AutoCAD 2009 - 3D Navigation Tools

How do you get around in your files? How do you navigate? Do you zoom, pan, change views to top, north, south, etc? How easy is that for you? It can be a pain. It can also be difficult remembering where it is you are and where it is you want to go. Well, AutoCAD 2009 has taken some features from other Autodesk products and bundled them together in the ViewCube and the Steering Wheel.

ViewCube

This new tool makes navigating in 3D much easier. It provides a visual aid to display your view orientation. It displays a view of a cube (hence the name) with a direction labeled on each face. For example: the top of the cube is labeled TOP, the front face of the cube is labeled FRONT, the left view of the cube is labeled LEFT, and so on. When your view is changed, the cube rotates informing you of where you are. Click on an area of the cube and your view will rotate to match.

With all things AutoCAD, there are settings for the View Cube. You can set the onscreen position, the size, and the opacity. There are snap settings, which will snap you to the nearest view when dragging the View Cube around to rotate the file (dragging the cube is similar to dragging around the 3D orbit command, but you use the cube.) There are also zoom settings and more. Just set it to fit your needs.

View Object Wheel

Autodesk took this from the Design Review program and adapted it to work in AutoCAD. In a nutshell, it is a visual device for panning, zooming, orbiting, and more. It is more of a 2D device while the View Cube is a 3D device. Activate the View Wheel by clicking on its icon in the status bar. Click the zoom button to zoom, pan, etc. Click the rewind button to replay the frames from previous orientations. This is a good way to restore your original view. Again, you can customize the View Wheel, size opacity, tool messages, and more.



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AutoCAD 2009 - Visualization

AutoCAD 2009 has added some new visualization features and enhanced others.

Show Motion

In AutoCAD 2009, the new SHOW MOTION feature provides a means to navigate through a file via views. It can be started by entering NAVSMOTION in the command line or by clicking the SHOW MOTION icon in the system tray (that’s probably the best way.) When opened, preview display images (similar in format to Quick View Layouts/Drawings) will appear for each saved view in the file. Click on the GO icon in each preview image to go to that view. Press the play button to play the views like a movie. This might be a nice feature to have turned on a conference room monitor when clients visit. You can play an animation that automatically plays through each saved view in the file. Use the Create New Shot tool to, you guessed it, create a new shot.

NEW View/Shot Properties

The New View dialog box, used to create named views, has been updated and renamed to support the Show Motion feature. This properties box includes the new View Types property as well as a Shot Properties tab. There are three view types; Cinematic, Still, and Recorded Walk.

These shots can be named and created from this function. Select the type (Cinematic, Still, and Recorded Walk) and proceed with the proper steps.

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AutoCAD 2009 - Fit and Finish (Continued)

Here are some more tips and tricks for AutoCAD 2009. We are still talking about fit and finish items in the upgrade. Fit and finish items are those little things that help to make an upgrade worth it. They are the little fixes and enhancements in AutoCAD 2009 that add up and make it worth the effort.

Nonrectangular Viewports in Properties. AutoCAD 2009 properties pallets will now support nonrectangular viewports. If you had one of these, and opened it up in the properties pallet, there would be two items listed; one was the viewport, the other was a polyline. You had to then select the viewport (another step) to be able to edit it. Not anymore. Now AutoCAD is smart enough to know that you want the viewport, not the polyline.

Missing Plotters. Do you know the error message you get when an assigned plotter (to a file) is missing from your computer? This often happens when you receive files from outside sources, they have a different plotter than you. Well, now your print manager will prefix that plotter name with “missing”. It’s a little thing, but it helps.

Additional DGN Support and Layer Control. If you have to import DGN files on a regular basis then you will like this. AutoCAD 2009 can reference R7 and R8 type of DGN files. It can also import the leveled layers of Microstation into AutoCAD layers! No more layer 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 6 . . . You can give them names so that they make sense! Use the DGNMAPPING command to do this.

Hide Xref Scales. This is a must. Use the VPSCALE setting to hide the annotation scales that come in through xref files. You won’t get those xref 1:100 scales anymore, unless you want to??

Happy CADDING !!

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AutoCAD 2009 - Fit and Finish

Fit and Finish items are small enhancements and additions to the AutoCAD 2009 that help to complete the package. These little details are not enough to demand an upgrade, but they sweeten the pot! Collectively they help to make the upgrade to AutoCAD 2009 well worth it. Lets take a look at these new features:

M-Text now has automatic spell checking! Well duh!! Why hasn’t this been in there from the beginning? Everything else has it? I would often forget to go back and spell check a drawing, now I don’t have to, Mtext will do it for me. Yes, I get lazy.

ETransmit is a great way to get your drawings to somebody else. ETransmit allows you to send everything your client, vendor, best friend (whomever) needs to open and read your AutoCAD files. In AutoCAD 2009 eTransmit, you now have the option to save or not to save a drawing before you pack it all up, AND you can purge too.

Dynamic Xclip updates. This is one of my other favorite enhancements in AutoCAD 2009. It used to be that in order to update an xclip you had to generate the polygon, edit the polygon, then update the clip which involved several steps. Now, generate the polygon and grip edit it!! Xclip is instantly updated. This one is real nice.

Export Layouts to model space. At first I scratched my head, and said “huh?” You can import a layout into another layout, but now you can export a layout tab into the model of a different file.

Geographic Locations. Now you can set the geographical location in a file. The command geographiclocation sets the longitude, latitude, and north direction in a file. You can import this information from a .KML or .KMZ file, from your current Google Earth location (very nice), or enter the location values yourself. Here is the dialog box in case you enter the information yourself.

Find and Replace. I failed to mention earlier that the Find and replace will also now look for text in blocks and in an xref. Now that’s handy.


The Fit and Finish enhancements are a part of what makes upgrading to AutoCAD 2009 a good idea.

Happy CADDING


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Thank you for Linking

March has been great to CAD-a-Blog. I have seen enormous growth in posts, readers, and links. I wanted to say thank you to everyone out there that has visited this site for whatever reason. Thank you.

CAD-a-Blog has been around since July of 2007. I didn't post much, I was the only visitor (because I didn't post much, duh!), it was rather pathetic. Well, in February of this year I decided to get more involved with this blogging thing. So I did. I started off by actually posting to my own blog! Well, enough about me.

Since the last week of February I've gone from a readership of one to nearing 6000 total hits for March! The reason is because of the readers. You keep coming back.

Thank you.

I also want to thank websites like CAD DAILY NEWS for listing my blog on their site and for linking to many of my articles. Cad Daily News shares news articles about CAD every day. I don't know how they find them all! Great work guys.

I can't forget TEN LINKS DAILY for sending out links to many of my articles every week. Thank you.

If I have missed anyone else please let me know!

I can't wait for April to get here!! Thanks again everyone. Don't stop coming over.