Five AutoCAD editing tips

Whilst we would all like to produce perfect charts straight from AutoChart, the fact is, there will always be some degree of final editing involved. So, anything that saves a bit of time whilst actually using AutoCAD to draw or edit entities has got to be a good thing.

 

It's amazing just how many little hidden drawing and editing aids there are that can help you save time. Some of these may be obvious, but until you've seen someone use them (and asked "How did you do that?") you may never know just what you're missing out on. So, with this in mind, today's post is dedicated to a few drawing and editing tips and tricks you may or may not know about...

1. Using object grips to edit an entity is fairly commonplace, but you can also quickly cycle between different operations by pressing the Enter or Space Key.This cycles the command from Stretch to Move to Rotate to Scale to Mirror and then back to Stretch. The command uses the selected Grip Point as the Base point, so the entity is Moved/Rotated/Scaled/Mirrored around this point.
2. AutoCAD 2011 adds some nice mid-vertex grips that allow you to stretch two vertices at once. However, you can also select multiple Grip points to achieve the same functionality in earlier versions of AutoCAD. Just hold down the Shift Key whilst you click on the required Grip points. The stretch will then be applied to both points. Perfect for tweaking the size of your chart boxes!
3. You can snap to the mid-point of two points by typing M2P (or MTP) before selecting the two base points. Alternatively, Right-Click and select Mid Between 2 Points in the Snap Overrides section of the Shortcut menu (you may need to adjust your Right-Click customisation settings in the Options menu to get the Short-cut menu to appear).
4. Need to run the same command a number of times? Rather than having to recall the command each time, you can type 'multiple' at the command line and then type the name of the command you want to run. The command will then repeat until the ESC key is pressed. Note that this only really works for commands that can be run from the command line (i.e. that don't involve a Dialog box) so is best used for repeatedly drawing a number of entities.
5. If you want to change the size of some text entities but need to keep its relative position (regardless of the Text Justification), then you can use the ScaleText command. This allows you to select the Text you want to re-size, specify the justification points and then enter the new text height. The text entities will be scaled around the selected justification point, so won't move in position.

You can see all of these tips in the video below:

If you've got any similar tips and tricks you'd like to share with other users then please let us know in the comments section of this post.

New Features in AutoChart 2010.00.03 Part 2

In my last post I covered the changes we've made in AutoChart version 2010.00.03 to Custom Formats, this time I'm going to finish my round up of 2010.00.03 by discussing the new Create Panels - Multiple Routes command and the related modifications to Create Charts to allow chart creation from multiple Panel Sets.

These changes are really laying the groundwork for future development to allow more automated charting production of a multiple route project (for instance, charting the cable arrays of a windfarm survey area). In time we intend to add options to automatically add route specific data to charts created from multiple route entities - automating the automation if you like!

The first steps towards this eventual development come in the 2010.00.03 version of AutoChart. The Create Panels menu has been separated out into two variants - the previous (original) version is now called Create Panels - Single Route and works in the same manner as before. This has now been joined by a new Create Panels - Multiple Routes command that allows the user to select one or more AutoChart route entities to create panels along. Both versions of the command work in the same way, except that Multiple Routes version disables the Panel Identifier text box in the dialog as this information is automatically taken from the AutoChart Route ID attached to the route entity. (Note that only polylines that have been imported or assigned as an AutoChart route can be used in Create Panels - Multiple Routes).

To complement the new Create Panels - Multiple Routes command, Create Charts has also been modified to allow the creation of chart drawings from multiple Panel Sets in a single operation. Previously, if the specified Panel Drawing contained multiple Panel IDs then you could only create charts from one panel set at a time. Now multiple panel sets can be chosen in the dialog:

The Panel Set name will automatically be used in the Chart Prefix Name if charts are created from multiple Panel Sets. If only a single Panel Set is used then this option can be turned on if required or the Chart Prefix name can be typed in explicitly.

