The H-Factor

Reducing Entropy

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Recently our previous blog service (Typepad) ended their business – so, we have a new home. It will take a bit to get images back and displaying properly, but we are working on it! Final pageview count of original Typepad blog: 387,232

Using a Non-Standard Pipe Type in HydraCALC

A customer called today asking how to enter a 1″ black plastic underground pipe for the calc. This particular situation sounded unique enough that I did not tell him to add that pipe type to our database, as I would have if he expected to see this pipe type used repeatedly. I told him to…

Using the Hydratec Software Download Area

Hydratec uses ShareFile to distribute our software installs and updates. New customers, or those without access, must request access to be able to get at these downloads. Access is only available to customers with a Hydratec subscription or those on an update plan. You can access the download area and request access by picking the…

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Author: art

  • AutoCAD 2011 has a great feature call Add Selected. Just right-click on anything and pick Add Selected from the ensuing cursor menu and you will be creating another object the same as the one you clicked on. If it is a block, you will be inserting the exact same block in the same layer. You…

  • Sometimes part of a tree or some grid lines may not show up in HydraCALC when sent there by the AutoCalc process. How do you find the ones that are missing? This drawing should have 12 loops, since it is a grid with 13 lines: The AutoCalc process appears to run fine and gets the…

  • Each object in 2011 also has a Transparency property.To adjust the Transparency of an object(s) select those objects and then pick the Properties command or pick the Properties button on the Home Tab of the ribbon menu and use the slider to adjust. Valid settings are between 0 and 90 percent transparency.

  • An index to H-Factor topics can be found here: Index of H-Factor Topics To get notified when new topics are posted, subscribe to this blog by picking the link at left. In your MyYahoo page you can pick Add Content then pick Add RSS by URL and then enter http://hydratec.blogs.com/the_h_factor/index.rdf as the location.

  • This is the second in a series of posts on how to self-diagnose errors you may encounter while elevating your drawing to 3D or while running AutoCalc or AutoList. HydraCAD includes a number of tools to assist you with the diagnosis and correction of these errors, and these post will review some of them. Sometimes…

  • The next new feature is Isolate or Hide Objects. A new property that has been added to each entity is its Visibility. You can Hide or Isolate Objects individually, or by selecting a bunch of them. Say you have an area of a drawing that is particularly crowded, and you want to be able to…

  • Another new feature in AutoCAD 2011 is Selection Cycling. Ofttimes, you have two objects at the same place, and you may have difficulty selecting the correct one. That is where Selection Cycling is a big help. Turn Selection Cycling on by picking the Selection Cycling toggle on the AutoCAD Status Line: Note: If you have…

  • Select Similar does just what it's name implies. Select and object just by clicking it. Then right-click and pick Select Similar from the ensuing popup menu. All objects of the same type and layer will be highlighted. If you pick a block, then only the same block will be highlighted. You can now do whatever…

  • I saw Lynn Allen, Autodesk Technical Evangelist (i.e. the Face of Autodesk) today in Boston at the Museum of Science. She and others spoke about what is new at Autodesk and discussed the direction they are heading in. If you want to catch up with her, the schedule is on here blog at AutoCAD 2011…

  • This is the first in a series of posts on how to self-diagnose errors you may encounter while elevating your drawing to 3D or while running AutoCalc or AutoList. HydraCAD includes a number of tools to assist you with the diagnosis and correction of these errors, and these post will review some of them. The…