Lynn Allen's Blog

Deck the Halls with an AutoCAD Hip Tip!

The halls of Autodesk are getting quieter and quieter as the week continues.  Autodesk observes what is known as the "annual week of rest" between Christmas and New Years Day which as employees we look forward to every year!  So many employees add on a few vacation days here and there, and consequently it's getting mighty quiet at Autodesk Headquarters!  Today I had the privilege of spending a couple of hours with Doug Cochran, AutoCAD Product Manager, and he was kind enough to give me a sneak peak into the next release of AutoCAD.  Of course, I can't say anything, but I can tell you there are some pretty cool features we can all look forward to!  A great big thanks to the very patient Doug for taking the time out of his ever busy schedule for me!

Doug also gave me some nice insight into the Layout Export Preview Tool that I mentioned in my last blog entry.  Apparently this tool can also be used to "smash" (his term) your dynamic blocks along the way.  This is great if you want to send someone a drawing file that doesn't contain all your super smart dynamic block information.  Just a thought...

I have some wrapping to do tonight but wanted to provide you with a quick holiday Hip Tip before I do.

An AutoCAD Holiday Hip Tip on Scaling Text:

Sure, you can use the good old SCALE command to change the size of existing text objects but then you're faced with one base point for all the selected text strings.  And that means you get to scale each text string individually otherwise they are going to end up moving to all over to different locations (and that's no good).  The SCALETEXT command, on the other hand, is built expressly for text objects and makes quick work of just such a project!

Command:  scaletext
Select objects: Use an object selection method, and press ENTER when you finish
Enter a base point option for scaling [Existing/Align/Fit/Center/Middle/Right/TL/TC/TR/ML/MC/MR/BL/BC/BR]<Existing>: Specify a location to serve as a base point for scaling
Specify new model height or [Paper height/Match object/Scale factor] <5.0534>:

Here you will find all the text insertion options we are familiar with to help us scale our text without relocating them.

note:  this only scales the text to the specified base point - it doesn't actually change the justification for the text.

It's also so easy to specify a new height for the text so you don't have to do any math and figure out the appropriate scale factor (and that's always good!).  And if you've already jumped on the Annotative Objects bandwagon you'll love the Paper Height option (which only works for annotative objects).

Personally - I love the Match object option. You simply select an existing text object with the correct height and SCALETEXT will match the height - it doesn't get much easier than that!

Give SCALETEXT a try the next time you need to scale one or more text strings - you're going to love it!

Happy Holidays...I leave you with a picture of Tiffany by the Christmas tree (I told you I had to wrap some presents!).

Fa-La-La-La-La and an AutoCAD/LT Hip Tip

Happy Holidays!

One of the great things about Autodesk University (yes...I'm still talking about AU) for me is that some people actually show up with goodies for me!  How fabulous is that?  I got some cool chocolates from Alaska (thanks Jack!), a wonderful Christmas snowman from Larry and Lisa (Larry is now on the AUGI Board), an AWESOME Colts Santa hat from a fellow Colts fan,  and a very nice gentleman actually bought me a Black Knight doll (think Monty Python) when he went to see Spamalot!  You Holy Grail fans will remember the fantastic Black Knight who lost all of his limbs but kept on fighting anyway  ("It's only a Flesh Wound").  The doll has detachable arms and legs that have little bloody stumps when removed (those of you who are not Monty Python fans no doubt think there is something terribly morbid here).  As you can see below my dog managed to get her paws on my new doll and...well...the result can be seen below...

And that would be a leg in her mouth.  A great big thank you to the very nice man who gave me my very cool Black Knight Doll - wherever you are!  In fact a great big thank you to all of you who brought me goodies - you really shouldn't have but know how much it is appreciated!

Last week I went on a very short tour to San Antonio and Austin, Texas with one of my favorite Autodesk resellers - DC CADD.  Doug, Kim and his crew are so wonderful to work with and the venues were fantastic!  First we had an event in Austin at Dave and Busters with about 200 attendees and the second event in San Antonio at a very trendy movie theatre (where they serve food and drinks!).  I've attached a picture of my second audience (I forced them to give me a standing ovation...they needed to stretch their legs anyway).

An AutoCAD Hip Tip on Converting Layout Tabs to Model Space:

As I was wandering around on Autodesk.com I discovered a cool tool called EXPORTLAYOUT (free even) that will convert your AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT 2008 layouts to model space.  This is extremely handy if you are working with another CAD system (are there other CAD systems?) that doesn't know how to deal with layouts.  This preview tool (and I emphasize the word "preview") takes a snapshot of a drawing layout (along with floating viewports) and creates a ready-to-use model space drawing out of it.  This will ensure that you can fully utilize the cool new 2008 tools like annotation scaling, layers per viewport, etc.  All drawings are exported to AutoCAD 2007 format.

To download this cool tool simply go to Export Layout Preview.

Below is an explanation of some of the things that might occur in order to maintain visual fidelity:

• The same object displayed in multiple viewports becomes multiple objects in the exported Model drawing. In addition, objects are transformed and often scaled. Both of these can affect Data Extraction of blocks.
• Some objects are converted or exploded in order to trim them (should the viewport boundary clip an object)
• Viewports in a layout can each have a different visual style; only a single visual style can be used in the Model tab.
• Polylines with width that are clipped by the viewport boundary may not be accurately trimmed in the exported drawing.

