Monday, August 17, 2009

Relative Paths For Reference Files (DWG, JPG, TIFF, DGN, DWF, & PDF)

Relative paths are partially specified folder paths for reference files (DWG, JPG, TIF, DWF, DGN, and PDF's in AutoCAD 2010) that assume drive letter of your current drawing and the common folders (or path) of the current drawing.

Relative paths enable you to:
1. To move a set of drawings from your DD or SD folder set to the CD folder set without having to remap images, drawings, DWF’s, or DGN’s
2. To rename a project folder that uses the same folder structure (if they are already relative xrefs).
3. Allows consultants to keep the same folder structure (or close to it) and find our drawings.
4. Also, makes archiving drawings easier, because the links to the drawing or image paths will not be lost.

All reference files have 2 different paths:
1. "Saved" path
Tells AutoCAD what the path type is. (Relative, Full, or No Path)
2. "Found At" path (is editable and can change the Saved Path)
Is an editable display of where AutoCAD is finding the drawing based on the path type just by clicking on the path. Notice how the two paths differ below.


The 3 ways to make a reference file path a relative path:
1. When inserting the reference file, choose the relative path option. The current drawings must be saved to use this option.

2. Run the Xref Repath command or "XRP" to change existing reference file paths to relative paths. (Click on the images to enlarge)

3. Manually change the “Saved path” by changing the “Found At" path.


How do I manually change my reference path and what do all the symbols mean?
1. Host drawing path (or in other words the drawing you have open for this example is:

"Z:\TBG\Bridgelands\Parkway Planting (A06353)\04 CD\Work\A06353-plant.dwg"

2. In this example, all changes will be made to the xref (or reference file) after it has been inserted into the drawing. These changes will be made in the "Found At" location of the xref dialog box. Once "Enter" is pressed after changing the path, the "Saved Path" location will change to a relative path.

When Folders Are The Same:
3. ".\" (1 period and a backslash) Means the image or drawing is in the same directory as the host drawing listed above, or in other words, the directory path is exactly the same.

Host:
Z:\TBG\Bridgelands\Parkway Planting (A06353)\04 CD\Work\A06353-plant.dwg
Reference:
Z:\TBG\Bridgelands\Parkway Planting (A06353)\04 CD\Work\A06353-site.dwg

That will then leave you no remaining folders. Remember the site file is referenced into the planting file and that is one you are changing. Because these are in the same folder there will only be one (1) period before the backslash. This is the only different one. All other examples follow the pattern below.
".\A06353-site.dwg

When Folders Are Not The Same:
4. "..\" (2 periods and a backslash) Means the image or drawing is in the same directory as the host drawing but one folder was different. You can add as many "..\" as needed like this "..\..\..\" .

Shown below is the host drawing path and the reference path. What a relative path will do is remove the common path shown in light gray below:
Host:
Z:\TBG\Bridgelands\Parkway Planting (A06353)\04 CD\Work\A06353-plant.dwg
Reference:
Z:\TBG\Bridgelands\Parkway Planting (A06353)\04 CD\Xref\A06353-civil.dwg

That will then leave you with the folders in Red. You will then replace each folder with a "..\" Remember the civil file is referenced into the planting file and that is one you are changing.
Work\A06353-Planiting.dwg
"Xref\A06353-civil.dwg" will become "..\A06353-civil.dwg"

Now you have all the information you need to automatically or manually change your reference files.

Monday, August 10, 2009

AutoCAD - Layer Names and Structure

LAYER STRUCTURE:
The Layer structure at TBG has been organized according to, type of drawing (category), topic (sub-category), and detailed topic (sub-category descriptor), and/or scale specific items. This layering system is a hybrid of our previous system of layering and the AIA standard. The AIA layering standard would have all of our layers starting with "L". The naming structure looks like this:

LAYER NAME & DESCRIPTION
0S-walk-bldr-The first two letters “0S” designate the Classification of the layer
0S-walk-bldr: The next four letters designate the Division. ** The Division should not exceed 4 letters
0S-walk-bldr: The next item we can call the Sub-Division. ** The Sub-Divisions should not exceed 4 letters
0A-note-A-0010: “A” is the Category for that note. There are categories A,B, and C.
0A-strt-0010: ”0010” is the Scale in which that item was drawn. Any layer that has the scale at the end of a layer name is typically called a Dimscale Layer.

Converting A PDF To JPG Or TIFF

Believe it or not, opening a PDF in Photoshop is not the only way to convert a PDF to a JPG or TIF. Photoshop does a lot of interpretation of a PDF when it is opened, and depending on if the PDF was scanned vs. printed to PDF it may interpret the pixels differently and elongate them making the image a different size. I propose a more stable way to convert PDF's to images.

A. Open Adobe Acrobat (not Reader).
B. Open the PDF you would like to save to an image. Then go to the "File->Save As" option and choose the "Save As" command.

C. When "Save As" dialog appears, there should be an option at the bottom of the dialog box to let you choose which format to save that PDF. (There is also an options dialog once selected that we will not cover here).

D. Click the "Save" button to complete the conversion. Now you have a PDF the correct size with a standard pixel width, the correct scale, and paper size.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Grading Flow Arrow Dynamic Block

Every once and a while you need a flow arrow to either:
A. Show Direction of a slope
B. Show directioin and size of Pipe
C. Or just show the size of pipe and slope.

You can find the Grading Flow Arrow in several places.
For the command line type "GF".
For the Toolbar Button, it is on the TBG Cadscape - Grading Toolbar
For the Palette, it is on the grading tab
For the pulldown menu, it is on the Construction->Grading-Flow Arrow

The grading arrow (shown below) shows the arrow and how it is to be placed on the pipeline. Once placed on the line, the arrow can be flipped 180 degrees, flipped to the other side of the line, stretched, rotated to match the line, or changed to one of the three visual states that exist on on the flow arrow.

To place a flow arrow with no text on a pool deck or sidewalk just to show the general direction of water flow use the Flow Arrow No Text.

To just add text to a pipe to show size and slope of the pipe use the Piping Text.


If the line moves:
1. Use the base grip to move the arrow by snapping to the new location.
2. Use the rotate grip (shown as a blue circular grip) to rotate the arrow to the new location.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Exporting an AutoCAD Table to Excel

You can export a AutoCAD Table to Excel with a few easy steps.
1. You will need to have your right click set up for the short cut menu option.
A.. Type "OP" or "Options" on the command line.
B. Go to the "User Preferences" tab.
C. Click on "Right Click Options"
D. Check the "Enable Shortcut Menu"
From TBG's Two Minute Training

2. Select the outer boundary of the table. Do not select a cell only, this will not work. You will need to select the entire table for the shortcut menu to appear.
Notice that only the cell is slected and not the entire table. If you have selected a cell by accident then hit ESC a couple of times and try selecting the outer border again.

This table has been selected. You can tell the difference by noticing how everything in the table is highlighted. Once everything is highlighted, right click to bring up the shortcut menu.

3. Select "Export" on the shortcut menu to export the table to .csv or (Comma Seperated Values) which Microsoft Excel can read. If you open up a .csv file with notepad, will will see every cell that was in table is seperated by commas. When opened with Excel, it will interpret the data into columns and rows.
Once "Export" is clicked on it will ask you where to save your file. Select your project folder and place it in the appropriate folder

4. Once the file has been exported. Either open Excel and open the .csv file or double click on the .csv file to open it (it should default to Excel).
5. Now you have successfully exported an AutoCAD Table to Excel.