Subject: Re: Kurta tablets
From: Lu
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 17:23:48 -0800
Ian A. White wrote:
>
> On Thu, 14 Nov 1996 11:22:54, JoelJohns@gnn.com (Joel Johns) wrote:
>
> >I have finally conviced most people in my office that a digitizer is no
> >longer needed. (running Win'95 and rel 13c4a) The problem is what do I do
> >with the 20 Kurta tablets? I would like to get enough money out of them to
> >cover the cost of good Logitech mice, but if not I have thought about
> >donating them to a school or something.
>
> I find it amazing that you actually convinced others that the
> digitiser is no longer needed. Every office I have set-up have had
> operators queueing for digitisers. OK, they are running R12/WIN in
> Win 3.1 and Win 95, but that should not make any difference. If a
> digitiser is a productivity enhancer for AutoCAD in a DOS environment,
> why is it not one when in a Windows environment?
>
> Regards,
>
> Ian A. White, CPEng
> waiwhite@zip.com.au
> WAI Engineering
> Sydney 2000
> Australia
Hi Ian,
I have been using Hitachi tablets since I started using AutoCAD in ~1987.
It is probably one of the most important tools when it comes to
productivity. I learned to draw with my left hand so my right hand was
free to use the numeric keypad and the (ENTER) key. To me, the important
feature of the Hitachi puck is that the pick button is located at the
bottom row of buttons. As long as r13+ in windows does not permit me to
use my Hitachi exactly like I have in the past, it is worthless as a
design tool for my type of work.
Maybe we sould go back to using b&w; monitors to save a few bucks? :-)
Cheers,
Lu
//------------------------------------------------------------------
// When all else fails, read the book.
// CAD\Tek Home Page: http://www.cad-tek.com
//------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: IGES IGES IGES Where can I get IGES-files
From: tmensink@inter.NL.net (T.J.A. Mensink)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 20:20:23 GMT
I'm a software developer at a company specialized in robotix.
My pal and I, created a 3D-viewer in OpenGL/WindowsNT/95.
I wrote a parser for IGESfiles!
BUT how do I test my program ??
Is there anyone out there, who can help me ?
I'm searching for parametric splines, rational b splines, 3d-solids,
etc.. in IGES-format (4.0 or higher).
If you can help me, please give me sign:
Leon Amory,
Sir Rowland Hillstraat 10,
4004 JT TIEL,
The Netherlands.
Tel: +31-344-623944
Subject: Re: Default Drawing Path?
From: jangus@enternet.co.nz (Jeff Angus)
Date: 15 Nov 96 12:30:04 GMT
In article <328c32f9.0@202.20.65.8>, jangus@enternet.co.nz says...
>
>Hi All,
> I'm wanting to know how to permanently save the drawing path, so
>that when I open Autocad, it opens a drawing from the ..\drawings path,
>_not_ the C:\Windows directory.
>
>I can temporarily set the default path for opening and saving files , but
>next time I start Autocad the default has returned to C:\Windows. Can
>anyone plese help. I've run out of Manuals & help topics.
>
I found the solution myself at:-
http://www.autodesk.com/support/techdocs/cadlt/fax728.htm
Subject: SYMBOL-Libraries in DXF needed
From: Martin Huonker
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 13:29:02 +0100
Dear colleagues,
are there any free simple symbol libraries for mechanical engineering
out there?
I just need some screws, bolts, nuts, maybe bearings -just the basic
things but preferably in dxf or even dwg, in order to import it into
another program (CADintosh).
Thanks for any hint (preferably email).
--
so long,
martin
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dipl.-Ing. Martin Huonker, Institut fuer Strahlwerkzeuge,
University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 43,
70569 Stuttgart, GERMANY
email martin@ifswps8.ifsw.uni-stuttgart.de
phone (++49 || 0) 711 6856847
fax (++49 || 0) 711 6856842
--------------------------------------------------------------------
********************Live long and prosper!**************************
Subject: Re: Titles in the Workplace (was Re: Drafting Software Survey)
From: C
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 08:05:07 -0800
S. Yoder wrote:
>
> Tom_Austin wrote in article
> <328B9F7F.31DF@optilink.dsccc.com>...
> > >
> > > I personally never gave a flip. Yet I don't like "draftswoman", but I
> do
> > > take it as a sign of politeness when a guy goes out of his way to
> > > say "drafter". "Draftsperson" doesn't cut it either. Makes me think of
> > > an old Far Side cartoon ;)
> >
> >
> > Maybe it's a generational/geographical thing. I'm 35, and in all my
> > time in the workplaces, and all the places I've worked, Drafter and
> > Designer are the standard terms, even by the Old Guard guys, who are
> > traditionally sexist in every other way.
> >
> > I'm in California. Maybe that's it.
