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 – Coming to a City Near You
Over the new few weeks I will be posting about five or six cool new features in AutoCAD 2011 and how they apply to sprinkler design. Stay tuned.
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 first error I will discuss is Unknown Fittings:
This is caused by a fitting that cannot be recognized by HydraCAD. It may be due to two pipes drawn on top of each other, or just an unusual arrangement.
1.Notice it says 'Type in SME to open the Show Model Errors'. Pick OK and do so.
2. You probably have more than one error or type of error. To find the unknown fitting, delete some of the messages (for now) by picking the large button at top UNTIL it says 'Delete All Unknown Fitting'.
3. Check the Zoom to Error box and pick Next. This will zoom to your
error, which should have a red circle around it. By looking at the error circle, you can usually figure out what the problem is. Here we have a four pipe connected by 1" tees – the user connected too many things here.
Note: Checkups would have caught this. You should always run checkups before your first calc or list on any job. It could save you hours of aggravation.
A feature added to both HydraCAD V50.4 and V51.4 allows you to break a head or riser nipple into a branch line automatically.
Note the prompts when you pick Insert Head or Insert Riser Nipple: "Pick insertion point. Pick any point besides endpoint to break into pipe". Try it out using the NEAR Osnap or the TRACKING command.
TRACKING
The TRACKING command is probably the most underused command in AutoCAD. It allows you to reference a point and 'steer' to a new point. Try the following for inserting a Riser Nipple:
1. Pick Insert Riser Nipple
2. When prompted to pick a line or main, instead pick the TRACKING button on the HydraCAD Utilities toolbar or type in TRACKING in response to the prompt
3. Using the ENDPOINT Osnap, pick the end of a line or main
4. With ORTHO on, drag your crosshairs down the line or main and type in 1' (foot)
5. Press ENTER to end TRACKING and select the higher or lower pipe, depending on your settings
Your head or riser nipple will be inserted 1 foot away from the end of the pipe. The pipe will be broken and re-dimensioned if it already has sizes on it.
Q: How do you view Revit files without buying Revit?
A: From Autodesk – Download the Revit program and run it in Demo mode. Demo install can function as a viewer with no expiration. Demo mode
allows all features of Revit, but you cannot save, plot or export
your
project after changes are made. Demo mode serves as a no-cost viewer for
yourself or team members who need to view, plot, and export projects without
changing them.
—
Jeff Hanson
Autodesk – AEC Technical
Publications
Manchester, NH
You can download Revit at Revit MEP Download
Sorry for the long delay between posts, but I was a little busy getting ready for 2011.
From a Customer today:
Q: After I updated to 2011 cad, when I go to click on V51 icon
it takes me to 2010 cad. I am doing anything wrong, or should I be starting it
up through autocad 2011 icon?
A: – Right click on the V51 shortcut and
pick Properties. Then pick the Shortcut tab and look at the Target. Replace the 2010
in there with 2011.
I.e.
From "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD
2010\acad.exe" -p HydracadV50.2
To "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2011\acad.exe"
-p HydracadV50.2
From a longtime customer – Joe O.:
Here is one
I just noticed in Vista and I was not sure if you knew about it…
With Vista,
if you highlight multiple files to change the name, the name will change but
each file will retain their respective extensions. This is very handy if
you need to change the name of a few files with different extensions. Couldn’t
do that in earlier Windows versions.
From Art: I have not tried this to change all the extensions at the same time, that is something in the past I wish I could have done
We all like UNDO perhaps more than any other AutoCAD command. (don't you wish Life had undos? Of course you do, if not, yer lyin')
Well, if you ever get the Must enter UNDO END when trying to undo, just pick our ESC button on the HydraCAD Utilities toolbar, and that will do the UNDO END for you. Now you can continue to do the regular undo as long as you like (or you hit another UNDO END)
If you are sending us, or a coworker a drawing for them to AutoList or diagnose – how do you send the listing tag setup (the top 5 FIGs)? The good news is that you don't have to , they are part of the drawing as long as you are on 50.4/51.4 or newer. From the Recent Changes doc:
When Autolisting, the top five Fitting Instruction Groups (FIGs) are now written to the dictionary of the drawing. These are added so that future users of the drawing can ascertain which groups were used when listing.
They can be read by going into Fitting Mapping and using the Read button. You can also set your FIGs to those of the drawing by using the new Match button in the Fitting Mapping command. Be sure to do this before running AutoList on the drawing or those groups will be overwritten
When I first got my computer and booted my machine, I went go get a cup of coffee from the kitchen here at the office. When I came back, i could use the computer. Now, after a few years, I feel like I could get to Colombia and back with a cup of coffee before I get to do anything.
One way to speed up the boot is to reduce the number of programs that load upon booting. some programs, like AOL Instant Messenger and Windows Messenger have options to disable a load at startup. With Quicktime you need to tell it to not load the icon into the system tray.
However, many more programs configure Windows itself to launch themselves. To see these and eliminate them from bootup, do the following:
1. Pick the Start button
2. Pick Programs or All Programs
3. Find the Startup folder.
4. Delete any items in that folder that you do not want auto-started. Deleting them here will not remove them from your hard drive.
One more thing – The list of Programs is often jumbled. To list them alphabetically, right-click on any one of them and pick Sort by Name. You may need to do this once a month or so.
From a customer (Aaron at Dalmatian), via Bill, my coworker:
"I spoke to
you about an hour ago regarding the ugly mesh around all of the 3d objects when
setting the viewport shade plot to 'hidden' with the model otherwise set to
'2dwireframe'. I’ve figured this one out and thought I’d share it with
you: the check box 'draw true silhouettes for solids and surfaces' must be
checked in the global options dialog (tools menu drop down, options, display tab,
display performance, aforementioned checkbox is at bottom). just spreading the
love around… have a happy holiday!"
What he was talking about, graphically:
Bad Riser Good Riser
Options Settings
The H-Factor 