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Autodesk's Small Business blog: Line//Shape//Space

Today Autodesk is excited to reveal Line//Shape//Space, a blog dedicated to helping small businesses in the design and drafting space.  We know that owning or working for a small firm can be very rewarding, but there are also plenty of challenges.

Whether you’re an architect, interior designer, landscape architect, solar-panel or HVAC installer, electrician, contractor, building engineer, civil engineer, product designer, or other professional creator, our aim is to help you run your business better.

The Small Business team at Autodesk has built a stable of talented contributors who live, eat, and breathe the world of designing and drafting. And have also been busy interviewing small-business experts for their valuable guidance. Here’s a sampling of some recent posts:

• Better, Faster, Stronger: Benefits of BIM [Infographic]—Are you nervous about making a transition to BIM? This infographic lays out the benefits and dispels the myths.

• From the Eyes of an IT Director: 3 Reasons to Keep Your Business Floating in the Cloud—Does it make sense to use the cloud for your business? Allow this CAD-based IT Director help you make the call.

• Rebuilding After Hurricane Sandy: How One Small Architecture Firm Rose to the Challenge—Read this inspiring story about a team of four in New Jersey that tackled the aftermath of a massively destructive superstorm and helped rebuild people’s lives in the process.

We hope your customers (existing and potential) will also find useful content on Line//Shape//Space, as well, such as these HVAC-maintenance and landscape architecture infographics.

That’s just a start. If these kinds of articles appeal to you, please have a look around and tell us what we’re missing by contacting us. Tell us: What can we do to help make your small-business experience a little brighter?

TD Tip: Hatch Displays as Solid

Here's another valuable AutoCAD tip from Cliff Young, AutoCAD Test Development

Issue:
When I hatch an area with a pattern that’s too large to display, the hatch displays as a solid. How do I change this back so that it does not display?

Solution:
Set the value of the HPMAXAREAS sysvar to 0. This will revert to the legacy behavior of displaying blank hatches as blank.

TD Tip: Absolute Coordinates

The AutoCAD Test Developement team frequently answers questions from AutoCAD users via email. They've offered to share some of their common questions and answers via blog postings. Here's a good one from Dan Kuhmann, AutoCAD Test Development!

Issue:
How do I input absolute coordinates with dynamic input turned on?

Solution:
There are two ways to do this. Coordinate input is relative by default. You can override this setting on an as-needed basis, or change the setting to absolute by default.

To keep the current settings and enter a single absolute coordinate, type # before the coordinates. 
Example: #3,3

To change the settings to default to absolute coordinates, set DYNPICOORDS to 1. Now all coordinates entered will be absolute. To input relative coordinates when DYNPICOORDS is  1, type @ before the coordinates (@3,3).

You can also find this in the Drafting Settings dialog (right-click on Dynamic Input icon in the Status Bar, or command: dsettings).

 
On the Dynamic Input tab, under Pointer Input, click “Settings...” to open the Pointer Input Settings dialog. Change “Relative coordinates” to “Absolute coordinates”.

 

AutoCAD 2014 Xref Enhancements

AutoCAD 2014 simplifies the display of linetypes and layers when using externally referenced drawings making it easier to find relevant linetypes.

Xref linetypes are no longer displayed in the linetype list of the ribbon or in the Properties palette. Here you can see the difference between viewing a linetype list for the same drawing in previous releases of AutoCAD compared to AutoCAD 2014.

Similarly, in previous releases of AutoCAD xref layers are displayed in the Properties palette even though you can’t do anything with them. 

In AutoCAD 2014 Xref layers are still displayed in the ribbon so you can control their visibility. However, they are not displayed in the Properties palette making it easier to find layers in the currrent drawing.

In AutoCAD 2014 you can easily switch the attachment type for an xref between Attach and Overlay by double-clicking on the Type column in the External References palette. A new option in the right-click menu enables you to change the xref type for multiple selected xrefs at the same time.

In addition, the External References palette includes new tools to easily change the path of selected xrefs between Absolute and Relative. You can even remove the path completely. The –XREF command includes a new PATHTYPE option enabling you to automate these path changes through scripting.

View the new xref enhancements in the AutoCAD 2014: Layers and Xrefs video.

AutoCAD 2014 Layer Enhancements

In AutoCAD 2014 the number of layers displayed on the ribbon has been increased. And, layers are now displayed using natural ordered sort. For example, the layer names 1, 4, 25, 6, 21, 2, 10 are sorted as 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 21, 25 instead of 1, 10, 2, 25, 21, 4, 6.

A new Merge option in the Layer Manager enables you to select one or more layers from the layer list and merge the objects from those layers onto a different layer. The original layers are automatically purged from the drawing.

View the new layer enhancements in the AutoCAD 2014: Layers and Xrefs video.

AutoCAD 2014 File Tabs

AutoCAD 2014 offers file tabs as a fast and visual way to switch between open drawings or to create new ones. You can turn the file tabs bar on or off using the File Tabs control on the View ribbon tab. When file tabs are turned on, a tab for each open drawing is displayed at the top of the drawing area.

File tabs are displayed in the order they were opened. You can drag tabs to change their order. If there is not enough room for all the file tabs to display across the AutoCAD window, an overflow menu at the right end of the file tabs bar provides access to the additional files.

A lock icon on a tab indicates that the file is open as read-only and an asterisk indicates if the file has been modified since its last save. When you pass the cursor over a file tab, preview images of the model and layouts are displayed. If you pass the cursor over one of the preview images, the corresponding model or layout is temporarily displayed in the drawing area and Plot and Publish tools are accessible from the preview image.

The right-click menu for file tabs enables you to create, open, save, and close files, including the ability to close all open files except the one on which you right-clicked. You can also copy the full file path to the clipboard or open the file location in Explorer.

A Plus (+) icon to the right of the drawing tabs enables you to easily create new drawings, automatically adding their tabs as they’re created.

View File Tabs in the AutoCAD 2014: File Tabs video.

Green Design Contest

Calling all green-minded designers and makers! The Green Design Contest with TreeHugger is now open! Submit projects using minimal waste and energy to win great prizes. Learn more now!

AutoCAD 2014 Command Input Settings

In AutoCAD 2014 you can customize the behavior of the command line using controls in the Input Settings menu when you right-click on the command line. In addition to the previous options to enable AutoComplete and search for system variables, you can enable AutoCorrect, Search Content, and Mid-string Search. All of these options are turned on by default.

Another right-click option provides access to the new Input Search Options dialog box.

Much of the new command line functionality, including AutoCorrect, mid-string search, and adaptive suggestions, is also available using dynamic input.

View command input settings and other Command line enhancements in the AutoCAD 2014: Command Line video.

AutoCAD 2014 Command Line Categories

To make the suggestion list easier to navigate in AutoCAD 2014, system variables and other content are organized into expandable categories. You can click the plus symbol at the right end of the item to expand a category or press the Tab key to cycle through each category.

View command line categories and other Command line enhancements in the AutoCAD 2014: Command Line video.

AutoCAD 2014 Command Line Content

In AutoCAD 2014, you can use the command line to access layers, blocks, hatch patterns/gradients, text styles, dimension styles, and visual styles. For example, if you enter Door at the command line and the current drawing has a block definition with the name Door, you can insert it directly from the suggestion list to the drawing. Similarly, if the drawing has a layer name with Door, you can set that layer current right from the suggestion list.

View command line content and other Command line enhancements in the AutoCAD 2014: Command Line video.