> Eh, could be. I'm in the "bible-belt" and graduated from a high school
> that, only 6 years ago, still strongly discouraged females from taking
> the drafting/machine shop class. But then that makes me younger than
> you by about 10 years.
>
> I'll cast my vote for attitude, though.
> Enjoy,
> Stef
Just call me a CADD Operator
Subject: Re: Kurta tablets
From: "Mitchell S. Todd"
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 08:22:58 -0800
Ian A. White wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Nov 1996 11:22:54, JoelJohns@gnn.com (Joel Johns) wrote:
> >I have finally conviced most people in my office that a digitizer is no
> >longer needed. (running Win'95 and rel 13c4a) The problem is what do I do
> >with the 20 Kurta tablets? I would like to get enough money out of them to
> >cover the cost of good Logitech mice, but if not I have thought about
> >donating them to a school or something.
> I find it amazing that you actually convinced others that the
> digitiser is no longer needed. Every office I have set-up have had
> operators queueing for digitisers. OK, they are running R12/WIN in
> Win 3.1 and Win 95, but that should not make any difference. If a
> digitiser is a productivity enhancer for AutoCAD in a DOS environment,
> why is it not one when in a Windows environment?
Right now there is a Kurta digitizer sitting forlornly in a drawer
my cubical. I don't miss it. As a productivity enhancement, it was
long ago made obsolete by AutoLISP, DIESEL, and custom menus. To
this day, I don't regret disconnecting the Kurta. The pointing
device is immaterial. How you use it is another issue entirely.
MST
Subject: Re: HELP-non-alphabetical layers listing
From: "David E. Gonsalves"
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 15:27:49 GMT
Another thing that might be wrong is that when you insert a drawing into
another drawing, the original drawing requires either a purge or
write-block-all to display the layers correctly alphabetized in DDLMODES.
I don't know why this is, but I haven't noticed it since I started using
WIN95. Doing a purge or WB will sort them though.
Hope this was helpfull,
David E. Gonsalves, LSIT
delliottg@olywa.net
Robert Albert wrote in article
<01bbd2a6$62eb1c00$756484a9@windows-95>...
> Try increasing the size of the MAXSORT system variable. The default is
> 200. If you are listing more than 200 items, it won't sort them.
> --
> Robert Albert
> Director of Technical Services
> Microsol Resources Corporation
> Authorized Autodesk AEC Systems Center
>
> Rider wrote in article
<56gh36$1po2@news.gate.net>...
> > Sometimes my layers are listed non-alphabetically in the
> > DDLMODE dialog box. This only happens on my Pentium machines. I am
> > running r12c2 for DOS under Windows 95 from the DOS mode. Does
> > anyone have an explanation or a fix for this?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Dallas W.
> >
>
>
Subject: [Q] MCAD: constrain a semi-circle path?
From: Miker
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 09:52:19 -0600
How can I constrain a semi-circle path in MCAD 1.1?
It sounds easy, but try it. Draw a circle, then a
line from one quadrent to the opposite quadrent and
trim the circle in half. Delete the line. Make
the remaining portion of the circle into a path and
try to constrain it.
First step is to define the radius of the circle,
no problem. But how do you tell MCAD where the
circle ends and begins? There is no way to specify
an angle (which is unfortuanate because this is the
most logical way I can think of).
My short term solution is to draw a tangent line
from each endpoint of the semi-circle, constrain
it, sweep a profile along it, then come back and
cut extrude a plane across the part to remove the
lines. A bit of extra work. Furthermore this
doesn't work if I would want to join 2 semi-circles
together at one endpoint when the second is rotated
upwards at 90 degrees in 3D space. That is, if I
were to construct the second circle in the same
fashion as the first, there would be no way to cut
extrude a plane to remove the extra line segments
without cutting part of the first circle too.
Does anyone have a workaround?
Is there a way to use construction geometry?
(haven't figured out quite how to do that yet)
Future version request: ability to make a 3D line
into a path.
Thanks,
Mike
Subject: Re: Dimensioning Prob.
From: duhvinci@rockford.com (Patrick Hughes)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 15:32:22 GMT
frankc64@aol.com wrote:
>Is there a lisp routine or other method to basically lock dimensions
>in place. I would like to keep them from changing once I define the tols.
>etc. As it is, if I use mirror, grips, etc. - the dims are updated to
>the most recent settings. I know I can use styles but I find that very
>tedius as I may need a different style for virtually every dim.
Frank ?
While not a program to "lock" dimensions I've written a program
that allows you to manipulate the formatting, decimal precision,
etc quite easily and with only a single keystroke/mouse pick.
It's called AUTODIM.LSP and you can download a copy from my
web site.
