AutoCADder

If you use AutoCAD 2008, you are probably suffering the same problem - attached xrefs bring in their annotation scale lists and the scale list in the main drawing grows ad infinitum. There can be thousands of nested scales named "XREF_XREF_XREF....".

Such scale lists confuse users (see the SCALELISTEDIT command) and can substantially slow down Open and Xref operations on such infected DWG files. The latest Service Packs for AutoCAD 2008 applications seem to fix the main problem. But what to do with the already affected files? Yes, there is the SCALELISTDEL Reset option or you can use LISP tools like ScaleListDel but still you will have to open the drawings one by one and some of them can open really slooooowly.

The tip Batch remove annotation scale lists may be the cure - the DBXremSL utility does not open the DWG file to fix it - instead, it uses a faster DBX access and modifies all DWG drawing files in a given folder.

The Readme file to DBXremSL mentions a "Safe mode" - I would recommend making this Safe mode the default one so it removes only those scales which were brought-in from Xrefs.

Labels: annotation scale, AutoCAD 2008, batch, DBX, DWG, Xref

Autodesk has released SP1 for AutoCAD 2008 and LT 2008 (and AutoCAD from Revit Suites). As usual, it fixes the main problems found after the initial release and includes hotfixes which have been released up to now.
For me, it fixes only two painpoints (I was not affected by any other problem fixed in SP1) - linetypes after zoom and multiple AutoCAD sessions after double-clicking DWG files. The original version ("SP0") displayed linetypes as Continuous after several Zooms. This seems to be fixed now.
I have found no problems installing this Service Pack - recommended. Just a note - don't be surprised when your Dashboard suddenly displays all possible panels. It is described in the SP1 Readme, just re-select the workspace.

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, Service Pack

The BUDWEISER DWG compatibility benchmark by CAD Studio is a well-known test drawing I already wrote about.
Now there is a new "2008" version of this test proving that all the AutoCAD clones based on the ODA DWG libraries and claiming "DWG-compatibility" are still not able to read the AutoCAD DWG format correctly. I have personally very bad experience with DWG files written from Microstation, ArchiCAD and IntelliCAD. In any case be aware that you may potentially lose CAD data - both on reading DWG files into a non-Autodesk software and on writing faulty DWG files from such applications.
You can get BUDWEISER2008.DWG from www.cadstudio.cz/budweiser

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, Budweiser, DWG

Shaan Hurley writes about the beta release of Service Pack 1 for AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008. The fixes included in this Service Pack are coming mostly from the Customer Error Reports (CER) generated in AutoCAD. That's why it is important to really send these reports when you encounter a problem in your AutoCAD.

Service Pack 1 fixes problems in the following areas:

• .NET API
• 2D Display
• 3D Display
• 3D Navigation
• Annotation Scaling
• Attributes
• Blocks
• Copy and Paste
• Customer Involvement Program
• Dashboard
• Design Center
• Dimensions
• DWF Creation
• eTransmit
• External References
• File Navigation
• Hatches
• Hide
• Images
• Layers
• Layouts
• Lights
• Materials
• Multileaders
• Multiline Text
• Object Editing
• Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
• Open, Save, and Close
• Options
• OSNAP
• Plot
• Properties Palette
• Publish
• Random Crashes
• Recover
• Render
• Selection
• Sheet Set Manager
• Standards
• Tables
• Text
• Tool Palettes
• Tooltips
• Trim
• Undo and Redo
• Viewports
• Visual Lisp

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, Service Pack, SP

You may have noticed that - the DWG drawings saved from AutoCAD 2008 are a bit larger than the same drawings saved from AutoCAD 2007 (the format is the same).
One of the reasons is probably the longer list of variables (new system variables in A2008) which are saved in the drawing. Another reason which in my opinion influences the file size much more is the larger thumbnail preview image saved in DWG file.
AutoCAD saves a bitmap (BMP raster) of the current view when saving the DWG file. The pixel size of this raster image (and the resulting byte-size) depends on the aspect ratio of the current view but generally, AutoCAD 2007 and older used sizes below 200 pixels while AutoCAD 2008 saves larger bitmaps of up to 256 pixels. This could add up to 64kB to the DWG file size (comparing to a "no-thumbnail" DWG). Thumbnails can be cut off e.g. in Autodesk DWG TrueConvert/TrueView.

