Transfer Object Layer Settings Between Drawings

I found a nice "undocumented feature" in Civil 3D 2011 today. I found this totally by accident and though I lost a couple of minutes worth of changes to a template, I know that this find will save me a lot of time in the future, especially when a drawing is started from the wrong template.

One of the frustrating things about working with old drawings is that everything gets placed on Layer 0. Some of this can be corrected by using commands such as AECIMPORTSTYLES and AECCIMPORTSTYLESANDSETTINGS as posted by Scott McEachron of the I.II.I consortium. I haven't had great success with those commands yet, but as Scott stated, the commands are undocumented and unsupported.

Well here's another undocumented and unsupported feature (some might even call it a bug):

You can copy the Object Layers settings from one drawing to another...in seconds...FOR FREE! Want to know how? Here you go:

Before you begin, I will state that I'm using Civil 3D 2011 on the Windows 7 64-bit OS. I can't guarantee that it will work on older versions of Civil 3D or on a different OS.

1. Create a drawing from a template that contains the correct Object Layer settings. I'll call this drawing "TEMPLATE".
2. Now open a drawing that doesn't have the correct Object Layer settings. I'll call this drawing "BLANK".
   
3. Make Toolspace visible (type showts at the command line or locate the toolspace button on the Home Tab of the ribbon).
4. Select the Settings tab on the Toolspace palette.
5. Set the view dropdown to Master View.
   
6. Make sure that the "BLANK" drawing is current (it's shown at the top of the list in the Settings tab).
7. Now scroll down until you see the "TEMPLATE" drawing in the Settings tab.
8. With your cursor positioned over the "TEMPLATE" drawing name, right click and select Edit Drawing Settings... from the list.
9. Select the Object Layers tab and verify that these are the object layers that you want used in the "BLANK" drawing.
10. Now all you have to do is left click on OK.

Voila! You have just changed all the default Object Layers in your current drawing, "BLANK", to those in the "TEMPLATE" drawing. Feel free to check for yourself.

I'm interested in hearing if this trick works on older versions of Civil 3D and/or other operating systems, both 32-bit and 64-bit so please leave me a comment.

Publishing (in Stereo)

So you're publishing in the background and you need to "plot something real quick". You hit the old plot button and you're faced with this message:


Great. Now what?

Here's the secret.

Open a second session of Civil 3D and plot from that session.

Yes, it's that simple.

I've been experimenting with using multiple sessions of Civil 3D 2009 and so far it seems more stable (knock on wood). So when I was faced with publishing a sheet set with a portion of the set using one page setup and the other portion using a different page setup, I gave the multiple sessions a try and it's working like a dream.

For this process, I have the 3GB switch enabled and I'm using Windows XP. I have my publishcollate variable set to 0 (zero) so the sheets are intermixed. I could have set my publishcollate variable to 1 (one) and the plot would have sent as one file then I could have the sheets in order for easier collating in the end. Since I had never tried to publish from multiple sessions of AutoCAD, I chose not to collate before sending to the printer. This way I could verify that the process was indeed working.

What's Wrong With My Text?

In case you haven't experienced it yet, working with true type fonts in AutoCAD can sometimes be a challenge. Here's one such example:

A fellow employee sends me a PDF showing a line table that was created using text objects with Arial and ArialBold font styles (both are True Type Fonts). The line table was created in two parts, then copy/pasted together into one table. Here's a portion of the result:


Notice that the Bold text in the first two lines (L34 and L35) is not as dark or thick as the bold text in the bottom three lines (L36, L37, and L38)? We tried using match properties to get the text to match, but the result is the same. That's unacceptable, right?

So here's the secret: The text on the bottom three lines (L36, L37, and L38) is at an elevation of -1.375 and the text on the top two lines (L34 and L35) is at an elevation of 0.

So the next time you are having issues with true type text, check the elevation of the text and maybe this will solve your problem.

Image Plotting Issues

Today we had a repeat issue of plotting a sheet from paperspace that contained tiff images of a two page subdivision plat in model space. The preview looked correct, and everything on the sheet plotted except the two images of the plat. The Plot and Publish Details showed that the plot had been canceled though it wasn't the user that canceled it.

• We plotted the layout to a different plotter with the same results.
• We plotted the layout to a DWF and the images appear as expected.
• We plotted the layout from a different computer and it plotted fine.

At this point, we decided it had to be computer specific. We contacted DC|CADD and Mark Martinez recommended that we uninstall and reinstall driver, plotter, etc. before proceeding any further. We got the same results (everything but the image was plotting) after the reinstall.