--
Patrick Hughes
Engineered Design Solutions
e-mail duhvinci@rockford.com
homepage http://www.rockford.com/duhvinci
--------------------------------------------------
* Machine design, detail & build
* Cam design & manufacturing
* Machine animation
--------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Weird Zoom Extents Problem R13 c4
From: nevada@dei.unipd.it (Livio Bertacco)
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 13:37:52 GMT
"Nigel Adams" wrote:
>When I zoom extents my entire drawing regenerates as a small rectangle in
>the top right of the screen. The next time I zoom extents the drawing
>regenerates and fills the screen. This process keeps on repeating
>alternately everytime I need to zoom extents even though the extents of the
>drawing have NOT changed ????
Probabily you have a TEXT entity that contains just some spaces or
even nothing.
Try to erase all TEXT entities that are not visible;
you can try this way:
thaw,set ON and unlock every layer
zoom extent
type:
erase (ssget "X") r
and remove from the selection every visible entity (maybe with the
W(indow) option)
If you have entities in model space and in paper space,or if the
invisible text entities are within block/ref/groups/etc...it could be
a bit more difficult to get rid of them.
This is a non-documented _feature_ present at last since r12. More
probably since R9 (anyone has R2.62 still installed to check it out?
;-)
I have reported this bug to autodesk italy but appearently, in Italy,
the address for bug reports points to Support Team's wastebasket,
while the address for wish list points to Marketing Manager's
fireplace (strangely enough, it's kept lit-on in summer too ;-).
Anyway it is very difficult that these reports actually get to their
destinations: Italian end-users can't talk directly to autodesk (what
too big a privilege it would be). They can just talk to their
Resellers that must be in the right mood to contact Distibutors; and
Distributors usually have better things to do rather than speaking to
autodesk representatives.
Nonetheless in Italy AutoCAD costs almost twice as much as it costs in
US. It must be said that you actually get MUCH MORE. Indeed, with
autocad, you also receive a nifty little thing called DONGLE that is
very usefull to convince users to buy additional parallel ports,
replace motherboard and make printers fly thorough windows.
If anyone would like to experience the bug here is how to do:
start a new drawing with no prototype and do a dxfin of this file
****cut****cut****cut****
0
SECTION
2
ENTITIES
0
TEXT
8
0
10
5
20
5
40
1
1
0
LINE
8
0
10
0
20
1
11
1
21
0
0
ENDSEC
0
EOF
****cut****cut****cut****
then type repeatedly "zoom e"
There are others nice old immortal bugs, even if not so easily
reproduced.
Here is one about hidden lines (it's incredible how BAD-BAD-BAD is the
hidden-line algorithm after all these autocad releases):
start a new drawing with no prototype and do a dxfin of this file
****cut****cut****cut****
0
SECTION
2
HEADER
9
$TILEMODE
70
0
0
ENDSEC
0
SECTION
2
ENTITIES
0
VIEWPORT
8
0
67
1
68
2
10
50.308753
20
93.389921
30
0.0
40
43.370169
41
29.718953
69
1
1001
ACAD
1000
MVIEW
1002
{
1070
16
1010
0.0
1020
0.0
1030
0.0
1010
0.0
1020
0.0
1030
1.0
1040
0.0
1040
29.718953
1040
50.308753
1040
93.389921
1040
50.0
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1070
0
1070
100
1070
1
1070
1
1070
0
1070
0
1070
0
1070
0
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1040
1.0
1040
1.0
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1070
0
1002
{
1002
}
1002
}
0
VIEWPORT
8
0
67
1
68
1
10
50.308753
20
89.599478
30
0.0
40
43.370169
41
22.138069
69
2
1001
ACAD
1000
MVIEW
1002
{
1070
16
1010
116.0
1020
80.0
1030
1.5
1010
-12.089252
1020
25.445202
1030
1.05346
1040
0.0
1040
16.01457
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1040
18.0
1040
125.420681
1040
125.420681
1070
1
1070
100
1070
1
1070
1
1070
0
1070
0
1070
0
1070
0
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1040
0.0
1040
5.0
1040
5.0
1040
10.0
1040
10.0
1070
0
1002
{
1002
}
1002
}
0
3DFACE
8
0
10
105.315547
20
100.044929
30
0.557
11
105.315547
21
100.044929
31
1.038
12
104.684547
22
100.044929
32
1.038
13
104.684547
23
100.044929
33
0.557
0
3DFACE
8
0
10
105.315547
20
100.044929
30
0.068
11
105.315547
21
100.044929
31
0.549
12
104.684547
22
100.044929
32
0.549
13
104.684547
23
100.044929
33
0.068
0
3DFACE
8
0
10
105.315547
20
100.044929
30
1.53
11
104.684547
21
100.044929
31
1.53
12
104.684547
22
100.044929
32
1.046
13
105.315547
23
100.044929
33
1.046
0
LINE
8
0
10
104.185047
20
108.010929
30
0.0
11
104.185047
21
94.090929
31
0.0
0
LINE
8
0
10
105.685047
20
108.010929
30
0.0
11
105.685047
21
94.090929
31
0.0
0
LINE
8
0
10
107.185047
20
108.010929
30
0.0
11
107.185047
21
94.090929
31
0.0
0
ENDSEC
0
EOF
****cut****cut****cut****
type hide: with most configuration the faces don't hide the line and
sometime some face edge is lost.
type shade: with most configuration two lines get lost.
