by CADcaster
December 6, 2009 in CAD, IntelliCAD, progeADD-ons, progecad
IntelliCAD
How to use resource file in sds code? – http://www.icadsales.com/index…
Thursday
from IntelliCAD SDS Forum
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News from around the world of IntelliCAD and his friends…
Source: News from IntelliCAD and Friends… – How to use resource file in sds code?
Go to Source: News from IntelliCAD and Friends…
by CADcaster
October 22, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD, Revit
When you start a Windows application, most of them will create and open a new file. But not MicroStation. MicroStation have two types of file: 2D DGN and 3D DGN. DGN is stand for design file. Not limited to DGN, you can also create a new DWG file. If you are not familiar with this file type, it’s AutoCAD file. We will discuss how you can create your own workspace, create new files; and save file and settings.
You can create multiple workspaces in MicroStation. If you need to design different drawings for different industries, you can set each of them in a separate workspace. This will avoid you to arrange tools and interface each time you need to create drawings in different industry. You can also use workspace if you have multiple users working on the same workstation. Let’s create a new workspace that you will use for this tutorial until the end. Open your MicroStation. If you already open it, close your file. You will see MicroStation Manager. From user option list, select new… MicroStation will ask you to give description for this user configuration. Type MicroStation tutorial then click OK. We have defined a user configuration for this tutorial. Now let’s create a new project. From project option list, select new. Give name for this project: MicroStation Tutorial Files. And give description: Tutorial files from www.cad-notes.com. Of course, you can use your own description MicroStation will create a folder at this location (for Windows Vista): C:\ProgramData\Bentley\MicroStation\WorkSpace\Projects\MicroStationTutorialFiles If you use Windows XP, you can find it in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Bentley\… folder. I have prepared all tutorial files we will use. Download them here, extract, and paste them into the folder. The zip file contain two folders: DGN and CELL. Select both of them, copy, and paste them inside MicroStationTutorialFiles folder. When Windows ask you to overwrite those two folder, click yes. Those folder is still empty anyway. Up to this point, you have set user configuration and tutorial project. It may look complicated, but trust me, it’s not Workspace can help you to manage your files for different users, different project. But it doesn’t mean that you have to save all files in that folder. You can still save your files to your desktop, C:\data folder, etc. Let’s try to create a new file. On the upper right of MicroStation Manager, you should see new file button. Click it. Give the file name My First Drawing. Do not click save yet. Check the seed file. If it’s not showing seed2D.dgn, click browse and select it. Seed file is a drawing you can start with. Other applications call it a template file.
Creating Workspace
Preparing Tutorial Files
You will love using workspace. Try to change the users and projects that available on the list. Then change it back to our tutorial project. Very good for navigation, right?Create New File
Click save. You will see MicroStation created a new file with that name. Select it, and click open.
I know, it’s a bit different with other applications. But it’s not difficult, isn’t it?
MicroStation works differently in handling working unit compared to AutoCAD. I feel like I have to write about this at very early stage, so if you are an AutoCAD user, you don’t get confused.
While in AutoCAD you can work with any working unit, and change it later, you can’t work that way in MicroStation. You have to define your working unit at the very beginning. Before you start drawing. You can check your working unit by accessing menu settings>design file. Click on category working units on the left.
By default, in country using metric, MicroStation will define the master unit (MU) as meters and sub unit as millimeters. If it’s not your working units, change it now. After you finish, click OK.
That’s how you create a new file. I’ll stop right here now, and we will discuss more about working units.
Have you copied the tutorial files to our tutorial project? Click open. You should see several files if you have copied them. Find working_unit.dgn and open it. Don’t laugh at the design Yes, it is a very simple drawing.
See the dimension. They show measurement in mm. Open design file settings, and change the MU to meters. Close the dialog and see what happen.
The dimensions are showing meters now!
Now try to activate Place Smartline.
Click anywhere on your drawing area, an look at the AccuDraw. It’s showing measurement in meters. Click several times to draw lines. Right click to finish. When MicroStation ask you to choose right click button function, just let it be default value. Click OK.
Try to change the working unit again. Now try to place smartline again. You will see the measurement showing different scale, even you create approximately line with same length! Now it’s using the new working units. So don’t forget to check your drawing unit first!
Close MicroStation. Did MicroStation ask you to save your design file? No. You placed some lines before, when you open the file again, you will still see the lines. Even you didn’t save the file. MicroStation automatically save it to your file, every time you create an object. It can be a good news for you, or maybe a bad news for some of you. However, I still recommend you to save your file regularly by accessing file>save or press [ctrl] + S.
