AutoCAD has a long history, and we go back all the way. Our primary developer started using AutoCAD with version 1.0 on the original IBM PC with a 10mb hard drive and CGA graphics (now we have mp3 files larger than that). Here is a detailed history, including corresponding drawing versions, .NET framework used, etc.
There are times within every project where something (or many things) can gum up the works and slow your group’s productivity. The question is how prepared you are tor them in advance and how you react when they do happen. When you hit a snag and one or more team members end up spending hours doing repetitive tasks, do you dare bill for all that time?
When Autodesk first introduced the Set Location tool (on the Insert tab) in 2016 we briefly experimented with it, thought it to be confusing at best and ignored it. It was a couple years later when someone sent us a drawing started this way that we determined it to be dangerous at the least.
In the early days of AutoCAD, users could safely use a NODe osnap to snap to a point block while zoomed out because they knew it would only return the actual intended point of the insert. Then along came an improvement that had AutoCAD return the insertion point of the attributes. With that improvement meant you had constantly zoom in to make sure you were getting the right point.
For those that aren’t aware, the OSNAPNODELEGACY set to 1 causes the CAD engine restore the logical NODe osnap of the point object only. Now in the highly unlikely case you want to snap to attributes, you can use the INSert osnap.
Some dialogs (like the AutoCAD INSERT command) can show a tiny preview image. These are not always created or updated by the CAD engine. To create/update these, you need to manually use the BLOCKICON command. Following the command is a prompt allowing matching names. If you have a large collection you may want to use this, otherwise simply take the default <*>.
Be very careful when using the ALIGN command if your destination points contain varying elevations (Z values). The ALIGN command is a 3D command! If your destination points vary only slightly you won’t see the distortion but when you list your results, it will have a “Extrusion direction relative to UCS:”
You can work around the problem with point filters. When prompted for destination points, enter .XY, then use your object snap, then CAD will prompt for a Z, enter 0.0. This way you will get the alignment without the extrusion problem.
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.
This procedure will walk through the process of creating your own text linetypes, utilizing the capability introduced with AutoCAD R13. You might be surprised at how much you can do with this simple customization, especially when combined with the Windows Wingding Truetype font.