(note that lines don't intersect faces)
I can provide others...
Sorry for the silly digression...
Bye
LB
nevada@dei.unipd.it
Subject: Re: CAD: Quality, Productivity and Savings
From: "Lee Harding"
Date: 15 Nov 1996 18:33:22 GMT
Ian A. White wrote in article
<3293b145.4822101@news.zip.com.au>...
: You missed my point. When you have to convey this information using
: conventional drawings to a workshop that cannot accept the CAD data,
: most (if not all) 3D packages come up short. Take your example of
: hidden lines. In a technical drawing, hidden lines are not hidden
: from view, but simply displayed with a different linetype. I have yet
: to come across a CAD program that will do this. Remember, that not
: all of a line may be hidden in a particular view. Not showing the
: line on a technical drawing can be very costly.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Almost all 3D Solid modeling
programs give you some degree of control over the way that hidden lines are
displayed. Can you clarify your statement?
Muir Harding
Autodesk, Inc.
Subject: Re: BJC-4550 Printer-Anyone Use? Yes! I use one a like it!
From: mmcgirr@digital.net
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 19:52:43 GMT
On Fri, 15 Nov 1996 17:16:30 GMT, rscarr@ix.netcom.com (Robert S.
Carroll) wrote:
>I know that the subject of 11"x17" Plotters has been covered many times before,
>but does anyone have any first hand experience with the Canon BJC-4550 Printer?
>We are finally going to do some upgrading around here and a new "B" size
>Plotter/Printer is in the works and we are looking seriously at the Canon.
>
>I would appreciate any information.
>
>Thanks.
>
>
>Sincerely,
>Robert S. Carroll
>rscarr@ix.netcom.com
I bought one about two months ago & I'm very satisfied with it.
For the price range it does a nice job, interfaces well with W95,
AutoCAD R12 for Windows.
It comes with some fun full color graphics programs on 2 CDs.
I tried a tri-fold brouchure for our company, took it to PIP for
color photocopying. The owner of the print shop was very
impressed with the printing quality (Stress on the VERY).
All in all, it does what I was looking to accomplish (checkplots)
plus more than I needed (T-Shirt Design, Greeeting Cards etc.)
I'd recommend it ( and No... I don't work for Canon or any affiliate).
Matt
Subject: Re: Titles in the Workplace (was Re: Drafting Software Survey)
From: cbkelly@ix.netcom.com(C. Brian Kelly)
Date: 15 Nov 1996 20:41:40 GMT
In <01bbd2a8$6ff0a080$8ad623c7@stef> "S. Yoder"
writes:
>
>
>
>Tom_Austin wrote in article
><328B9F7F.31DF@optilink.dsccc.com>...
>> >
>> > I personally never gave a flip. Yet I don't like "draftswoman",
but I
>do
>> > take it as a sign of politeness when a guy goes out of his way to
>> > say "drafter". "Draftsperson" doesn't cut it either. Makes me
think of
>> > an old Far Side cartoon ;)
>>
>>
>> Maybe it's a generational/geographical thing. I'm 35, and in all my
>> time in the workplaces, and all the places I've worked, Drafter and
>> Designer are the standard terms, even by the Old Guard guys, who are
>> traditionally sexist in every other way.
>>
>> I'm in California. Maybe that's it.
>Eh, could be. I'm in the "bible-belt" and graduated from a high school
>that, only 6 years ago, still strongly discouraged females from taking
>the drafting/machine shop class. But then that makes me younger than
>you by about 10 years.
>
>I'll cast my vote for attitude, though.
>Enjoy,
>Stef
I'm sixty years old, am M.E. with a four-page close spaced resume, and
am a northeast-corridor big-city dirty old man sexist pig of the First
Magnitude. It's been Drafter and Designer since when I rode my dinosaur
to work before I got my '47 Plymouth. A designer is a drafter with more
time on the board and more catalogs on the shelf. Or these days, more
time on the mouse and more vendor CAD files on the hard drive.
And I'll tell ya what: There comes a point in life when the last thing
you worry about is silly things like job titles . . or whether the
designer/drafter wears a skirt. (Yes, Viginia . . women USED to wear
things called skirts . . before they were "liberated" and became
"regular guys" . . ).
Ta-ta.
cbk