Being Civil

Binding a Raster Image in AutoCAD...

Not too long ago one of our customer asked me this question, how can I bind a raster image in AutoCAD?... As you probably already know raster images can only be referenced into AutoCAD drawings. If you send the drawing to someone else, you must send the image file also, if not you will end up with a broken reference.
One way to get it done is inserting the image as an OLE object.
Go to the Insert Tab and look for OLE Object or just type INSERTOBJ on the command line.
Choose "Create New", and then choose "Paintbrush Picture".

Next, Windows Paintbrush should open up.

In Paintbrush, choose from the ribbons -> Paste, then Paste from...

Select your existing image file (JPG, BMP, PNG, TIF, etc.)

Close Paint and save your AutoCAD drawing.

Object Properties Missing After ProjectWise Is Installed

This week I learned about an issue that I would like to share with you. I don’t think many users will be affected by it, but I thought it was worth sharing because there was no information I could easily find online. The credit for this post goes to a customer of ours (Kevin Sabo – Thank you, Kevin) who raised the issue and was able to confirm a solution for us.

Basically, everything was working fine until they decided to install Bentley ProjectWise SS3 (we were noting this version 08.11.09.122 but other may apply, as well). In case you were not familiar with ProjectWise, that is Bentley’s content management and collaboration tool similar as Autodesk Vault). Now, fast forward...Ever since then they lost their AutoCAD object properties functionality. The way to access properties was by typing CH in command line, but then wanted to know what caused it and how to permanently resolve it. Luckily the issue was immediately noticed but uninstalling ProjectWise and reinstalling it with integration for ProjectWise switched off did not help. The reason for this is that the version of TLB file found inC:\Program Files\Bentley\ProjectWise V8i SS3\Bin\RealDWG was not for the version of AutoCAD we were using.

To see how to resolve this issue continue reading.

1. Close Civil 3D
2. With Windows Explorer go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\ and copyaxdb18enu.tlb file
3. Now, go to C:\Program Files\Bentley\ProjectWise V8i SS3\Bin\RealDWG
4. Paste axdb18enu.tlb file
5. Restart Civil 3D and confirm that Properties are now populated.

 

I hope this helps some out there.

Take Your Labels to the Limit!

By default, the maximum number of labels displayed with Data Connections is 2000. This is to help systems not get bogged down when rendering labels on screen or when plotting. This max value also affects the Save Current Map to AutoCAD (AKA MAPEXPORTCURRENTMAPTODWG) command, so that the output stops at 2000 MTEXTs.

The way to override this is to create a registry key with the value of your choice for MAX_LABELS. The following TS, written originally for the 2008 release of AutoCAD Map/Civil 3D, is still valid, and is still valid on 64-bit systems.

Increasing maximum number of Display Manager Feature Labels displayed
http://usa.autodesk.com/getdoc/id=TS1077666

Take Your Labels to the Limit!

My viewport always zoom extent when it's activated…

Hello everyone…. I was working with some cases regarding this and I thought that it will be good to share in case that you come across with this situation in some point.

You are creating viewports or copying layout tabs and when you double click the viewport to activate it. Because you need to change the scale, regen or zoom to a different location your viewport does an automatic zoom extend. If you have a lot of information on your drawing this could become a really anoying problem.

Change the UCSFOLLOW system variable to 0 inside the viewport.

The UCSFOLLOW setting is saved separately for each viewport, paper space and model space, when you create a new viewport it always maintains the setting use on model space.

Hope you will find this helpful.

Slow Joins

Join taking too long? Here are a couple of tips to increase performance:

1. Uncheck the Layer(s) you are trying to Join in Display Manager before Creating the Join. This will prevent AutoCAD from REGENing your geometry while the Join is running.

2. If one of your data sources is an Access DB (as is often the case), be sure to Join to an indexed field. Simply open the table in Design View in Access, and change the Indexed value for the column you wish to Join to Yes, as shown in the screenshot.

[Thanks to Warren at CAD-1 for the inspiration, and to Orest at Autodesk for the Access tip.]

Happy Joining!

How much of my MEMORY RAM is my drawing really using?

Hi all.

Have you ever wandered about the amount of RAM memory that your drawing is really using?

Maybe you are one of those that don’t like to relay on your Windows Task Manager.

Here is a quick tip, open the biggest, baddest dwg that you have and type STATUS on the command line.  It will show you the amount of RAM that your drawing is using alone with the complete statistics of the drawing.

Workaround to clean and recreate corrupted drawing…

Hi everybody… Corrupted drawings…. This is an unfortunate situation that all of us have to deal with at some point.

Sometimes, we have a drawing that can give us a little headache, so here is a workaround that I use to recreate a drawing and keep all the information on it including your layout tabs. We are all familiar with the usual procedures when a drawing get corrupted - the RECOVER command, WBLOCK, INSERT to name some of them.  But what about all my layout tabs and regular ACAD stuffs (dimension styles, text styles, linetypes and others)?

Here is what you can do:

1. You will need to create a clean drawing (do not use your template if you have one) using the acad.dwt template for Imperial units or the acaiso.dwt for Metric.
2. Reset the Drawing Scales (SCALELISTEDIT) for Metric and Imperial.
3. Please make sure that if your original drawing has coordinate system assigned, you will assign the same coordinates to the new drawing as well.
4. Use the INSERT command and browse for the drawing with the problem.
If your drawing has CS assigned use the option “Locate Using Geographic Data”, if not use “0, 0, 0” and check Explode.
5. Now use AUDIT command, -PURGE (R) for Regapps and SAVE the new drawing to overwrite the old one, of course at this point this is entirely up to you.

At this point, we can do two different things:

5.1. You could use DesignCenter (ADCENTER), browse to your drawing location and drag and drop all your ACAD content... Or

5.2. Right-click on top of one of the Layout tabs and select the option From Template…; change the Files of Type to *.dwg and browse to the location of your original drawing.

5.3 Choose which tabs you would liek to insert and click OK

6. Do another AUDIT, -PURGE R and SAVE the drawing.

This seems like a long procedure, but it is really efficient and it will help you to recreate a drawing without losing all your data.

Map 3D migration hotfix

There's a new hotfix available for those looking to migrate settings to Map 3D 2013.  Take a look at the download page and grab it if you are going to migrate from a previous version or if you have experienced some unexpected exits after migrating.

Not sure if you need it? Here's more detail from the readme about what is addressed:

Map 3D might exit unexpectedly after doing the following steps:

1. Launch AdMigrator.exe (for example from C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCADMap 3D 2013)
2. Select Map 3D 2010 or Map 3D 2011 and click OK
3. Double click to launch Map 3D 2013