Tips & Tricks - taps-inc.com · instance, a Civil 3D surface will become polylines and text when Exported To Autocad. Any AEC ... CAD & Carlson Tips & Tricks 2016 TAPS Conference

Tennessee Association of Professional Land Surveyors

2016 Annual Conference – Murfreesboro

Tips & Tricks with

AutoCAD, IntelliCAD & Carlson

Presented by

Who Is That CAD Girl?

Jennifer DiBona is a long‐time CAD consultant and trainer doing business as That CAD Girl. She is based in

Raleigh, North Carolina.

Jennifer has a degree in Surveying and spent about 15 years working as an engineering & surveying technician

before leaving to become a Civil 3d Implementation Certified Expert (ICE) for an Autodesk reseller.

Today, as That CAD Girl, she provides sales, support and training for Carlson, AutoCAD and IntelliCAD software

and Carlson hardware and data collection. Jennifer specializes in Field to Finish, Surface Modeling, CAD

standardization and Carlson Software implementation.

Jennifer is one of the charter members of Carlson College, is a member of the Steering Committee for the

National CAD Standard® and serves as Chair of the Survey/Civil Task Team.

Jennifer can be reached at [email protected] or (919) 417‐8351.

Carlson Self‐Study Manuals are available for purchase from my

online store at www.thatcadgirl.com

CAD & Carlson Tips & Tricks2016 TAPS Conference

Jennifer DiBona (919) 417‐8351 [email protected] Page 1 of 13

1 Forgotten Commands and Utilities

Direct‐Distance Entry:

When drawing lines or polylines or moving or copying entities from one place to another, after picking your starting point, you can drag your mouse to provide the direction and type in a distance (and press enter) to provide the distance.

Coordinate Entry methods



Entity Selection Methods Window Crossing Add/Remove All Previous Last Fence Window Polygon Crossing Polygon

Command Line Layer Management Enter –LA at the Command: prompt to get to the original, DOS‐based LAYER command. Among other things, this command can be used to create, set, freeze and thaw layers. The advantage to using this method is that you can use wildcards * to change the status or rename many layers at one time.



2 Tips for Recovering Problem Drawings

PURGE – This command removes any unused layers, linetypes, text styles, dim styles, shape files and many other unneeded definitions in the drawing. Make sure to PURGE nested objects.

–PURGE, Regapps – This is the same command as noted above except that it runs from the command line instead of activating a dialog box. The Regapps option is only available from the command line version. This option removes “leftover” data from other programs (Registered Applications) that have worked with the drawing.

AUDIT – This command looks for discrepancies between the objects displayed on the screen and the objects definition in the Autocad database and gives you the option of correcting them.

RECOVER – This command is a more robust version of the AUDIT command and can be used if the drawing is not able to be opened. The RECOVER command performs an AUDIT as its last function.

RECOVERALL – This command RECOVERs the selected drawing and all dependent XREFs. However, errors corrected by the AUDIT are not saved back to the XREFs.

WBLOCK – If you suspect a drawing has become corrupt, you can WBLOCK the entire drawing out to another file. Warning: This only transfers the Model Space entities. AutoCAD Design Center can be used to transfer Layout tabs if necessary.

INSERT – Using the same principle as above, you can INSERT a drawing into another drawing (use 0,0 as insertion point) as a way to correct errors in a drawing. Same Warning applies: This only transfers the Model Space entities. AutoCAD Design Center can be used to transfer Layout tabs if necessary.

–EXPORTTOAUTOCAD – This command will create a new copy of a drawing in which any instances or definitions of AEC Objects in your drawing and are exploded into basic Autocad entities. For instance, a Civil 3D surface will become polylines and text when Exported To Autocad. Any AEC Objects will obviously lose their intelligence, but the new drawing can be opened in any version of Autocad.

DWG TrueView, DWG Convert – This program has several drawing cleanup utilities available during the process to convert to another version of Autocad.