Update: Jimmy Bergmark (JTB World) has sent me information that another reason of the size increase is the reconciled layer baseline table. Can be disabled by LAYEREVAL and LAYERNOTIFY.

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, DWG, thumbnail

I have received a trial copy of AutoCAD Raster Design 2008 to test it on AutoCAD 2008. I have used an old version of Raster Design some years ago but I have not followed the newer versions then.

This raster processing add-on for AutoCAD allows to work with raster files in the AutoCAD environment, practically in the same way as you work with vector entities. Plus it supports all possible transformations of raster images (rubbersheeting) and many specialized raster formats with high compression and raster formats for satellite imaginery.

One of the functions which is new in the version 2008 is very interesting - it allows to embed raster images inside a DWG file. It is limited to bitonal images (black-and-white, 1-bit) but still - you can get rid of referencing external raster files and avoid instable OLE objects. Your raster file becomes a single object in the DWG database. The special command for this function is IEMBED and the object type it creates is AECIDBEMBEDDEDRASTERIMAGE which behaves like a standard IMAGE (you will need the Raster Design object enabler to see this image in plain AutoCAD). The resulting DWG file doesn't grow much - a 100kB compressed TIFF embeds to a 150kB DWG file. Such function would be very useful in also the basic AutoCAD package.

Raster Design performs also OCR (optical character recognition) - reading texts from raster images into text entities. For this, Raster Design option settings offer an impressive list of character sets - including e.g. Mohawk:

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, embedding, OCR, Raster Design, raster images

The beloved 3DSOUT command comes back to us AutoCADders. The export of .3ds files was lost in AutoCAD 2007 (with the new render - 3DSOUT was part of the old render engine). But probably many users have complained about this as 3DS was a commonly used simple format for exchanging 3D data.
Now Autodesk returns the 3DSOUT back in the form of a downloadable utility for the 32-bit and 64-bit AutoCAD 2008, AutoCAD 2007 and other application from these families.
Go and download from the Autodesk site (AutoCAD updates).
Please note that some limitations apply for exporting lights and new-type materials, and there is a special step to take when installing under Windows Vista - see Readme.

Labels: 3DSOUT, AutoCAD 2008

Not that AutoCAD will replace FrameMaker or that it will become the typesetting tool for your local newspaper, but - the new function set of the MText editor is quite impressive in AutoCAD 2008.

Especially the column formatting seems to be powerful enough to typeset any column text, including freeflowing newspaper-like columns, with hard column breaks, gutter settings and individual text-alignment in each column. Column text can be controlled either by defining numeric parameters or interactively by grips.

See the lorem-ipsum sample text reflowed into dynamic columns with individually specified height and individual text-alignment. Note the fully justified text in all columns - distributed spacing is used in the left two columns and standard soft spaces are used for aligning in the right two columns.

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, text

How compatible is AutoCAD 2008 with the older versions?

OK, the DWG files are compatible - that's important. AutoCAD 2008 still uses the DWG2007 format. It looks like the DWG file format is upgraded every 3rd AutoCAD release so we are safe for one more AutoCAD release (AutoCAD 2009 ?).

As for add-on applications it is more complicated. Generally, AutoCAD 2008 should run the 2007-versions of add-on applications. The 32-bit version of AutoCAD 2008 is binary compatible with AutoCAD 2007. VisualLISP, VBA, ActiveX and most ARX add-ons will probably run unmodified, there may be some problems with their installers.
With the 64-bit version of AutoCAD 2008, it is a different story. The LISP applications should still run fine. For VBA add-ons there is some workaround developed by Autodesk. ActiveX and ObjectARX applications need to be upgraded to work with AutoCAD 2008 64-bit.

