Our XL2CAD product connects to Microsoft Excel and pulls information using the ActiveX channel. There are factors that can negatively affect that connection, which are detailed below. Read More →
AutoCAD 2017 introduced a change to the way it handles the background in icons for ribbons, menus, etc. For many years the longstanding tradition was to allow RGB 192,192,192 to represent transparency in icons. Now old custom CUIX files display with an undesirable light gray background.
Many times users want to build 3dSolid models inside CAD engines to visualize, check volumes or 3d print. Here is some procedures to help you get started.
Sometimes users want to capture AutoCAD command line output for parsing into a report. The quick easy way if you don’t have too much content is right clicking the command line area, choosing Copy History and pasting that into an editor to remove the unnecessary parts. However sometimes your content exceeds the history buffer or you just want more control.
AutoCAD LOG controls allow you capture what you want, here are the details.
To transfer point groups from one drawing to another, you can use Civil3D’s built-in LandXML export and import tools.
You may have wished to fill your parcels to highlight the areas but found there isn’t a way to designate the fill transparency. The resulting fill blots out everything (even some parcel lines). Here is a workaround (using layers) to achieve it.
We have reached a fork in the road on our Civil/Survey and Mapping add-ons. For years we attempted to provide one package that ran inside plain CAD engines as well as Civil3D while using the best objects available. The problem is that it meant a weaker (than possible) Civil3D connection, prevented us from adding tools only (currently) possible in Civil3D and created confusion on what parts used Civil3D objects.
We are occasionally asked why our products don’t directly import point ascii files.
Keep in mind that TXT/ASC files can contain anything (even the paragraphs of this post content) so we process it differently. We have a Point > File > Convert Text which handles any text file, regardless of the delimiter. It lets you preview the content, specify the delimiter and column order then parse the results into a defined point format.
If your ascii files are P,N,E,Z,D you can simply change the extension to .AUF and the program would read the files directly.
Recent versions of AutoCAD change the default behavior of newly created Mtext objects. After creation you can’t change the Width in the Properties dialog! Users often want to set the width to 0.0.
For existing Mtext objects, change the Columns setting (just below the width) to “No Columns”. You will have to commit this change by pressing ESC, then reselect the Mtext to be able to change the width.
To restore previous behavior for all newly created Mtext, change the MTEXTCOLUMN to 0 in your current (and prototype) drawing.
Contrary to popular belief, command line tools are not dead. This one (well known across the world as GDAL) should be a part of any well prepared mapping professionals toolbox. Here we will explain how to get started with it and some of it’s uses.