3 DWG TrueView and DWG Convert

DWG TrueView is a free, downloadable program developed by Autodesk that allows you to view, change layers, take simple measurements and plot Drawing (.dwg) or Drawing Interchange (.dxf) files.

The website address seems to change frequently so I recommend that you visit www.autodesk.com and search for DWG True View under “All Products”. A new version of True View is released each year along with the new version of AutoCAD.

Another component included in DWG TrueView is DWG Convert. DWG Convert allows you to convert one or more Drawing (.dwg) files to a different version all at one time. The program currently supports files between R14/LT98/LT97 and 2013.

In addition to converting file(s), there are also some nice file management tools that can be incorporated into the Conversion Setup. For instance, you can select the options to Bind XREFs or Purge Drawings and these commands will be executed on the file(s) during the conversion.

4 Working with Linetype Scales

Linetypes are defined in the acad.lin file – typically stored in your AutoCAD \support directory.

LTScale is set in Model Space and applies to the entire drawing. It is used to scale the dash‐gap distances defined for each linetype in the acad.lin file so that the linetypes are visible for all different lengths of objects.

Setting PLINEGEN = 1 causes polylines to ignore intermediate vertices when applying linetypes and, instead, allows the linetype to be equally distributed along the entire length of the polyline.

PSLTScale is set independently for each layout tab. PSLTScale can be set to 1 or 0. Setting to 1 causes Autocad to ignore the LTScale set in Model Space and use a value of 1. This allows linetypes to appear correctly in each viewport.



5 Creating New Linetypes in AutoCAD

To create a new basic linetype that includes dashes, dots, spaces or text, you must first draw the geometry of the linetype. It’s important to draw all the components at a 1:1 (plotted size). Use a piece of text drawn 0.08 or 0.10 high as a reference. For instance, you can draw two lines at 0.25 and add the two pieces of text at a height of 0.08 to create this:

1. Go to Express Tools> Tools> Make Linetype 2. You are next prompted for a .lin file. If you select an existing .lin file, the new linetype will be

added to it; however, if you plan to test and create several new linetypes, I recommend that you specify a new .lin filename and save it in a working folder.

3. Specify a name for the new linetype. 4. When prompted for a description, you can type in symbols from the keyboard that represent the

line. This is for display only. For instance, you might show the description of a centerline linetype as "‐‐‐CL‐‐‐".

5. Select the objects and press Enter. 6. The new linetype has been created and loaded into the current drawing. Draw a new line in the

drawing and change its linetype to the new one to see if it’s what you expected. 7. If you don't like the way the linetype turned out, you can simply delete the file and do it again or

open the .lin file in Notepad and make minor revisions. If the linetype definition changes, you may need to start a new drawing or PURGE the linetype from your current drawing before the changes will be reflected.

After using this command to create the new linetype, it will automatically load and be available in the current drawing. However, when you begin a new drawing you will need to load the linetypes just as you do any other standard linetype. Load the linetypes by typing LINETYPE at the command line and picking the LOAD button.



6 TEXTMASK and WIPEOUT Commands

The TEXTMASK command allows you to select a Text or MText entity that "hides" or "masks" other CAD entities behind it.

The TEXTMASK command creates a Wipeout entity that frames the text and "hides" objects behind it. You must use the DRAW ORDER commands to make sure the Wipeout entity hides the entities it's meant to hide.

For instance, in the example below, the black polyline is on the "bottom" in the draw order. The wipeout is the red rectangular area around the text entity and is "above" the black polyline in the draw order. Then, the text entity is on "top" in the draw order.

You can also use the WIPEOUT command to manually create a wiped‐out area that "hides" or "masks" entities behind it in the draw order.

The WIPEOUT command gives you the option of picking points to define the wiped‐out area or selecting a closed polyline to define the area.

Another setting in the WIPEOUT command lets you toggle “Frames” visibility ON or OFF.



