Subject: Re: CAD novice seeks easy software
From: Sarah Slaughter
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 15:32:20 +0000
You should check out Ashlar DrawingBoard.
1. DrawingBoard 2D is inexpensive at $175. Although it is over the
$100 you specified, I think you will find it worth the extra money.
2. DrawingBoard is very easy to use because it features Ashlar's
patented Drafting Assistant which gives feedback as you draw,
identifying snaps, intersections, endpoints, midpoints, etc. In
addition, it comes with a 400+ page manual complete with tutorials
and examples. Our manual has been recognized by editors and users
alike and helps the new CAD user get up and running quickly.
3. DrawingBoard can be used for the types of graphics you described
and comes standard with about 270+ symbols from landscape and
architectural stuff to mechanical and electrical. Ashlar also sells
separate symbol packages.
If you are interested, check out our web page at www.drawingboard.com.
We have a free tour you can download to get a little more information.
Sarah Slaughter
DrawingBoard Product Marketing
Subject: Re: AutoLISP Problem -> Refuse to create an ellipse with an entmake call
From: duhvinci@inwave.com (Patrick Hughes)
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 22:58:34 GMT
With adroit appendages floating frantically athwart the
electromechanical ciphering device endeavored to convey the supervening erudition to the
espying public:
>Hi,
>I'm now stuck with another problem. I'm trying to create an ellipse
>with the normal entmake call and it doesn't work. So I made an ellipse
>myself on the drawing editor and passed it to an entget call to see
>what is needed to create an ellipse. I replicated this information in
>my entmake call and it doesn't work.
>Oh!, BTW I found something weird. Try creating ellipses normally with
>the command "ELLIPSE" and try passing them to entget. Some will have
>the group 41 set as 0.0 and some other to something like
>-3.40894e-016. According to the manual, the group 41 is reserved for
>the start parameter and is set to 0.0 for a full ellipse. So having
>numbers like -3.40894e-016 should be only for ellipse which has been
>cut, right ? But you can possibly get these weird group 41 even though
>it's a full ellipse.
>Here's an example of the code I tried.
>(entmake (list (cons 0 "ELLIPSE")
> (cons 8 "0")
> (cons 10 (list 328.259 106.986 0.0))
> (cons 11 (list 61.562 0.0 0.0))
> (cons 40 0.617905)
> (cons 41 0.0)
> (cons 42 6.28319)
> )
>);entmake
>Thanks a lot for any help !
>Benoit Bissonnette
Hi Benoit,
Interesting you ask this question, as a result of your previous post
regarding the entmake function it prompted me to get off my butt and
begin playing around with anonymous blocks - something I've been
meaning to do for the last 3 years (at least).
Anyway I discovered quite by accident that if you entmake a block,
the contents of which is a circle (entmake) with different x & y
(dxf 41 & 42) scales then explode the block guess what results?
yep, an ellipse.
Cool huh?
(entmake '( (0 . "BLOCK") (2 . "*U") (70 . 1) (10 0.0 0.0 0.0)))
(entmake '( (0 . "circle") (10 0.0 0.0 0.0) (40 . 1.0) (41 . 0.5)))
- above line acad fills in 42 group to 1
(setq newblk (entmake '( (0 . "endblk"))))
(setq nwblk (CONS 2 NEWBLK))
(setq newblklst (list '(0 . "INSERT") nwblk (cons 10 bpt) '(41 . 1.0)
'(42 . 1.0) '(43 . 1.0) '(50 . 0.0))) ;'(210 0.0 0.0 1.0)))
(entmake newblklst)
In any event try making a "circle" with different x,y&z; scale factors,
I haven't tried but it might do it.
Enjoy,
--
Patrick Hughes
Engineered Design Solutions
e-mail duhvinci@inwave.com
homepage http://www.inwave.com/~duhvinci
--------------------------------------------------
* Machine design, detail & build
* Cam design & manufacturing
* Machine animation
--------------------------------------------------
Subject: WORK WANTED, AutoCAD, P-T, WI-based
From: bgdesign
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 20:50:10 -0800
us.jobs.misc, us.jobs.contract, us.jobs.offered,
milw.jobs, misc.jobs.contract, chi.jobs, in.jobs, mi.jobs,
misc.jobs.resumes, misc.jobs.offered, mn. jobs, comp.jobs,
comp.cad.autocad, alt.cad.autocad
PART-TIME RESPONSES ONLY, PLEASE.