But now look at the dimensions. We have change the working units to meters (or you may have changed it to something else) but it still showing millimeters! You need to save settings separately with saving file. There are a lot of settings you can save. We will get to this later. You san save the settings by accessing menu file>save settings or press [ctrl] + F.
Source: CAD Notes – Working With Workspace and Design Files
Go to Source: CAD Notes
by CADcaster
October 16, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD, Revit
I had this question yesterday. Someone asked if if it’s possible to link an object in AutoCAD to another file. So if he needed to see the components specifications, or 3D model of a certain component from P&ID drawing, he can simply click the link. I said, have you tried using hyperlinks?
Hyperlink maybe not a popular feature in AutoCAD, but it can make some use. You can add hyperlinks to an object. The hyperlinks can be pointed to the manufacturer website, to a word document that contains the installation procedure, or to excel file that contains product specifications.
Adding a hyperlink is very easy. Activate hyperlink from insert tab, data panel. AutoCAD will ask you to select object, then you will see this dialog. In this example I add link to specification document in my local computer. In the real world, you might want to point it to a file on your server. Or a page on website. Not only website link and local files, you can link to layout or saved view in your model. You can also link to email address. Maybe you want to link a certain item to vendor contact person for maintenance or something. This can be useful for building maintenance purpose. If you insert and place a block, then insert a hyperlink, it will only attach to an instance of that block. When you insert another block with the same definition, then the new block won’t have the hyperlink. Unless you copy it. If you want every block links to a certain file/website, you can edit the block and insert hyperlink to the elements. With this method, not only you can define the hyperlink once. You can also insert several links to different elements. Including nested block.
Adding and Using Hyperlink
Hyperlink Within Block
Source: CAD Notes – How to: Reference Objects to File/URL in AutoCAD
Go to Source: CAD Notes
by CADcaster
October 1, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD, Revit
I include dwg in several AutoCAD tips/tutorial posts. So you can try it by your self without drawing it from scratch. But I just realize that you might not using the same version as me. You might not be able to open the dwg. But don’t worry, you still can use it!
AutoCAD 2010 is the first version of AutoCAD R.18. So if you use older AutoCAD, you can’t open it. First, let’s take a look to AutoCAD file version. You will see AutoCAD 2007, 2004, 2000, and R14. Where’s the rest of it? Where’s my 2009, 2008? Well, after AutoCAD R14 Autodesk looks like want to change the AutoCAD name. Not using release anymore, but using version. AutoCAD 2000, actually is the first version of AutoCAD R.15. That’s why you don’t see 2000i, 2002 (I can’t recall if there’s any 2001 and 2003, am I right?). They are using the same file format. But in the next release, the file format changed again. It’s a 3 years cycle. 2004, 2005, and 2006 is the same file format, R. 16. So if you use AutoCAD 2008, you know which version you should ‘save as’ to… right? TrueView is a FREE (we all like free, aren’t we?) application you can download from Autodesk site. It’s actually a DWG viewer. You can open any DWG files with it. But you should know that you can use TrueView to save a file back to older version. To beauty of TrueView for me, you can batch convert all files in a folder. If you have older AutoCAD, you can use TrueView to convert files you receive to your version of AutoCAD. You just need to download it here: http://autodesk.com/dwg So don’t worry if you don’t have new version of AutoCAD. You can convert all files here to your AutoCAD version! Version vs Release
DWG TrueView
Source: CAD Notes – DWG TrueView: Open and Save to Any Version of DWG
Go to Source: CAD Notes
by CADcaster
September 21, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD, Revit
Sometimes I just hate to open files from dialog box. Some files are not easy to find from a small dialog box, so I need to find it from my Windows Explorer or doing search/find. It would be a waste of time if I have to point my open dialog box to that file location. So what do I do? Just drag and drop to open it!
There are three way to do this: I expect there is another drag and drop functionality: insert a drawing as reference. Sorry to say that AutoCAD doesn’t support referencing drawing using drag and drop. I wish I can see that sometimes.
Source: CAD Notes – Cool way to Open Your Drawing: Drag n Drop!