For those of you with drawings that contain AEC objects - you'll have to throw in an extra step to get decent results:

1.  Run the AECTOACAD command on the drawing.
2.  Navigate to the converted drawing, and open it.
3.  Run the EXPORTLAYOUT command.

It is also recommended to select the Bind option with Insert type when using the AECTOACAD command.

Note: The AECTOACAD command creates a new DWG file with all AEC objects exploded into basic AutoCAD objects.

Go ahead and give this preview tool a try!  Consider it a holiday gift from me to you (do you like how I try to take credit for this cool tool?).  Ho Ho Ho!

Ho-Ho-Ho and a Holiday AutoCAD Hip Tip!

The Holidays are off and running and I'm trying desperately to catch up with my extremely organized friends (you know who you are!).  I'm not holding my breath though...I remember last year wrapping presents on Christmas Eve for about 8 hours!  Oh the disorganization of it all... I vowed never to let that happen again (nevermore, nevermore).

Backing up a couple of weeks (back to the AU days), it's always a pleasure to take some of our top instructors to lunch and a champagne toast after it's all said and done.  We do this right after the last class on Friday.  I thought I'd include our picture from this year (a couple of the usual crew couldn't make it this year) because it just brings back such great memories for me.  Most of the people in this picture I've known for nearly 20 years - isn't that amazing?  Poor Tom Conti (Disney) in the back row stayed up the night before putting the finishing touches on his class until 5:00am so we were just impressed he didn't fall asleep in his soup.

And this picture was also taken on the last day of AU of me and Joseph Wurcher.  Joseph is already looking ahead to next year's AU (and the year after that) trying to take the event to the next level...

Joseph is, of course, the keeper of the AU Blog as well!

AHoliday AutoCAD Hip Tip on Super Purging your Drawing Files:

So you've purged and cleaned your drawing to death and it's still big, big, big!  You want it small, small, small.  Well I'm here to share with you a little known secret that those of us who've used the product for eons have been doing for decades (literally).  Back before the Purge command entered our world we would use the WBLOCK command to do a clean sweep of our drawing - taking just those things we want and leaving behind the messy, disorganized, junk that we don't.  It works like this.

Make sure all the objects in the drawing are displayed (all the layers you want to take with you are on).  Enter the WBLOCK command, leaving the insertion point at 0,0,0 and use the Select Objects option to Window all the objects in the drawing.  Don't use the "All" option or anything like that because you want to only select the objects on the screen and no "mystery" objects.  Assign a name to the new drawing file (don't overwrite this one until you know it's all good) and Poof!  Your new drawing file is nice and compact with no extra gremlins or unreferenced nonsense in it!

This really only works well if you are living in the world of Model Space with no Layout tabs.  If you want to try a similar thing on a drawing with lots of layouts then you'll need to resort to the command line interface version of the command.  To get to that you'll need to place a dash in front of the command and key it in at the command line.

Command:  -WBLOCK
Enter the name of the drawing file you want to create
Enter name of existing block or
[= (block=output file)/* (whole drawing)] <define new drawing>: *

You'll want to enter in an asterisk to grab the entire drawing.  This will also clean up your drawing and rid your world of extra "stuff" you don't want in your life.  If only I had this command for my closet!

This can really significantly reduce your file size...give it a whirl!  What have you got to lose (except for a few extra drawing pounds)

An Awesome AU 2007!

It's been ohhhhhhhhhh so long since I've blogged - but then I think I'm still recooperating from Autodesk University!  Since the moment I arrived a week ago Saturday I was constantly on the move.  It was a fabulous diet plan as I rarely had time to eat as I ran between rehearsals, performances and presentations! 

Hands down - the most wonderful thing about AU (to me) is getting an opportunity to talk to so many people.  So many of you came up and introduced yourself to me - or just yelled out a "hello" from across the room.  I loved all the energy from the attendees and its always sad when everyone goes home.  This year we were close to 10,000 in total with a 50% increase in international attendance...I am still stunned!

It's unfortunate that my schedule is so tight that I have no time to blog during the week - but I thought I'd share a few pictures from the event.  The big highlight for me was opening up the mainstage to a room filled with 8000 people.  The stage was in the round (a new experience for me) and the room was surrounded with 360° worth of screens.  It was similar to being in one of those cool theaters at Disney World!  At one point we were flying through a city and a few audience members even got sick!

Below is a picture of me before the doors were opened to the mainstage...(of course I was nervous!)

And below you can see how the screens were wrapped around the audience.

and when we are flying through a city!

During the General Session they showed a picture of myself back in the 80's (explanation to follow)...it definitely woke the crowd up!  (nice hair!)

This year we were celebrating the 25th anniversary of Autodesk and AutoCAD...We had a "Party like it's 1982" party on Thursday night and I did my best to put together all things bad about the 80's in one outfit!  We're talking leggings, leg warmers, an actual "Flashdance" shirt I bought on Ebay...white lace fingerless gloves...big hair...all things bad!

And I did a presentation that was a throw back to the 80's...it was all good fun.

I look so tiny and yet so BIG!

Shaan Hurley has a compilation of so many great AU snapshots that you are welcome to forage through.  And here is the picture of me and Shaan - this was after I chased him down (literally) for giving snapshots of myself to one of the comedians!  (I still love you Shaan)

A good time was had by all I believe...all I know is that we are already working on AU 2008!  Can you believe it?