PLEASE, NO RESPONSES WHICH ARE NOT RELATED TO THIS FIELD...
Based in Milwaukee, I'm an AutoCAD Rel. 12/13 mechanical designer
currently working full time, but seeking part-time work on your
project. Four years experience includes mechanical and
electromechanical assemblies and part detail drawings, castings,
weldments, tanks, gearboxes, valves, fluid control and plumbing.
This would be part-time work at my home office using AutoCAD Rel.
12/Windows on a 486 machine. Work on AutoCAD Rel. 13 would be at
your office since I don't yet own that version. Six months on
Rel. 13, some exper. with solids, rapid prototype files etc.
Output: disk, E-mailed files or 8-1/2 x 11" sheet output.
Below-market hourly rate offered. Willing to take on new areas
including architecture.
Will translate AutoCAD drawings to basic CNC program code for 3-
axis machines. Other software experience: BobCad (for CNC
translating), CadKey, DesignCAD; EXCEL & LOTUS spreadsheets;
PAGEMAKER; 2 years prior desktop publishing exper. BA Degree in
Communication. Please send E-mail to address on posting. Voice
mail to 414-256-1338. CONTRACT AGENCIES WELCOME, TOO!
Subject: Re: Slow loading drawings
From: bwsmith@cadsmith.com
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 97 02:49:47 GMT
In article <5bdrjs$abp@ezekiel.eunet.ie>,
alan@sord.ie (Alan O'Flaherty) wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'd really appreciate input anyone may have on this peculiar problem.
>
>Equipment:
>
>Pentium 200 / 64MB Ram/DOS 6.22 Windows 3.11/256k Cache/Intel PIIX3
>IDE Controller/Cirrus GD5434 Graphics Adapter
>
>
>Drawing files are basically loading very slowly. As an example - one
>particular file is 2,129,359 bytes. First time I load it, the speed is
>normal (roughly 25 seconds). If I close off the drawing and open it
>again it may load at normal speed or it slows to a crawl and takes 5
>1/2 minutes. It is very erratic and there seems to be no real
>consistency - the drawing may take up to 5 minutes on first load. This
>happens on any large drawing I have.
..snip
Might need to defrag your hard drive.
When you load this drawing initially it's not fragmented, after working on it
parts of the file can be fragmented (stored on your hard drive in different
places in pieces). Running defragmentor will clean up your hard drive, put
all the files in contingent spaces and speed up access times.
Also try scanning for lost clusters and deleteing them.
The trouble with the new huge hard drives is that we tend to get lazy with the
house cleaning we used to have to do constantly to just to stay functional on
the old, small drives.
>
>interestingly, I transferred the hard disk to a Pentium 120 and could
>not replicate the problem. But I have tried it in another Pentium 200
>(different graphics adapter) and the same problem occurs
This drive could have more space , less fragmentation.
>
>If anyone has a similar system (Pentium 200) and is willing - I could
>send the file to you and maybe see if the problem occurs on your
>system.
>
>Thanks for reading. Hope someone can help.
>
>Alan O'Flaherty.
>
Good luck,
BW Smith
================================================
CADSmith Studio~~Design Services For The Building Industry
http://www.cadsmith.com/ ==== email: bwsmith@cadsmith.com
Subject: Re: Change properties of all blocks in drawing w/o exploding?
From: myjch4@vianet.net.au
Date: 14 Jan 1997 04:42:25 GMT
"Antonio Valentini" wrote:
>
> Is there a lisp available that will change the properties of ALL the blocks
> in a drawing (nested or otherwise) to whatever you want WITHOUT exploding
> the blocks?
>
> Say I have a drawing from a client made up of about 50 blocks. The file is
> 2MB. I need to change everything to be on one layer, linetype, and color.
