2007-01-25

X-Ray vision

Construction lines only see the positive side of life?

Posted at the Autodesk forum: if your construction lines only extend to right and upward (the positve directions), then you need to toggle construction line creation from ray to xline. Use AMCONSTSWI at the command line to be able to see in all directions. Up, up and away.

2007-01-24

I'm no longer a status symbol

Does your status line look "just smashing" or "just smashed".

A nice tip from Autodesk for a "smashed looking" status line.

1) Execute AMPOWERSNAP command
2) Select "Current Settings" tab and uncheck "Show Snap in status line"

2007-01-23

Supersize Me

Are your inserts from Design Center bigger than large fries? Well, this is one that comes up from time to time. We insert standard features in from Design Center but they came in "ginormous" (for you Elf fans) and scaled to inches (we use ISO and metric). "It must be the standards settings" I thought. I looked and they were set to ISO and Metric. Hmmm... Oh a thought, I checked under the OPTIONS and it was under USER PREFERENCES and under Insertion Scale, it was set to Inch. I set it to Millimeters and then the items inserted correctly. We are now back to regular size fries. I feel so much better.

2007-01-16

My instant MTEXT messenger

A users MTEXT began speaking to him today. A user here had his MTEXT command issue an error on startup (after the text window was selected). It shown a dialog saying "Cannot find shell program". A ever trustworthy "hmmmmm... I have never seen that before" from myself and I was off to the races. A quick Google and I was on it. The variable inside AutoCAD "MTEXTED" was incorrect. You see, we have a designer from our German branch of the company and he uses a digitizer (another discussion), but anyway, his setup said "INTERN" instead of "INTERNAL". I typed in MTEXTED and set it to INTERNAL. Back in business again. Isn't the internet cool for these problems? Till next time.

2007-01-10

I IGES, you IGES, we all IGES

Just a reminder, AutoCAD Mechanical comes with IGESIN and IGESOUT commands built in.

Regular AutoCAD users have to pay extra for the command. Oh, "membership has it's privileges."