Note that the Chart Direction is restricted to a common Kp direction for all of the selected Panel Sets. If differing directions are required (i.e. some charts need to have ascending Kps whilst others need descending Kps) then Create Charts should be run in two batches according to the required Chart Direction with the selected Panels. Also, the selected Panel entities should all be of the same type (i.e. all alignment panels) - it is not possible to mix alignment type panels with North-up type panels in the same Chart creation routine.

In time these modifications should evolve along with other AutoChart commands to vastly improve productivity when charting a project that involves multiple routes all requiring a similar final chart format.

New Features in AutoChart 2010.00.03

Last week we released the latest version of AutoChart (2010.00.03). Although it's not been a particularly long interval since the previous release, the 2010.00.03 version sees a number of modifications, in particular to the functionality of Custom Format ini files.

When you define a Custom Format ini file to read in your ASCII data, you can now add a line to the ini Header to define the number of rows at the start of the data file to ignore. This means that you don't need to strip off Header lines from the data, you can simply set up the Custom Format ini file to skip the appropriate number of lines before the command starts to read the actual data by adding a #HeaderLines entry to the start of the ini file definition:

#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition
#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Kp, Description. Easting and Northing must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,"\t"
#HeaderLines,2
Kp,5
Easting,6
Northing,7
Description,1

So, in the above example, the first two lines of the data file would be ignored when the data is imported. If the #HeaderLines variable is omitted from the ini file then the import function will start reading from the first line in the data file.

Another option that can be added to the ini file is that you can now specify the units of numerical fields or an actual multiplier value so that unit conversion can be undertaken automatically as the data is imported. This option is activated by adding the unit value after the column number for the field:

#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition

#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Kp, Description. Easting and Northing must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,","
#HeaderLines,3
Kp,1,Meter
Easting,2
Northing,3

Alternatively, an explicit multiplier value can be specified rather than the field units:
#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition
#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Kp, Description. Easting and Northing must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,","
#HeaderLines,3
Kp,1,0.001
Easting,2
Northing,3

In both of the examples above, the values in the Kp column of the data will be divided by 1000, so converting the input units in meters to Kp in Kilometers. If no units or multiplier is specified then the values in the file will be imported directly. Similarly, if the coordinate values are set to the same units as those used by the coordinate system, no unit multiplication will be performed.

e.g. If the Easting and Northing fields are set to have a unit value of USFoot and the data is imported into a drawing that has a coordinate system with units of S Survey Feet, then the E/N values will be imported as they appear in the file. However, if the data is imported into a meter coordinate system, the E/N values will be multiplied by (12/39.37).

The following units can be specified:

USFoot

IntFoot

Meter

USKiloFoot

IntKiloFoot

USMile

IntMile

Kilometer

Continuing with the Custom Format theme, it is now possible to define and use a Custom Format ini file for Sub-Bottom Profiler (SBP) file types. The SBP Custom ini files must be stored in the \SubBottom sub-folder of the AutoChart Formats support folder (e.g. C:\AutoChart\Formats\SubBottom) and follow the following conventions:

• Positions must be stored in fields named Easting and Northing
• Horizon depths must be relative to the seabed and be stored in a field named Depth
• Nodes and Tag names must be defined in a field named Node and a field named TagName respectively. Node values should be S (for start of horizon), I (for intermediate points on the horizon) and E (for end of horizon). Point values can be denoted by use of an S or E node value, or by any other value (e.g. P) outside of a normal linear horizon definition.
• Optionally a Description field can be used in the ini file and then the values contained in this field will be added to the points and horizon vertices.

As noted above, header lines can be skipped and unit conversion can be performed by setting these options in the ini file definition.
#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition
#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Depth, TagName, Node, Description.
#Easting, Northing, Depth, TagName and Node must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,";"
#HeaderLines,3
TagName,1
Node,2
Easting,3
Northing,4
Depth,5
Description,6
In my next post I'll finish my roundup about the changes in the latest 2010.00.03 version of AutoChart by discussing the modifications we've made to allow creation of panels and charts along multiple routes.
As always you can check out the details of all of the recent changes on our website or in the AutoChart Help documentation.