> The client uses different colors and layers everytime, which makes things
> worse. Currently I have to explode everything then CHPROP (I could
> manually redefine the blocks, but this would probably take even longer.)
> When I'm done, and I've purged out everything, the file ends up being about
> 8MB.
>
> So either I'm going about this a really bad way OR I need a LSIP that will
> do what I have described.
>
> Any suggestions?
> Thanks in advance,
> Tony Valentini
Hi Tony,
Surely, it should be possible to select items (included nested ones)
by layer and change the properties. I'm not shure if this would
update the block definition, so changing ome block changes all.
Another way would be to WBlock all Block entities, batch process
and re-insert those blocks. This would redefine all inserted blocks
with the same name.
However, the easyest way may be to Xref those drawings in, if you
do not have to edit them any further and just add your own stuff.
This way all your imported layers have the same (Xref) prefix. In
an Xref you can change all properties to display the same way, without
actually editing the Xref'd drawing.
Regards,
Manfred
Subject: AutoLisp "ssget" problem
From: Mike Bos
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 20:49:23 -0800
I'm writing a program that checks a drawing for a certain entity, adds
that entity to a selection set (using SSGET) then places does some stuff
using that entity. The program continues to do this a number of times.
The problem I am having, is that after 128 calls to the ssget function,
it returns "nil" instead of a selection set. I am setting the selection
set variables to "nil" after I use them so I don't think I am using up
temporary memory space. I thought I might solve this problem by only
using 1 global selection set variable and then adding or deleting
entities from it but I ran into the same problem. After 128 ssadd
function calls I get a "bad argument" error.
Has anybody else run into this kind of problem and if so, are there any
solutions, or alternate ways to do a large number of different
selections
in an AutoLisp program
Subject: HELP WANTED! AutoCAD13 Drafters, Las Vegas, Nevada.
From: Rodriguez@mail.berrymanhenigar.com (Jon Rodriguez)
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 21:09:56 -0800
Com2000+, L.L.P., a provider of professional services to the telecommunications
industry is in need of four (4) AutoCAD 13 Drafters for a project in
Las Vegas, Nevada.
Experience with AutoCAD 13 and familiarity with Windows95 required.
Project is expected to last 4-6 months. Work is to be conducted at client
site with an anticipated schedule of 40hours per week, with a possibility
for overtime. Background in telecom or microwave a plus. Hourly rate of
pay will be established based on qualifications and experience (no
subcontractors, please).
First position is available 2/3/97.
Interested parties should e-mail resume (plain text only) to:
Rodriguez@mail.berrymanhenigar.com
or fax to:
Berryman & Henigar, Inc.
att: Jon A. Rodriguez
fax: (619) 673-7414
Subject: Re: Reply's
From: myjch4@vianet.net.au
Date: 14 Jan 1997 05:22:03 GMT
bwsmith@cadsmith.com wrote:
>
> In article <32DACE84.10D5@erinet.com>,
> Jerry Walter wrote:
> >Looking at this newsgroup on Monday, I surmised we should rename it to
> >comp.cad.dennisshinn .
> >
> >;>)
> >
> >Jerry
>
> I've been wondering if Dennis ever has time to sleep? Have you seen his SAUG
> site?
> http://www.halcyon.com/jeeper/saug/saughome.htm
> and Web page?
> http://www.halcyon.com/jeeper/
>
> And he works full time? Maybe he could tell us what vitamins he's on?
>
> :-o
>
> BW Smith
>
> ================================================
> CADSmith Studio~~Design Services For The Building Industry
> http://www.cadsmith.com/ ==== email: bwsmith@cadsmith.com
_"Vitamins"_
For sportsmen/women it used to be elephant juice. For hackers it's
"cyber juice" which is to be consumed with caution:
A few drops keep you attached to a monitor and keyboard for several
hours and mixed with the occasianal cup of coffee it may keep you
going for almost 24hrs/day.
Side effects are dropping eye lids, general signs of tiredness, back
problems from bad posture and loss of concentration. Sometimes the
hacker becomes a loner, which may lead to solitary confinement in
front of his hacking tool, called computer. Also occasionaly noticed
was paleness caused by lack of fresh air and daylight.
