power user's guide to autocad® 2004 - augi · power user's guide to autocad® 2004...

December 2-5, 2003 ◊ MGM Grand Hotel Las Vegas

Power User's Guide to AutoCAD® 2004

Speaker: Robert Green

GD31-1 AutoCAD® 2004 is a powerful upgrade with lots of new features and productivity upgrades that you'll want to take full advantage of. This session demonstrates the advantages of AutoCAD® 2004 in a fast-paced, power-user-friendly format. We'll focus on power tips and tricks as well as useful strategies for how to tackle in-house AutoCAD® 2004 training sessions. The format of the class will be short lecture segments followed by brief demonstrations. If your company is upgrading to AutoCAD® 2004, or is in the middle of doing so, this class is for you.

About the Speaker:

Robert is a nationally known author and consultant based in Atlanta. He heads the Robert Green Consulting Group and has an Internet venture called CAD-Manager.com that provides information and services to the CAD management community. You've likely read his work in CADENCE magazine, Autodesk’s Point A Toplines, MCADCafe, or in his CAD Manager newsletter. In addition to writing, Robert provides customized implementation and software integration services for a variety of clients throughout the United States and Canada. Robert holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

eMail: [email protected]


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What We’ll Examine

We’ll be looking at a wide range of features that have been introduced in the AutoCAD® 2004 release by way of demonstration and note taking. Along the way I’ll try to point out strategies you can use to relay this information to your users and provide examples of projects where I’ve used the features.

I’ll give a quick overview of new commands and menus as it relates to the topics we’re looking at so you’ll know where to find anything and I’ll also give useful HELP references so you can look things up on your own later.

Figure 1 – The basic AutoCAD® 2004 interface – very similar to AutoCAD® 2002 unless you take the time to look for the differences. Most changes are within commands or dialog boxes.


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Installation Changes

Change(s): Side by side installation support

Serial number harvester

License sharing/borrowing

Highlights

AutoCAD®’s various tools for auditing serial numbers, installing AutoCAD®, obtaining authorizations and checking documentation along the way have been consolidated into a single installation screen that just makes life a little bit easier for the CAD manager and/or power user who has to get everything working.

Nothing earth shattering here but a lot better than any previous release.


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Options Changes

Change(s): New Filing Locations

Location(s): Filing parameters in the OPTIONS dialog

Highlights I guess we owe these changes to Windows XP’s capability of having settings in each user’s Documents and Settings folder. This has some downside when moving profiles around to various users but the silver lining is that AutoCAD® doesn’t HAVE to be set to the documents and settings folder. Just be aware of the change.

Notes:


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Interface Changes

Change(s): Tool Palettes, Properties and Design Center “Auto Hide” behavior, User definable status bar, Communication Center, Styles added to standard toolbar, No more AutoCAD® Today

Highlights Nothing earth shattering, just smart changes that conserve screen space and allow greater personalization of the AutoCAD® experience. Of particular interest are the drag/drop Tool Palettes and auto-hide settings.

Notes:


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File Operations

Change(s): Compact File Sizes, QNEW, CLOSE changes, No more XML export

Location(s): File popdown menu, OPTIONS dialog

Highlights Drawings in AutoCAD® 2004 are essentially “zipped on the fly” to achieve smaller file sizes … great for emailing.

QNEW is a quick start way to begin a new drawing with the default template file you set in the Options menu as shown above. Note: If the template file name is not set QNEW behaves just like NEW does.

CLOSE will now halt the current command and close the drawing rather than issuing an error message.

The SAVEAS function no longer supports XML output.

Notes:


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Drawing Changes

Change(s): Text dialog, Revision Cloud

Location(s): MTEXT command, REVCLOUD command

Highlights The new MTEXT editor makes formatting text a lot easier and enables table like formatting with relative ease.

The REVCLOUD command allows easy generation of cloud entities directly from the draw toolbar.

Notes:

Dimensioning

Change(s): Associative QDIM

Location(s): QDIM command

Highlights Just like it sounds, QDIM now associates to the geometry it references.

Notes:


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Editing Changes

Change(s): WIPEOUT, PEDIT, Multiple REDO, Multi Fillet/Chamfer, GRIP changes,

MTEXT editing, Draw Order changes

Location(s): Various editing functions throughout AutoCAD®

Highlights The WIPEOUT entity is now a real command.