Go to Source: CAD Notes
by CADcaster
September 21, 2009 in CAD, Vectorworks
Like many technologists, I have a little book, or perhaps a folder is more an accurate description, its made up of construction notes, pictures of constructions, tech notes, construction methods, tables, for steels, timber, staircases, you name it, I have it stored, but the book is heavy and to be honest. a little out of date. So this weekend I started to have a look at it and pull out things which were old and looked to replace it. It’s here that I sat down and thought it through, I wanted to make certain things easy to use and find, So I have pulled my most common items into mt default Vectorworks sheet, within the library, mostly toilet, wiring, and certain other drawing items, I have created folders so I can find them quickly, the rest I have transferred to a new “Steves_Bits” file I keep on my server, Oh I also made sure I had a copy of the standard stuff in the default file library, well you never know.
So now, when I start a new drawing I can work straight away, I link the steves_bits file in so I can use the library to get at many other sources of information, and here was the first problem, well the only one really, I had not used this files since I loaded up Vectorworks 2008 and although Vectorworks 209 could see and read the file it needed to be converted to 2009, before I could link it.. So as part of the new tab and ongoing upload of new files for Vectorworks users, I have put a small Vectorworks 209 version of the file I use onto the download section. All the items are 2D Unfortunately some still have my classes or the ones imported when I copied them. So take it as is, use it as you will, make more items and have fun.
default Vectorworks drawing sheet with small library
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Source: Konstrukshon CPD Weblog – Architectural technologist Download – Default Vectorworks library file
Go to Source: Konstrukshon CPD Weblog
by CADcaster
September 15, 2009 in CAD, IntelliCAD, progeADD-ons, progecad
IntelliCAD
progeSOFT: ProgeCAD 2009 export file format: DWG, DXF, DWT, SAT, BMP, EMF, WMF, JPG, KMZ, PDF, SVG
http://www.progesoft.com/en… -…
News from around the world of IntelliCAD and his friends…
Source: News from IntelliCAD and Friends… – progeSOFT: ProgeCAD 2009 export file format: DWG, DXF, DWT, SAT, BMP, EMF, WMF, JPG, KMZ, PDF, SVG
http://www.progesoft.com/en/products
by CADcaster
September 14, 2009 in CAD, IntelliCAD, progeADD-ons, progecad
IntelliCAD
progeSOFT: ProgeCAD 2009 export file format: DWG, DXF, DWT, SAT, BMP, EMF, WMF, JPG, KMZ, PDF, SVG http://www.progesoft.com/en… -…
News from around the world of IntelliCAD and his friends…
Source: News from IntelliCAD and Friends… – progeSOFT: ProgeCAD 2009 export file format: DWG, DXF, DWT, SAT, BMP, EMF, WMF, JPG, KMZ, PDF, SVG http://www.progesoft.com/en…
Go to Source: News from IntelliCAD and Friends…
by CADcaster
September 8, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD, Revit
In previous tutorial, we have prepared and set our default template. It might cross your mind, why would bother creating a template? We can use tool palettes to create our objects without having to creating any layers or styles.
One, templates can hold more information than palettes. And there are some objects you need to create without using palettes. Two, we can use it to define our CAD Standard.
When we created our template, basically it holds every common information we use in our company. So every body can use it without creating other layers or styles we have set. But when we are working in a large group, some of them might ‘violate’ the company standards. We can associate our files to cad standard file(s) to manage this. It will be easier if we have the same content in cad standard and in our template. Create a new file using our template. You don’t need to create anything, save it as dws. Alternatively, if you already have a drawing file that you consider as standard, you can open it and save it as dws. But remember, the best practice is having your template the same as your cad standard. Imagine if your template have different layers that’s not defined in cad standard. Every time you start your drawing, you will get a warning that your drawing violating your company standard! OK, now we have define a file to be referenced as a standard. Now we can configure and tell AutoCAD to use it. Cad standard configuration is file specific. It means when you have active drawing now, associate it to a dws file… When you create a new file, the new file is no longer associated to that dws. If we want every new file we created to be associated to that dws, what should we do? Correct! We can define it in our template! Open your template (dwt) file. On AutoCAD ribbon> manage tab> Cad Standard section, select Configure. Click on the + button, and add your dws file. Click OK. Save your template. From now on, every time you create a new file using that template, it’s already associated to your cad standard file. So how cad standard works? Try to create a new layer, give it a random name. You will see AutoCAD is showing a pop up on lower left of your screen. Warning you that you are violating standard. Click on Run Check Standards. AutoCAD will open a check standards dialog box. It will show you what’s the problem. You can move that object to other layer that conform your standard. Simply select it from the list, and click Fix. Until AutoCAD 2010, cad standard only able to check these following styles: I know it’s limited, but it’s a start. I expect we can see more in the future. There are a lot of resources why we should use CAD Standard. I won’t discuss about it here. When you serious about productivity, you should have implement cad standard. We are getting closer to use the AutoCAD magic. After this we will prepare our schedule template with data extraction. Then we will test our workflow. Be prepared! 