The perfect hacker is single, unknown (apart from his neighbours,
who see him once a day when he's doing his shopping and collecting
mail from a real mail box on his drive way) by other people personnaly
but well known all over the world under about 5-10 names. Some know
all time zones from the top of their haed!
Regards,
Manfred
P.S: Dennis is not a HACKER, is he?
Subject: Re: seek some ARX/ADS codes to enhance entity selction operation
From: "Tony Tanzillo"
Date: 14 Jan 1997 06:02:47 GMT
See the ads_entsel(), ads_nentsel(), and ads_ssnamex()
functions.
--
/*******************************************************/
/* Tony Tanzillo Design Automation Consulting */
/* Expert AutoCAD Programming and Customization */
/* --------------------------------------------------- */
/* Co-Author of Maximizing AutoCAD R13 and */
/* Maximizing AutoLISP for AutoCAD R13 */
/* --------------------------------------------------- */
/* tony.tanzillo@worldnet.att.net */
/* tonyt@compuserve.com */
/* --------------------------------------------------- */
/* http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tonyt */
/*******************************************************/
LiJie wrote in article <32DB47F1.4180@engr.siu.edu>...
> Under Acad ARX SDK1.1 environment, when I use ads_ssget function to
> select a face or edge from a solid, I feel very annoyed that I can not
> change the propmt "select a object" to my own propmt and I don't want
> the whole solid was highlighted whcih may make user confused.
>
> But when I use ACAD command "chamfer" or "fillet" in ACAD R13C4a, I
> found that it can select a face or edge from a solid directly without
> highlighting the whole solid and only highlight the face or edge just
> selected, besides its prompt is not fixed as "select a object".
> I think it's just the function I wish to have. Can anyone tell me how
> to realize it by using ARX/ADS.
>
> Tnanks a lot,
>
> ---LiJie
> Dept. of Technology
> Southern Illinois University
> (618)453-7817
>
Subject: Re: Change properties of all blocks in drawing w/o exploding?
From: Jay Garnett
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 01:08:00 -0600
Check to see if the entities in the blocks your client drew are on layer
0.
Enties in blocks on layer 0 take on the properties of the layer the
block is
inserted on. If so, all you have to do is create a layer with the
properties
you desire, then change all of the blocks to that layer.
Otherwise, you need a lisp routine that will automatically redefine all
of
the entities in a block on layer 0. There was one in Cadalyst
a year or two ago that is posted on Reni Urbans site at:
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at:80/autocad/code/cadalyst/93-03/tip850.lsp
Antonio Valentini wrote:
>
> Is there a lisp available that will change the properties of ALL the blocks
> in a drawing (nested or otherwise) to whatever you want WITHOUT exploding
> the blocks?
>
> Say I have a drawing from a client made up of about 50 blocks. The file is
> 2MB. I need to change everything to be on one layer, linetype, and color.
> The client uses different colors and layers everytime, which makes things
> worse. Currently I have to explode everything then CHPROP (I could
> manually redefine the blocks, but this would probably take even longer.)
> When I'm done, and I've purged out everything, the file ends up being about
> 8MB.
>
> So either I'm going about this a really bad way OR I need a LSIP that will
> do what I have described.
>
> Any suggestions?
> Thanks in advance,
> Tony Valentini
--
E-MAIL jgarnett@enteract.com
Homepage http://www.enteract.com/~jgarnett/lispfactory.htm
On-line Resume http://www.enteract.com/~jgarnett/resume.htm
Subject: Re: 21 inch monitor.... which one?
From: novak@nuc.net (novak@nuc.net)
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 09:43:53 GMT
>Thanks for the good evaluation of the Mitsubishi 91TXM. I've tried one
>ViewSonic P815 and three Hitachi Elite 802's. I completely agree with
>everything you said about the ViewSonic! My screen had darker areas, the
>geometry was far from perfect, the colors were faded, and the controls
>sucked!
>
>The three Hitachi's I've had have been much better than the P815. Controls
>were good, colors were brighter than average, and the clarity was pretty
>good, even at 1600x1200. I've had problems with "brightness bleeding" --
>bright objects on a dark screen produce light shadows or hazing.
