SubscribeToday I had a fabulous time presenting in Belgium. I divurged from my usual tips and tricks presentation and did one on some of the features that might surface in future releases of AutoCAD (top secret!). The audience was very receptive - and to top it off I was awarded a beautiful box of Belgium chocolates for my efforts - it just does NOT get any better than that!
Tomorrow I'm back to the Netherlands for a presentation at a customer site. And on Friday I return to the USA. I won't miss the hotels but I will definitely miss the people.
A Hip Tip on Hatching:
We all know what it's like to select a boundary in the BHATCH command only to have AutoCAD tell us the boundary is not closed. I have actually been known to argue with AutoCAD about this - insisting that the boundary is indeed closed! And let's face it, we will spend more time zooming and searching for the hole in the boundary than it would take for us to erase the boundary and draw another one! (or is it just me?). AutoCAD 2005 to the rescue...
AutoCAD 2005 introduced a groovy new feature that will definitely keep your blood pressure down. Now the BHATCH command lets you indicate the size of the boundary gap (or hole) that it will permit in your hatching boundaries. You might be tempted to make this value quite large to insure against running into this painful issue in the future but I suggest against it. If you set the value too large it won't work (especially if the value is larger than either of the adjoining edges). So set it to something reasonable and hatch away! You'll find yourself taking less aspirin and drinking less.
So there's your Hip Tip - I'm off to eat a chocolate!