So, now we're thinking maybe it's a memory issue. We checked the system settings and the /3GB switch was not enabled on the problem computer. We changed the System Startup settings so that the /3GB switch would be enabled upon boot, then we rebooted the system.

After the reboot, the resulting plot contains everything on the sheet including the two images.

After the plot worked, we checked the size of the tiff images. (Yes, I know, why didn't we do that at the beginning.) Both images were under 300 KB. Hmmm, sounds small enough to me, but hey, I'm not going to look this gift horse in the mouth.

So, SCORE ONE FOR THE /3GB SWITCH!

Vista Out, XP In

For those of you that have "had it" with Windows Vista. PC Magazine has posted instructions that will take you step by step through the process of downgrading from Vista to XP.

How to Downgrade from Vista to XP

As for me? I'll stick with Vista for now.

Vista, You're Fast Again!

As a follow up to my Vista, Why Are You So Slow? post, I finally just changed my "Windows Color and Appearance" to Vista Basic. That helped on the speed issue a lot, but then my screen captures didn't match all the prior screen captures that I had in the handout I was preparing. So I just switched it back to the default settings for "Windows Color and Appearance". Even though I don't know why, the system is "fast" again. I guess the change worked like a reboot or something.

So if you ever have slowness issues with Vista, try switching to Vista Basic in the "Open classic appearance properties for more color options" section of the "Windows Color and Appearance" panel in Vista, then change back to the Aero color of your choice.

Technorati Tags: Windows,, Vista

Vista, Why Are You So Slow?

I've been using 32-bit Vista Home Premium for several months now. The speed has been good for the most part but for the last week or two, I had noticed everything running quite sluggish. I didn't know what I had done different. The sluggishness even appeared while I was typing things like emails or web posts. What the heck happened to this laptop?

I began searching for culprits by going through the icons shown on the taskbar. I had installed a trial version of SnagIt several days earlier and it started automatically when booted the machine. I exited SnagIt but that didn't seem to help. The sluggishness was still there.

My laptop is an HP and as a result, it has several HP apps running as well. I had already removed or disabled several other HP apps, but HP Advisor was still running. I closed the HP Advisor, but still noticed no improvement.

Then I saw this icon that belonged to OneNote. What was it doing there? Supposedly it was ready and waiting for me to begin creating notes like for the minutes of a meeting or notes from a class I was attending. I didn't ask it to be there, so I'll just exit that program as well. Unfortunately, no exit option was available. I could hide the icon (like that was going to do a whole lot of good). I had to find where this program originated.

So I went to check what services were being started automatically. It wasn't there either. So where the heck was it? I found that it was a shortcut was called "OneNote 2007 Screen Clipper and Launcher" and it was in this folder:
C:\Users\Internet\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

I removed it and rebooted. Although that did improve the speed a bit, the laptop is still not as fast as it was previously.

I continued to search for additional culprits and felt that the indexing service of Vista was probably involved. I found several websites that discussed different Windows Vista tweaks. Here is one that discussed tweaking the indexing options of Vista.

http://www.vistaultimate.com/tweak-windows-vista-indexing.htm

I made this tweak and even while typing this post (I haven't restarted the laptop yet) I've already noticed a difference. There is no longer a lag between when I type something and when the characters actually appear on the screen.

So is there a bad side to not indexing? I don't know yet, but I do know that the index list hardly ever was indexing the folder or file types for which I ran searches. Now at least there is a shorter file list to browse before I can tell it to "search in non-indexed directories".

Now the indexing wasn't changed within the last two weeks, so there was still an issue. Then I remembered. One of the first things I did when I got this laptop was to uninstall Microsoft Works and install Open Office. I was really going to give Open Office a try and see if I could live without Microsoft Office. I already knew I wouldn't use Works because too many Excel commands that I use often are either different or missing. Well, I gave it a try and although the other portions of Open Office would have been sufficient, I had trouble with Excel again. I guess the "power user" in me appeared and just found problem after problem with using the Open Office replacement for Excel. For most people it worked fine, but some things I just couldn't accept.

So I finally conceded and purchased a legal copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, but I didn't install it quite yet. I figured, what the heck, I'll go ahead and use the trial version of Office on my laptop before I open the newly purchased product. If I didn't like it or if I had similar problems as I did with Microsoft Works, I would just return it unopened. Now that I look back, I see this as the time when the laptop began its descent into the land of the slugs.

In summary, can I live without Microsoft's version of Excel? Yes.
Will I use other spreadsheets in place of Microsoft's version of Excel? No.

I guess I'll just have to live with that performance hit to continue using Excel the way I want.

Maybe Vista SP1 will take care of this. Well, just in case, I'm not going to expect too much.