7 Installed Template Files from AutoCAD, IntelliCAD and Carlson

Installation of any AutoCAD‐based program, IntelliCAD or Carlson Software provides you with one or more standard Drawing Template (.dwt) files.

For instance, AutoCAD comes installed with acad.dwt and IntelliCAD installs with icad.dwt. Civil 3d provides many Template files such as _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS.dwt and Carlson Software includes Carlson.dwt and Carlson_NCS_Survey‐Civil.dwt.

The “NCS” in the filename of _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS.dwt and Carlson_NCS_Survey‐Civil.dwt indicates the layers in these Template files are based on the National CAD Standard.



8 Use Carlson Software Layer Library to Import Layers to AutoCAD or IntelliCAD

Carlson Software’s Layer Library feature is available in all of their desktop software programs. You will find it under the Settings pull‐down menu. You can populate the Layer Library from a drawing or from a comma‐delimited Text file and then save all the settings to an external Layer Library (.LA) file.

The Layer Library (.LA) file can be used to archive one or more sets of standard layers, to create one or more layers with the standard properties in the current drawing or to compare or match layers in the .LA file with layers in the current drawing.

Additionally, Carlson commands can use the Layer Library to assign color, linetype and lineweight properties to newly created layers. For instance, if you use the Triangulate and Contour command to create a surface and draw new contours on layers C‐TOPO‐MINR and C‐TOPO‐MAJR but those layers don’t currently exist in the drawing, the layers will be created using the colors, linetypes and lineweights assigned in the Library.



9 Transfer and Archive Files with LandXML

LandXML is the name given to Extensible Markup Language (.xml) files that contain data relating to the land development disciplines such as land surveying, civil engineering and construction. XML Files can be opened and viewed in text‐editors such as Notepad or in a web‐browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome.

LandXML files are used to transfer or archive civil/survey software data such as point files, parcels, surface model files, centerlines, profiles, cross sections, etc. Because of the generic format, it allows software developers to import and export proprietary data files without sharing the details with their competitors.

For instance, you can export a single LandXML file that contains points, an existing surface, a proposed surface, the lot/parcel definitions and centerline data from Carlson Software and import the LandXML file into Civil 3d or a contractor’s machine control system. LandXML can also be used to transfer data from a Civil 3d Drawing to a previous version of Civil 3d.

The generic nature of the LandXML format is also the reason that I recommend it as an archive format for civil/survey data files. Because it is generic, we can assume that whatever software is being used 10‐ or 20‐years from now will be able to read the files.



10 Enter Deed Description

Enter Deed Description is one method of entering deed and boundary calls. The benefit to using this command is that it saves the information to a Deed (.pdd) file which can then be opened, reviewed, edited and redrawn using the Process Deed File command.

Both the Enter Deed Description and Process Deed File commands are available in Carlson Survey under the Survey menu.



11 Process Deed File

A Deed (.pdd) file is typically created using the Enter Deed Description or here in the Process Deed File command.

Both the Process Deed File and Enter Deed Description commands are available in Survey under the Survey menu.

From the initial screen of Process Deed File, you can make the following changes to the PDD file:

Add Deeds,

Remove Deeds,

Edit a Deed,

Draw a Deed with labels,

Generate a Report,

Copy a Deed

Export a Deed

Note: A Deed file can contain one or many individual Deeds.



Edit Deed File When editing a deed through Process Deed File, you can see both a graphic and table view of the deed.



12 Create Points From Entities

This command provides a quick way to set Carlson points on endpoints, insertion points and vertices of lines, arcs, polylines, text and other CAD entities. It also gives you a lot of flexibility when assigning point numbers, elevations and descriptions for points set on these entities.

This command is available in Survey under the Cogo menu.

Documents

Tips & Tricks - taps-inc.com · instance, a Civil 3D surface will become polylines and text when Exported To Autocad. Any AEC ... CAD & Carlson Tips & Tricks 2016 TAPS Conference