AutoChart version 2010.00.03 is now available for download

We are pleased to announce that the latest AutoChart version 2010.00.03 is now available for download from the Wish Software Support Page:
http://www.wishsoftware.com/AutoChartSupport.aspx

Access to the download page requires a User Name and Password, so please contact your company's AutoChart Administrator in the first instance to obtain the required login information.

Version 2010.00.03 contains a number of modifications and bug fixes, the details of which are shown below:

Type	ID	Description	Command
BG	270	Create Charts Crashes with an 'Invalid' Error if the selected Base Chart is already open	Create Charts
FR	670	Added Innomar SPB Format	Add SBP Data
FR	672	Custom Formats modified to allow user to specify the number of header lines and the units of fields	AutoChart
FR	673	Add IXSEA SBP Format	Add SBP Data
FR	674	Add Triton SBP format	Add SBP Data
BG	675	Bad DXF Group error when importing Route from a single XP.csv file	Import Route
FR	676	Enable Custom Formats for SBP file types	Add SBP Data
FR	677	Use Top of Cover Flag for Cross Profile Lateral alignment if Top of Pipe not Found	Create Cross Profiles
FR	678	Show Top and Bottom of Pipe profiles as a dashed polyline where the pipe is buried (Acergy UK only)	Create Profile
FR	679	New Command Create Panels - Multiple Routes	Create Panels
FR	681	Create Charts command modified to work with multiple panel sets	Create Charts

I'll be discussing some of the changes in a forthcoming post on this blog.

New Features in AutoChart 2010.00.02 Part 2

Continuing on from last week's post, I'll finish my roundup of some of the new features included in the latest 2010.00.02 version of AutoChart.

We've now modified the Create Profile, Create Cross Profiles and Create Events Current Drawing commands so that, when they are run from within a Chart drawing, they will follow the direction of the Chart UCS. Previously when the Current Drawing version of these commands was used, the Kps within the Panel would always increase from Left to Right. Now if the command is run within a Chart that has been created with the Descending Kps option, the Kps in the Profile/Cross Profile/Events panels will follow the Chart direction and increase from Right to Left. This means that should you need to force the Panel Start Kp within a particular chart you can be sure that the Kp direction will be correct for that chart.

The Create Grid command has been changed so that you can now specify separate intervals for the Latitude and Longitude graticules. Previously the same interval would be used for both Latitude and Longitude which was not always desirable for certain datums and work areas. The Create Grid command now has individual entries for the Latitude interval and for the Longitude interval:

We've also fixed a problem in the Create Grid command where if the Geographical graticule parameters were not entered even though the option to use them was turned off, the command would fail with a Bad DXF (62) error.

The Create Cross Profile command has been modified to allow a 'Lateral' Reference point to be chosen as well as the Vertical reference point. This means you can select one of the Cross Profile Flags as the Lateral reference and the cross profile will be centered in the panel based on the X-offset of the selected Flag. For instance, if you were plotting cross profiles from a trenching survey, you may want the scans referenced to the bottom of the trench rather than the pipe position so that you can illustrate how the pipeline is situated within the trench.

The Zero line on the vertical axis will then refer to the selected Lateral Reference Point:

A new command Export SBP Data has been added. This allows the user to output any AutoChart Sub-Bottom Profile horizon data from an existing profile to a comma separated AutoChart format SBP data file. This means that any SBP data that may have been graphical edited within AutoCAD can be re-output to a data file or enables the User to recreate a data file that is no longer available. The SBP data within the profile MUST have been original made by AutoChart so that it it an AutoChart SBP entity Tag (this can be checked using the Show Entity Data inquiry. 

e.g.
Pick Entity to list:
Tag Name : Horizon 3

Export SBP Data can be run in either Current Drawing or Chart Series mode.

The Create Matchlines command has been modified so that it works correctly with North-up panels. Previously the command would only work with Alignment type panels and did not recognize North Up panels as valid entities.

