The H-Factor

As promised, the second installment of our exciting series. This will cover up to AutoCAD 2000i. For later releases and more on all releases check out the Unofficial AutoCAD History Pages for all the info!

Release 12   June 1992

AutoCAD Release 12 drawings are compatible with AutoCAD Release 11

This was a big deal. It was the first time AutoCAD kept file compatibility across version. They said it would be the last.

The AutoCAD main menu has been eliminated. After initial configuration, AutoCAD displays the graphics screen. The Main menu tasks have been replaced by commands. For example, the NEW command starts a new drawing, and the OPEN command opens an existing drawing.

Remember the Main Menu?

AutoCAD supports a cursor menu that contains Osnap overrides and point filters

First time for the Cursor menu, too

The new BHATCH command was added. Commands with the "DD" prefix bring up dialog boxes.

There were actually dozens of enhancements in this version the last DOS-only version

Release 13   November 1994

The AutoCAD interface consists of standard Windows user-interface components, similar to those used in other Windows applications. You can customize the size and placement of most components.

This release was available in only a DOS version, but a year later a Windows version was also released. Windows standards started creeping into the DOS version, too.

A floating toolbar is a collection of commands organized by category, for example. Flyouts allow you to choose several different commands from the same place on the toolbar.

It was necessary to educate AutoCAD users (and all users in general) to Windows terminology.

Purge at any time

Before this, you could only PURGE if you had not drawn anything during a drawing session – you had to end the drawing and re-open it.

Nonuniformly Scaled 
Block, Drawing Preview, Multiline Text Editing,Spelling Checker, TrueType Font Support, Dimensioning Styles, Annotation, Leaders, Access to Properties

All new!

Release 14   November 1997

Paper Space Added

AutoSnap Added

Plot Preview Added

Realtime Zoom and Pan Added

Match Properties Added

First Windows version released

Template Drawings Added

Lots of good things in here

Release 2000   November 1999

Name predicted by yours truly

First Windows only version. DOS, Unix, Mac, Solaris versions dropped

Many new 3D commands added

Express Tools added

Layout tabs added

Ability to have more than one drawing open at a time!!!

Visual Basic support added

Release 2000i   July 2000

This release was rushed out to ‘do internet stuff’. It cemented the old tale that one should ‘never buy an odd numbered version of AutoCAD’

I am sure many of you that are new to AutoCAD take many of the features of AutoCAD for granted, but those feature weren’t always there. Just like things that will come in the future are here yet. If you know what I mean.

For example – some milestones that look pretty primitive right now:

Version 1.2 (Release 2)   April 1983              
             
            
            

A Dimensioning facility added as an extra-cost option.

Yep – you had to pay extra to be able to dimension!

Version 1.3 (Release 3)   August 1983           
            
            
            

Layer-to-layer move via CHANGE command added.

Before this you would have to erase and redraw in the correct layer

Version 1.4 (Release 4)   October 1983

ZOOM Previous added

But, you only got one!

Version 2.0 (Release 5)   October 1984
             
            
            

Added dot/dash linetype capability (LINETYPE, LTSCALE, and LAYER Ltype commands).

Layers extended to have user-chosen names, with no limit to the number of layers in a drawing.

Version 2.5 (Release 7)   June 1986

Setting of color and linetype per entity, independent of the entity’s layer added.

This seems like it you couldn’t live without it, now

Version  2.6 (Release 8)   April 1987             
            
            

The ZOOM, PAN, VIEW, and REDRAW commands allowed to be used transparently.

Before this you have to end a command to Zoom – think about that for a moment.

Release 9   September 1987

The MULTIPLE command modifier  added.

The new DDATTE command added to permit Attribute editing to be done using a dialog box.

Crossing object selection boxes drawn as dotted lines.

This was the first release to use dialog boxes! But they were clunky DOS ones. Windows was not yet out.

Release  10    October 1988

This was the first release to use a 386 computer

Release 11    October 1990

Release 11 was crappy

More tomorrow!

AutoCAD’s FIND command is pretty handy in way you might not expect. Here’s an example:

Say you want to change a bunch of hangers from #11 to #16 –

1. Turn off all but the Hangers layer
2. Type in Find
3. Type in 11 in the Find text string field (do not enter the # sign – that is a wildcard character)
4. Type in 16 in the Replace with field (ditto on the # sign)
5. Pick the Select objects button on the upper right and select all the hangers. This ensures that you don’t replace the attributes of other objects like pipe sizes by accident.
6. Pick Replace All

Ta-da!

Another example – say you need to submit a drawing that does not have the ½ or ¼ symbols in it.
Turn off all but the pipe sizes and hangers and replace \ with _1/2 and [[] with _1/4 where _ is a blank space.

From a Customer:

We often get architects drawings that are drawn under a
angle, we save these drawings as world and then create a new view (1)
where we rotate the drawing that it becomes in a horizontal layout on our
screen, this makes it easier to work with.

Our Solution:

Don’t rotate the drawing, instead rotate the crosshairs. The command you want to use is our Set X-Hairs by
Picking from the HydraCAD Auxiliary toolbar.

1. Leave the drawing as the architect sent it to you, don’t
rotate it.

2. Now pick the Set X-Hairs by Picking button from the
HydraCAD Auxiliary Toolbar and pick an LINE that is drawn at the same angle as
the building. This will change your crosshairs to be at that same orientation.
All the HydraCAD commands will then work.

3. When you are done, Pick the Reset X-Hairs from the same flyout
and that will put your cross-hairs back to ‘normal’

How do you save user drawing files? How often do you back them up, and how? Do you back them up to a server? run tape backups?

Please share you experiences since a number of customers have asked how others do it.

One of our customers does it by changing his Automatic Save File Location (Options/Files) to be a location on the server so every 10 minutes the file gets backed up there.

Any other ideas?

I got a request form a customer today asking:

"If I am using AutoCAD 2014 can one of the estimators put 2012 in his machine so he can open and preview cad drawings sent to him?

If not, is there a CAD viewer program available for cheap somewhere?"

Yep! There are actually three options- all accessible from the page: Autodesk Viewers

The first option is to purchase the Autodesk Design Review program. This will open both DWG and DWF files and gives the reviewer the option to redline and place notes on the drawings/dwfs. This can be purchased from Hydratec or any AutoCAD dealer

A second option is to download the free Autodesk utility known as: DWG TrueView™ , This will let you  view, plot, and publish DWG files.

The third option is to use the AutoCAD 360 Mobile viewer to upload DWG files directly from AutoCAD® to an online workspace. View and edit files on your mobile device or on the web without any software. Share drawings with others and plot to PDF or DWF.