Source: CAD Notes – Maintaining Your CAD Standard
Go to Source: CAD Notes
by CADcaster
September 5, 2009 in AutoCAD, CAD
From time to time I see users asking what is the best method to insert a raster file into Map3D or Civil 3D. There are a 4 known methods to insert a raster file into a drawing. First the standard AutoCAD insert, then there is the Map image insert command, and now with FDO there is the data connect method. Last we can use the Object Link and Embedding (OLE) method. So what method do I suggest? My standard reply is what format and type is the raster and what do you want to do with the raster afterwards?
First lets review on what a raster file is and how they advanced over the years. A raster file contains cells or grids called pixels. The number of pixels is determined by the resolution of the raster. A simple 300 x 300 resolution raster has 300 pixels on the X axis or horizontal and 300 on the Y axis or vertical for a total of 90,000 pixels. Each pixel has values or attributes assigned to it. One of the attribute is the location or pixel number in the file. It may be as simple as 1,1 for column 1 row 1, or 1 for the first location in the file. Another attribute is the display value for that pixel. In the beginning the value was either 1 or 0 for on or off. This is know as a bi-tonal raster. As technology progressed so did the values and attributes of the pixels, where today we have a color attribute and even elevation attributes along with a host of other attributes assigned to a pixel. Just like vector objects in a dwg have attributes known as object properties like Layer, Color and custom properties such as object data, pixels have data attached to them.
Wow lets back up, did I say elevation, as in 3D? Yes I did. The technology has advance from the old DOS bmp days to create 3D raster. ESRI has been doing it for a few years now with their 3D analysis add-on for the ArcGIS programs. Some DEM files are nothing more that raster files with an elevation assigned to pixels. Same for the newer TIFF and Jpeg formats. Now when we throw multi-spectral images, know as remote sensing into this pot we not only have another a different ballgame but also a whole different ball field to play on. Multi-spectral images are made up of multiple files with each file being from a different spectrum of the light range.
The kicker to all this is not only can the pixels in a raster contain various attributes but the file extensions can all be the same. A TIFF is a TIFF. Example, a picture we take with our Kodak Easy Share camera can have the same file extension as a image taken from a satellite orbiting the earth miles away. It is not until we open the image or raster file in the application or software that the attributes are exposed, then only part of them depending on the application used to open the file.
Using Windows Photo Galley works good to edit those family pictures from the Kodak to remove red eye, adjust the colors and print a 8 x10 photograph, but using the same application to work with a raster file that contains an elevation attributes to display as 3D will not work. It also works the other way around. Using a high end application designed for working with multi-spectral images to crop and print the Kodak Easy Share file is not only over kill but the results may not be what you expect and performance will suffer with the program stumbling over the simple attributes. To use a metaphor example of this lets say we have an acre of grass to mow with our little Briggs & Stratton powered mover. We know that if we use a high octane gasoline in an internal combustion engine the performance is increased. However if we use gasoline with 106 octane in the mower we may not get a very well cut yard. Either the engine is running too fast to get a good even cut of the grass or by the time we get half way done the engine locks up and we end up with the job half way complete. We need to use the right tool with the right material to complete the job successfully.
So if you are still reading here are my suggestions on how to add that raster file to you drawing/map.
OLE - Only use it if you working in AutoCAD LT
AutoCAD Insert – For adding your company logo to a title block or to add simple images (including renderings) as a detail to your project, where placement and scale may not be of importance.
AutoCAD Map3D Image Insert – Simple aerial images that are geo-referenced and you need them to align with your line work.
AutoCAD Map Data Connect (FDO) – Raster files that contain elevations, Multi-spectral images or high end aerials images.
Now how do you tell if the raster file is a simple aerial or a high end aerial? Most likely if you downloaded it from the Internet and it’s over 3 years old it is a good chance it’s a simple aerial unless you get the meta-data with it and it states otherwise.
Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law – Raster, Raster, Who has a Raster
Go to Source: Map 3D and Murphs Law
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