Lynn Allen's Blog

Changing Spaces...

I'm off to Salt Lake City in a few for a presentation at Hill AirForce Base - but thought I'd do a drive-by on my blog with a tip...

AutoCAD Hip Tip on Changing Spaces:

Have you ever wanted to push an object from one space (model or paper) to the other?  For example, you did some dimensioning in paper space but you wish you'd placed them in model space?  The new CHSPACE command in AutoCAD 2007 to the rescue!  Previously an Express Tool, CHSPACE has grown up and become a real live AutoCAD command.  That means that you LT users will be able to use it...which is always nice...

The process is simple...making sure you are in the same space as the source object, select the object and Poof!  The object will be moved to the opposite space.  The wonderful thing about this command is that the object maintains the same size relative to the drawing - you don't have to change a thing!  The drawing will appear exactly the same as it did before using CHSPACE, but the object will be in the opposite space.

and here is an absolutely adorable picture of a puppy that my good friend Glen sent to me - I just had to share with you all...

How cute is that?

An AutoCAD View Tip on May Day!

Happy May Day everyone!

Ahhhhhhhhhh...back from Stockholm and enjoying some fabulous weather back home in California!  I ended my trip with a chilly visit to an Ice Bar.  Just about everything in the bar is made of Ice, including the glasses, and they load you up with nice warm gear before you go in.  Most people can only take about 30 minutes in an Ice Bar...I made it to a whopping 20 minutes!  (wimpy California Girl).  The big gloves were necessary because the glass was Oh So Cold...

On to our May Day AutoCAD Tip on Views:

Years ago we used the good old VIEW command to save various areas of our drawings for quick access.  Perhaps if we were drawing a map, we would save a view of each quadrant - for example A-1, or C-3 so we could zoom quickly to a selected region.  Over the years as zooming and panning became more efficient we abandoned the VIEW command and opted for more up-to-date technology.

AutoCAD 2007 really brings back the power of views as they are saved on the Dashboard for extremely easy access. 

And the latest updates to the VIEW command allow you to save layer settings per view - that's the real key here.  Imagine having a different view saved for each Viewport with the proper layer settings saved along with it!  No more flipping the layers on and off as you move from vport to vport.  I absolutely love this feature for presentations as I can quicly move to another view, which contains the proper viewpoint and layer settings. Be sure to turn the Layer Snapshot On when you create your views and you'll be in good shape.

It will even jump you from Model Space to a Paper Space layout which is fabulous.  There are many more features now added to the VIEW command which would take many blogs to cover - but definitely give them a try now that they are so powerful!

For those of you who are not on AutoCAD 2007 yet - you can still use this feature - you just won't have access to it in the Dashboard.  You can use the View Toolbar to get similar results - it  won't jump you from paper space to model space like the Dashboard does but it's still very handy.

So there is your Monday morning May Day Tip!  As for me...I'm off to find a May Pole...