Labels: 64-bit, ARX, AutoCAD 2008, LISP, VBA

AutoCAD 2008 (and all other AutoCAD-based applications) can watch your layers and notify you on any unwanted layer additions.
Often you drag in unwanted layers when inserting foreign blocks or attaching xrefs to your main drawing. AutoCAD 2008 can watch such pulled in layers and notify you automatically. AutoCAD creates a list of reconciled layers and if new layers are added without your knowledge, bubble notification let you know about these unreconciled layers. AutoCAD creates a layer filter so you can reconcile the layers or delete them easily in a single step.

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, layer

No and yes - it depends.

Autodesk recommends 2.2 GHz Pentium 4 or Athlon CPU, 512MB RAM, 750MB disk space, 1024 x 768 graphics (OpenGL/DirectX) on Windows Vista, Windows XP sp2 or Windows 2000 sp4. This is not much more than the requirements for AutoCAD 2007. So if you are running AutoCAD 2007 you will probably run AutoCAD 2008 with the same speed on the same PC.

What is new is the 64-bit version of AutoCAD 2008. It can handle much larger data sets but it of course needs a stronger hardware. The increased requirements for AutoCAD 2008 64-bit climb to AMD Athlon, Opteron or Pentium 4 or Xeon with EM64T, 1GB RAM, 750MB disk space, 1024 x 768 graphics (OpenGL/DirectX) on Windows Vista 64-bit or Windows XP x64. Those planning to use the 64-bit AutoCAD will probably have to upgrade their old ACAD workstation.

Update: as Shaan Hurley just added - for conceptual design (3D) you will need: 3 GHz CPU, 2GB RAM (or more), 2GB free disk space (+installation), 1280 x 1024 x 32b workstation class graphics gard with 128MB RAM and OpenGL or Direct3D support (Direct3D only for Vista)

64-bit CADs will not be any faster, they will just have access to more memory allowing to process larger files.

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, CPU, hardware, RAM, Vista

DGN-to-DWG and DWG-to-DGN converters were always popular CAD utilities, especially in countries where Microstation was widely used. Exchanging data was always painful process as both applications has used different file formats - DGN (Microstation) and DWG (AutoCAD).

Then Microstation learned AutoCADdish and allowed to read/write DWG files - well writing DWGs was always less than perfect but anyway. At least you could send your DWG files to your Microstation partner and he was able to use it. In Autodesk world, this capability was limited to AutoCAD Map only.

A couple of months ago, Autodesk came with the DGN Translator "technology preview" on labs.autodesk.com (for AutoCAD 2007). And now, reading/writing DGN files is supported directly in the AutoCAD core - and so in all AutoCAD-based applications (also in LT2008). You can import and export DGN files, or even attach them (like xref) with DGNATTACH and clip them with DGNCLIP. Don't forget that only DGN V8 (and XM) format files are supported (unlike in Map) - and there are still lots of older (V7) DGN files circulating around.

So here it is - AutoCAD 2008 - your new DGN/DWG convertor...

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, DGN, DWG, Microstation

Autodesk today announces new version of AutoCAD - AutoCAD 2008. While the new features of ACAD2008 list will come later, there is not only the new AutoCAD - more AutoCADs are announced at the same time.
Some existing Autodesk applications get new names so we have more AutoCAD flavours in the 2008 product line:

• AutoCAD Architecture 2008 is the new name of Architectural Desktop (ADT)
• AutoCAD MEP 2008 is the new name of Autodesk Building Systems (ABS)
• AutoCAD Map 3D 2008 is the new/old name of Autodesk Map 3D
• AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 is the new name of Autodesk Civil 3D
• AutoCAD Land Desktop 2008 is the new name of Land Desktop
• AutoCAD Raster Design 2008 is the new name of Autodesk Raster Design

And of course we have still AutoCAD LT 2008, AutoCAD Mechanical 2008, AutoCAD Electrical 2008, AutoCAD P&ID - that is 11 different AutoCADs in total!

So now all AutoCAD-based applications carry the "AutoCAD" brand name and thus are distinguished from the specific programs like Inventor or Revit.

All 2008-applications (EN versions) should be released in the March-April timeframe.

Labels: AutoCAD 2008, Civil 3D, MEP