PEDITACCEPT variable allows for faster Polyline creation from exploded entities.

REDO now works like UNDO always has

Fillets/Chamfer now sports a MULTIPLE option

GRIPS now edit via highlighting rather than selecting

MTEXT editing now supports a much more powerful editing tool set

Draw Order changes now saved to referenced files so changes are persistent.

Notes:


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Plotting/Visualization

Change(s): Gradient Hatching, Shaded Plotting, DWF Changes, Publish, JPEG/PNG/TIF

Unlimited Pan/Zoom

Location(s): BHATCH command, PLOT dialog, PUBLISH command, JPGOUT, PNGOUT, TIFOUT

Highlights Gradient hatching makes all sorts of “rendering” style output possible without having to actually shade or render geometry.

Shaded plotting controls finally allow plotting to look like your shaded view port.

DWF files now support multi page format so ranges of layouts can be output into a single DWF file via use of the PUBLISH command.

JPEG, PNG and TIFF outputs are now easy to obtain with dedicated commands of their own.

Panning/Zooming now extends past the virtual “edge” of the display.

Notes:


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XREF Changes

Change(s): Reference Manager, Real time notification, XREF edit, XOPEN

Location(s): AutoCAD® menu group, Lower right system tray, BHATCH command, PLOT dialog, PUBLISH command, JPGOUT, PNGOUT, TIFOUT

Highlights While no real changes to how XREF files are stored have occurred they sure are easier to work with given these changes. Real time notification simply lets you know that an XREF used in the current drawing session has been modified thus preventing problems associated with not reloading a changed reference.

Changes to in place reference editing via right click editing (the XOPEN command) now makes reference editing more intuitive.

Lastly, the Reference Manager utility (like the Batch Plotter of past releases) allows repathing of externally referenced files (be they XREFs or anything else) without actually opening the drawings. This feature alone is worth the AutoCAD® 2004 upgrade price.

Notes:


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CAD Standards/CAD Security Changes

Change(s): Automatic Standards Notification, Password Security, Digital Signatures

Location(s): Lower right hand system tray

SECURITYOPTIONS command from Options dialog

Highlights The standards notification extends the CAD Standards logic that was introduced in AutoCAD® 2002 with a system tray popup dialog that automates the previously drudgerous process of CAD standards checking.

Security features are a welcome addition but you will need to obtain a valid ID signature from VeriSign® to use digital signatures. Please note that passwording can encrypt not only the drawing but also the properties that are normally exposed via Window’s operating systems. If you forget the password you’re in a WORLD OF HURT! Be sure to save a copy of all drawings in an unencrypted state and use passwording for drawings that are transmitted to outside parties.

Notes:


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Internet Features

Change(s): Communication Center, No more AutoCAD® Today

Location(s): Lower right hand system tray

Highlights The much maligned Today dialog box is gone and an automatic update function in the form of the Communication Center has been introduced. The Communication Center allows automatic updating of AutoCAD® components much like Norton AntiVirus® or Quicken® software. Of particular interest is how your company’s firewall will like AutoCAD®’s new way of updating (see how my firewall handled it above) and whether or not you actually want people to update their software without you knowing it!

Note: Removing/renaming the WSCommCntrAcCon.arx file will prevent the WSCommCntr1.exe file from executing and will thus stop the Communication Center from operating.

Notes:


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Help Changes

Change(s): New Features Workshop

Location(s): Help popdown menu

Highlights Pretty much what it says. A quick visit to this function will give you some hyperlinked examples you can launch into to get acquainted with many of the features we’ve examined. Just think of this as the power user’s executive overview of the AutoCAD® 2004 help system.

Notes:


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Want the PowerPoint? I’ll be happy to send you a copy of the session PowerPoint presentation. Just send an email to me at [email protected] and be sure to put GD31 - PowerPoint in the subject line so I’ll know which class you attended.

I’ll begin sending out PowerPoint files on December 7th upon my return to Atlanta.

Reference Materials You can also find a range of information regarding CAD management at my WWW.CAD-MANAGER.COM web site. Just check under my Manager’s VPOINT link for all of my CADENCE Magazine articles.

Happy reading!