Another New command is Attach Route ID by Layer. This will automatically convert all lines and polyline entities within the current drawing to AutoChart Route entities. It adds a Route ID based on the Layer name that the polyline sits on. 

The command can prove useful when adding labels to existing pipelines/cables within a Chart Series. If the Layers are set such that the layer name reflects the required label values (e.g. Pipe ID) then Attach Route ID by Layer can be used to add AutoChart Route ID information to all of the lines/polylines. The drawing can then be Xreffed into the Chart Series and the Annotate Object command used within each Chart drawing to add the required ID labels to the plan view box simply by clicking on the route entities within the Xref.

Finally, the Help documentation has been updated and revised to provide more information and easier navigation within the Help File.

The full list of Changes in version 2010.00.02 can be found within the AutoChart Help File, on the Wish Software Support website or in this Blog Post. If you require any further information on any of the changes, then please contact us at Support@WishSoftware.com

New Features in AutoChart 2010.00.02

Now that we're settled in at our new office, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss a few of the new features in the latest version of AutoChart (2010.00.02) that was released at the end of last month.

Probably the most important feature for those of you upgrading to AutoCAD 2011 is that the 2010.00.02 AutoChart is fully compatible with this latest version of AutoCAD. Indeed, to be able to use AutoChart with AutoCAD 2011, the new release must be installed as earlier versions are not compatible.

So, in this first post, I'll cover a few new and modified commands to do with creating and working with longitudinal profiles.

One of the most useful improvements is that the Xref Profile command has been fully updated to draw the Depth Axis and Kp Axis as well as automatically positioning the profile from the single command. The previous version of the command involved a few workarounds and was not particularly intuitive (until you knew how it worked!) whereas now the command works in a similar manner to the Create Profile command, except that the Profile source is a drawing rather than an ASCII file.

The Xref Profile command can be run as Current Drawing (by specifying the Panel Start Kp) or as Chart Series (where the Profile Xref is positioned according to the Plan View UCS). With either version of the command you can select to have automatic vertical positioning of the profile Xref by specifying an Upper/Middle/Lower position or fix the top of the Profile box to a particular value by using the 'Force Grid Start Depth' option and entering the required value.

As with the previous Xref Profile command the drawing to be inserted must be created in Pseudo Real World coordinates (i.e. the X-axis must be (Grid) Kp in metres with Kp 0 at X=0 and the Y-axis must be depth vertically exaggerated, e.g. Depth 0 at Y=0, Depth of 75m with a vertical exaggeration of 50 must be at Y=-3750. Finally, for Ascending Kp Charts the Kps of the Xreffed profile must travel from left to right, for Descending Kp Charts the profile must be mirrored around X=0 so that the Kps travel from right to left. It is usually easiest to use the Create Profile - Current Drawing command with the Calculate Panel Extents from Data option ticked in order to draw the profile data in the correct position.

Note that one of the profile polylines in the profile Xref must have been designated as the AutoChart 'Primary' profile. If this tag does not exist (for instance if the profile was not originally created in AutoChart) then this can be done using the new Attach Profile Info command.

Once the Profile Xref has been added to the charts, if required, a new command Move Profile Xref can be used to adjust the position of the inserted profile. This command allows the user to drag the profile to a new location within the chart panel and then adjusts the Kp Axis and Depth Axis to match. The command then re-applies the XCLIP around the profile panel and updates the chart's profile dictionary.

We're moving!!

There may be a small interruption to Support emails this week as we're relocating the office from Edinburgh to Wiltshire. Obviously we'll try to maintain our normal levels of support as much as possible, but please bear with us during the move.

From the 1st July 2010 our new contact details are:

Wish Software Limited,
Hartham Park,
Corsham,
Wiltshire,
England,
United Kingdom,
SN13 0RP.
Telephone numbers +44 (0)1249 700714/5/6

Mobile numbers and email addresses remain the same.

