellipse like is shown below. In order to create an exact object (height equals to width) you must use the CTRL key.

Now, what if you need to center the ellipse with the square. How do you do this?

Well as written above you can gain access to a bunch of features that let you align your object using the pull down menus at the top of your application; however it is faster if you make use of your keyboard using the right shortcut keys.

Select the square while pressing the SHIFT key and select the ellipse.

You must also know that the alignment is based on second (last) object in your selection, so for the example above the square is aligned with the ellipse.

Shortcut keys:

C -> Align centers certicaly
E -> Align centers horizontally
T -> Align top
B -> Align bottom
L -> Align left
R -> Align right

Now that you know the shortcut keys, you must practice them to make them part of your routine.

Remember that others could know the same as you, what makes you unique is the speed and dynamics that you put in your work.

Restoring Defaults in Corel Draw

Fernando Salgado — Mon, 20 Jun 2005 22:15:00 +0000

I am going to start a new job next week, which will involve using Corel Draw as a main tool. I resolved to start re-familiarize myself with this software.

When I opened Corel Draw (11) on my computer, some of my menus disappeared and other settings have either changed or are lost.

I did find a solution, which I am posting for all today.

Solution:

Hold down the F8 key.
Launch CorelDraw in the usual way. After a few seconds the dialogue box below will appear.

Click the "Yes" button.

Corel will then start with all the menus, tools, etc. looking the way they did when you first installed the program.

How to enter special characters

Fernando Salgado — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:55:00 +0000

While working in the drafting field for the past few years, I have always used special characters (symbols) in AutoCAD. The latest versions of the AutoCAD let you access these symbols in different ways, but I since I started my career using AutoCAD 12 (in MS DOS operation system), I still like to use the old way.

Below is a list of control sequences for some of the symbols that I use frequently:

TIP: the special character %%o or %%u act as toggles. For example, if you enter "this%%utoggles%%u the underscore", the word toggles will be underscored (toggles).

Hope you find this useful.

Until next time,

Fernando Salgado

Photoshop shortcuts

Fernando Salgado — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:31:00 +0000

After organizing some of my files, I found an old Word document with Photoshop shortcuts. I know that until now, all my postings had been about about AutoCAD, however this blog is not just about CAD, so, here are are the shortcuts available for you to download.

http://www.fsalgado.com/photoshop_keyboard_shortcuts.zip

How to find the viewport scale

Fernando Salgado — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 20:05:00 +0000

Today, I was asked about how to find the viewport scale in AutoCAD. I thought this would be a good posting on my blog. Normally, in order to determine or change the scale of a viewport in paperspace, I use the keystroke CTRL + 1, but if you have the express tools installed (available in AutoCAD 2004 to 2006), you can just type the command "vpscale" in the command prompt.

Open and edit any DWG file using any version of AutoCAD

Fernando Salgado — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:54:00 +0000

For anyone who doesn't have the latest version of AutoCAD who need to open drawings created by a newer version, there is now a free plug-in that let you do this easily: DWGgateway

The software lets AutoCAD users work easily with DWG files created by any version of AutoCAD software. Here is the link to the free download page:
http://www.dwggateway.com/index.html

Conversion of units

Fernando Salgado — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:45:00 +0000

Working in the drafting field in a country like Canada means that you must be prepared to receive projects created using the imperial system (feet and inches) or the official metric system.

Because of this dilemma, I was able to find an application to help me quickly solve my problem, of which I am posting about today.

The application that I use almost everyday to convert units between the two systems is a small program (568 KB) called Convert. The name basically says everything and you can download it for free from the author’s web site: http://www.joshmadison.com/software/