That problem and hearing that the .22mm dot pitch of the Hitachi is
really only comparable to .27 or .28mm measured in the "classical" way
is what turned me away from the Hitachis. I don't have any problems
with color or brightness bleeding.
>I've been considering sending my current Hitachi back again (to NECX) to
>get a completely new monitor, and the Mitsubishi was at the top of the
>list.
>
>A few questions:
>
>1. How clear is small text at 1600x1200? (better than the Panasonic, fuzzy,
>etc.)
I don't have a video card that supports 1600x1200 so I don't know.
All I can say is that the Mitsubishi looks sharper to me than the S21
(which uses the same tube as the P815 you had, AFAIK) at
1280x1024x16bit@75hz. Someone else posted he liked his 91TXM also and
that his also has sharp text (even at 1600x1200 after switching to a
BNC cable). I think I'm going to buy a BNC cable to see if I can
notice any difference like he did.
>2. How is the convergence? (that's what the H Stat is for, to adjust the
>convergence of the electron guns)
Hey cool. I can see the difference it makes when I change that
adjustment in Nokia's convergence pattern in their test utility. It
was about dead nuts set at 50% anyway from what I could tell. I
really don't know how to rate it. It appears to be very good. It is
never off by more than half the width of a line in Nokia's utility if
even that much. It is difficult to describe, but I think it might
rate as excellent. It is hard to tell since I haven't tested hardly
any other monitor with that utility. It isn't perfect, but it could
be considered close to perfect I guess. Very acceptable in the least.
For those interested, Nokia's monitor test utility can be gotten from:
http://www.nokia.com/products/monitors/monitor_test.html
I'm very happy with the Mitsubishi, but I've never seen the Hitachi.
As you already know, getting a good monitor is a crap shoot. The
geometry of my 91TXM is very good overall, but it isn't perfect. The
sharpness, richness of color, and brightness of the monitor is
Excellent. I'm happy, and I'd like to think the 91TXM would be
better, but that's really only because I own one =).
P.S. How about a review of the Hitachi concerning it's the controls,
picture quality, and your impressions about it. I'd especially like
to know how the claimed .22mm tube rates as far as sharpness goes; did
you notice any difference in sharpness between the Hitachi and the
Viewsonic for instance?
_ __ __
/ | / / ____ _ __ ____ _ / /__
/ |/ / / __ \ | / // __ `/ / //_/
/ /| / / /_/ / |/ // /_/ / / ,<
/_/ |_/ \____/|___/ \__,_/ /_/|_|
Subject: Re: r12C4, HP7475a, and Win95 plotting problem
From: "Phillip Ingle"
Date: 14 Jan 1997 10:32:56 GMT
I found that it was best to create a plot file and then use a plotting
application to plot it. The program I used was Upload.exe. I thing it
might be available on the net.
In windows 95 you can edit the context sensitive pop up menu that you get
when right clicking on a file so you could add a 'plot' option. I did so
and the command ran the operation 'upload "filename" -C2 -s' this would
then plot the drawing in the background while I carried on working in
AutoCAD.
If you need any help to get this working e-mail me,
Regards
--
Phillip Ingle (http://homepages.enterprise.net/isc/phil)
Design Engineer
International Safety Components Ltd. (http://isc.wales.com)
Jerry George wrote in article
<32d55a87.8187267@news1.io.org>...
> Hi Folks!
> Has anyone had any luck getting an HP7475a to plot correctly
> under Windows 95? The problem is this; under r12C4, the plotter
> works incorrectly.
>
> -Using the Acad HPGL driver, the plotter almost
> immediatly delivers a parity error both through Win95
> and AutoCAD.
>
> -Using the Autodesk System Printer Driver plots
> the drawing as a series (a long series!) of dots.
>
> -The thing seems to work fine through Windows 95 Apps.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> GDG
>
> Jerry George
> Designer / Technical Director
> Graduate Student
>
> GDGeorg@bgnet.bgsu.edu
> GDGeorge@aol.com
>
> ***If All the World's a stage, and all the people merely players...
> ...Who the ##^@(%^ has my script?
>
>
>