AutoChart version 2010.00.02 is now available for download

We are pleased to announce that the latest AutoChart version 2010.00.02 is now available for download from the Wish Software Support Page:
http://www.wishsoftware.com/AutoChartSupport.aspx
Access to the download page requires a User Name and Password, so please contact your company's AutoChart Administrator in the first instance to obtain the required login information.

Version 2010.00.02 contains a number of new commands, modifications and bug fixes and the new install is required for use with AutoCAD 2011.

Please note that AutoChart version 2010.00.02 will be the last version of AutoChart to support AutoCAD 2000 - 2006. All future versions will be compatible with AutoCAD 2007 and above only.

A list of new features is shown below and full details of these can be found within the AutoChart Help File. 

I'll also be discussing some of the major changes and new commands in forthcoming posts on this blog, so if there is anything in the above list that you are particularly interested in then please let me know.

Listing the coordinates of Polygons/Closed polylines in AutoCAD MAP

In my last post, I discussed the process involved in exporting a listing of polygon positions through ArcGIS. So how could you export the same information using AutoCAD MAP?

Again, it's a fairly simple operation, the main trick being how to easily get the centre points of the polygons or closed polyline entities and this involves using the AutoCAD MAP Create Centroids command.

So, the first step is obviously to have your source data that you want to export the positions from. This could be an existing set of entities (with or without object data) or you can use the MAP->Import command to bring in a shp file of polygon objects and their associated object data. When you import the data in this way, you can also choose to convert all of the polygon entities to closed polylines.

Once the data is in AutoCAD, you can then use the Create Centroids command on either selected entities or on all closed objects within the drawing. This will create a point entity at the centre of each polygon that also contains the associated object data. Once the centroids have been created, save and close the drawing and start up a new drawing in which to run a Report Query in order to output the point data coordinates to a text file.

Select the MAP->Define query command and use the Drawings button to attach the drawing created above. Under the Query type, click the Location button and set the Boundary Type to All. Then click the Property button, select the Object Type radio button, make sure the Operator is set as '=' and click the Values button to choose the POINT object type. This will ensure that only the point objects representing the centres of the polygons will be included in the output.

Back in the Define Query dialog, set the Query Mode to Report and click the Options button to access the Report Options dialog. Click the Expression button, expand the Object Data folder to select the required Object Data field and click OK to return to the Report Options Dialog and click the Add button to add the expression to the Report Template list. Repeat the above steps for any other object data fields you want included in the listing. To include the Eastings and Northings in the Listing, again use the Expression button, but this time expand the 'Properties' folder and select X1. Press OK and then use the Add button to include it in the template. This gives the Eastings of the point objects so repeat the operation to select Y1 to add the Northings to the Listing.

Once the Report Template is set up as required, use the Browse button to define the output name and location for the listing and press OK to return to the main Define Query Dialog.

Finally, click the Execute Query button to generate the report. The data will be output as a comma delimited file that can be opened in Excel.

The entire process is illustrated in the video below:

Listing the coordinates of Polygons in ArcGIS

So far all of my Blog posts have been about AutoCAD and AutoChart (primarily because these are what I spend the majority of my time dealing with) but Wish Software are also involved in producing and working with GIS deliverables, so today I'm going to add a tip about working in ArcGIS.

If you have a Polygon feature set, it may not be immediately obvious as to how to produce a listing of the centre coordinates of those polygons. Whilst the polygons are displayed in their 'Real-World' position, accessing their actual coordinate values involves a couple of steps.

1. Firstly, you have to add two fields to hold the X and Y coordinate values, so open the Attribute table in ArcGIS and use Options to Add a Field 'Easting' and a Field 'Northing', both of type Double.
2. Right click on the Easting Field and use the Calculate Geometry option to add the X-coordinate of each polygon centroid. Repeat Calculate Geometry with the Northing Field to add the Y-coordinate of the centroid and you'll then have the E/N coordinates for the centre of each polygon stored within the Attribute table.
3. If you want to produce this information as a listing, you can then just use the Export option from the Attribute Table to output to a Text File.

All of the steps above are illustrated in the following video: