am being forced to do some work using some old AutoCad drawings...some in metric, some in imperial, and blocks that were not necessarily created on the 0 layer...
needless to say, i'm ready to shoot myself after producing nothing all day due to troubleshooting an endless array of obstacles...haven't used AutoCad to do any design work in a loooong time, just sketchup...hence the epic struggle from pure ease and efficiency to the world of irrationality called AutoCad 2010...WTF is LAYLOCKFADECTL? and what doorknob at Autodesk thinks this "shortcut" would be useful? i spend 90% of my time correcting for infinite versions of settings that i'll never need and that no one ever should have had access to because they'll screw it up...
yes, i'm venting and i apologize for it...but i do have a question to ask of all you out there...is there anyone who can knows if there's anything like a 2D version of Sketchup available that can do production-level drawings or if there's anything on the horizon that i may not have heard of? i know v2 of Layout is out, but that's more for presentation right? or is the new version getting close to be a CD tool as well? and don't point me to IntelliCAD based options either as they're all almost as bad and have major file compatibility issues in my experience
thx for any input...i wish i had enough money to buy Autodesk and shut them down forever...
Autocad 2010 is like when Baldwin in a desperate last ditch effort tried to modernize it's steam locomotives by putting the cab in front. Autodesk put also put a Revit like UI in front of Autocad - it's still Autocad just like a the old cab forward steam engine doomed to end up in the rust pile of technology.
i'll revisit rhino possibly but Revit is out of my price range for a legit setup...i understand the elegance of it but i'm doing smaller projects and just want to be able to get in an out quickly without too much hassle...
on smaller projects, i find that there tends to be a lag time with technology with consultants and staff as i'm generally ahead of them, even though i'm not at the leading edge, so i'll have to wait for that reason also...
thus my infatuation with sketchup, as most people from entry level on up can handle it, and it seems idiot-proof in that you can't accidentally do too many things to it that aren't easy to fix (other than exploding the whole model) and doesn't require you digging down deep into a an endless vortex of help menus...
am looking at using Layout, as I mostly present conceptual work, but will see if it has the capability to be more when needed...anyone with experience with Layout who has feedback?
both good or bad...
can be buggy--drops lines without explanation--particularly in sections. Fairly easy to get into though. Scales vector output properly w/ mac version--unlike sketchup itself.
achensch - is this v2 you're referring to? i've got the mac version, so i'll give that a test drive...
rethinkit - absolutely agree...every year, the UI gets shuffled around, another 20 "shortcuts" for esoteric options get added, yet another method of accessing every command gets added...i'm surprised there aren't any ACAD power users who have found a way to customize the UI by stripping/hiding 90 % of the junk out and locking down what's left over...could make a few bucks selling whatever combination of UI customization settings and macros that it would take...
i do know how to use autocad...used to be a power user, could do macros and actually even taught it for a while...but when you walk away from it for a few years, so much changes that you get frustrated with the new clutter...
it seems like the philosophy is "as long as we rearrange the deck chairs, and add another 100 useless features each year", we can charge people for another upgrade every year...no different than each time MS office comes out, except Autodesk feels this need to do it every year...and using classic mode just defers the learning process...
i work for myself, but i'm working off of legacy drawings of the existing buildings from the client, which were poorly done...so my complaint is more a larger picture one, than a "what can i do to fix my drawings today" type...ever tried to assemble a drawing with parts from drawings that are a mix of units, dimvars, dimtextsizes, dimarrowsize, linetype scales, line widths, etc?
why is it that so many architects keep buying this crap, when all you need is to be able to export a DXF footprint to something else? used to use archicad, but dropped it when i found it tough to get staff who knew it...and vectorworks for some reason i could never pick up no matter how many times i tried...again, the staff issue was there, but less so than archicad...
i keep returning to sketchup again and again as being idiot proof because it's so hard to mess it up...and so efficient and intuitive...there has to be some way a simple 2D drafting program can be as robust as this...
with so much great software out there, it just blows me away that it's actually possible to make a product less user-friendly with each passing year more than anything else...
as i said, looking at layout V2 next, and back to rhino again for the 2D...
sounds more like a problem with whoever did your original dwgs and not the software itself.
but if you want simple, vectorworks is good. also powercad, which is another child of minicad. nothing flashy just graphic production in traditional manner.
doesn't work when people who don't know what they are doing are drafting, but that is another problem.
anyway, isn't the whole point of sketchup that it isn't for professional work? or has it already caught up with rhino et al?
i think the knock i hear against sketchup has been that it limits you to "blocky" shapes...while you can do a lot with it, blob-itecture it can not...however, there are emerging plug-ins that would surprise a lot of people who haven't seen them and use the traditional lathe, loft, rails, etc. techniques...
my fixation on Sketchup's UI is that it works for me because it's the closest thing to working with my hands on paper or clay...very rarely do i need to click buttons, select modifiers, etc or even be aware of any of these things because most of the time you are working visually using intuitive mouse motions...the selection and grouping tools are just perfect...why is it that i can not group a simple object in autocad with a one step click?
if you look at bonzai 3D, which is a Sketchup-like package from the makers of Form-Z, you might see more of what i'm trying to get at...looking at bonzai, you can tell that it has been influenced by Form-Z in the way you select the commands and type of operations...so the user is conscious of selecting discrete commands...granted, bonzai is more powerful and like sketchup on steroids, but the heritage of the maker shows...
for me, autocad and sketchup are as different as working with a DOS system and a Windows/Mac GUI...you could learn DOS commands and become good at it, but why would you when a 5 year old could sit in front of a Windows/Mac GUI and be up to speed in minutes just because it's intuitive...
the fact that offices used to (and most larger ones still do) need a full-time Autocad expert to handle all the technical issues and write macros says something - that the software is so removed from a designer's natural intuition, that someone else has to bridge that gap...Revit benefits in that it developed as a separate company and i've followed them from the very beginning, but was crushed when Autocad bought them out...
ahh, that brings back memories of an experience i had years back when a high profile firm i worked at was first switching over to autocad...we started working on base drawings provided to us without knowing there was 3D info on them...so we ended up with things snapping on various Z co-ordinates...
this was before there was a "flatten" command in autocad, or our cad guru didn't know about it...about 6 of us spent a week manually converting the stray points back to zero level by selecting each stray point in the side elevation and typing in each of the desired three co-ordinates...8+ hours each of those days...it may explain my aversion to "dumb" work...
wish it was as simple as that 6-step...flattening isn't my major problem with this one, and you have to explode everything to flatten right? then you'd have to rebuild the all the blocks and make sure the instances weren't rescaled post-insertion too...
part of the problem is in proper teaching of users in making sure there is a theoretical knowledge of why total accuracy is required, but the other part lies in how robust the software is in allowing variation...personally, i'd rather have autocad with 10% of the variables it currently has and lock down the rest so people can't screw it up...
i once met an old-school architect who drew on screen as if it were paper...she'd eyeball it on screen and her rationale was that you barely notice when it's printed out...
the biggest issue that is hard to co-ordinate for what i'm working on right now is annotation...i use matchprop a lot, yet with all the slight variations that exist in how people use fonts, spacing, and hidden tweaking (changing things in the properties list) of individual annotations, you end up not being able to cut and paste simple things at all...dims and text get all rescaled and scrambled
I see what you mean, sorry I misread that you had a long break and now returned to AutoCAD again, yes, this can be a problem. They did change quiet a bit of interface, took me some time to get used to it, but its not that bad, I guess you are working on an urgent assignment and don't have time to learn all the new features. But once you pick it up, it actually is easier than older AutoCAD versions,
IMO.
Lordy, I don't miss Autocad! Not sure if this is possible for you, but I tend to redraw things if the files I was given are not good enough to use. Make some coffee, pull an all-dayer and an all-nighter, then it's done so you can focus on other problems.
Jun 6, 10 10:02 am ·
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save me from AutoCad, PLEASE!
am being forced to do some work using some old AutoCad drawings...some in metric, some in imperial, and blocks that were not necessarily created on the 0 layer...
needless to say, i'm ready to shoot myself after producing nothing all day due to troubleshooting an endless array of obstacles...haven't used AutoCad to do any design work in a loooong time, just sketchup...hence the epic struggle from pure ease and efficiency to the world of irrationality called AutoCad 2010...WTF is LAYLOCKFADECTL? and what doorknob at Autodesk thinks this "shortcut" would be useful? i spend 90% of my time correcting for infinite versions of settings that i'll never need and that no one ever should have had access to because they'll screw it up...
yes, i'm venting and i apologize for it...but i do have a question to ask of all you out there...is there anyone who can knows if there's anything like a 2D version of Sketchup available that can do production-level drawings or if there's anything on the horizon that i may not have heard of? i know v2 of Layout is out, but that's more for presentation right? or is the new version getting close to be a CD tool as well? and don't point me to IntelliCAD based options either as they're all almost as bad and have major file compatibility issues in my experience
thx for any input...i wish i had enough money to buy Autodesk and shut them down forever...
rhino works pretty well for 2D stuff (from my experience in school, anyhow), plus then you get the great 3D biz
one word - REVIT -
Autocad 2010 is like when Baldwin in a desperate last ditch effort tried to modernize it's steam locomotives by putting the cab in front. Autodesk put also put a Revit like UI in front of Autocad - it's still Autocad just like a the old cab forward steam engine doomed to end up in the rust pile of technology.
i'll revisit rhino possibly but Revit is out of my price range for a legit setup...i understand the elegance of it but i'm doing smaller projects and just want to be able to get in an out quickly without too much hassle...
on smaller projects, i find that there tends to be a lag time with technology with consultants and staff as i'm generally ahead of them, even though i'm not at the leading edge, so i'll have to wait for that reason also...
thus my infatuation with sketchup, as most people from entry level on up can handle it, and it seems idiot-proof in that you can't accidentally do too many things to it that aren't easy to fix (other than exploding the whole model) and doesn't require you digging down deep into a an endless vortex of help menus...
am looking at using Layout, as I mostly present conceptual work, but will see if it has the capability to be more when needed...anyone with experience with Layout who has feedback?
both good or bad...
can be buggy--drops lines without explanation--particularly in sections. Fairly easy to get into though. Scales vector output properly w/ mac version--unlike sketchup itself.
achensch - is this v2 you're referring to? i've got the mac version, so i'll give that a test drive...
rethinkit - absolutely agree...every year, the UI gets shuffled around, another 20 "shortcuts" for esoteric options get added, yet another method of accessing every command gets added...i'm surprised there aren't any ACAD power users who have found a way to customize the UI by stripping/hiding 90 % of the junk out and locking down what's left over...could make a few bucks selling whatever combination of UI customization settings and macros that it would take...
dude, there are autocad experts without job, how the hell did you get a job? are you intern? you should know this stuff.
option A: use "classic mode" in AutoCAD 2010
option B: switch to vectorworks or ArchiCAD. AutoCAD blows.
i do know how to use autocad...used to be a power user, could do macros and actually even taught it for a while...but when you walk away from it for a few years, so much changes that you get frustrated with the new clutter...
it seems like the philosophy is "as long as we rearrange the deck chairs, and add another 100 useless features each year", we can charge people for another upgrade every year...no different than each time MS office comes out, except Autodesk feels this need to do it every year...and using classic mode just defers the learning process...
i work for myself, but i'm working off of legacy drawings of the existing buildings from the client, which were poorly done...so my complaint is more a larger picture one, than a "what can i do to fix my drawings today" type...ever tried to assemble a drawing with parts from drawings that are a mix of units, dimvars, dimtextsizes, dimarrowsize, linetype scales, line widths, etc?
why is it that so many architects keep buying this crap, when all you need is to be able to export a DXF footprint to something else? used to use archicad, but dropped it when i found it tough to get staff who knew it...and vectorworks for some reason i could never pick up no matter how many times i tried...again, the staff issue was there, but less so than archicad...
i keep returning to sketchup again and again as being idiot proof because it's so hard to mess it up...and so efficient and intuitive...there has to be some way a simple 2D drafting program can be as robust as this...
with so much great software out there, it just blows me away that it's actually possible to make a product less user-friendly with each passing year more than anything else...
as i said, looking at layout V2 next, and back to rhino again for the 2D...
sounds more like a problem with whoever did your original dwgs and not the software itself.
but if you want simple, vectorworks is good. also powercad, which is another child of minicad. nothing flashy just graphic production in traditional manner.
doesn't work when people who don't know what they are doing are drafting, but that is another problem.
anyway, isn't the whole point of sketchup that it isn't for professional work? or has it already caught up with rhino et al?
sketchup is used in just about every local firm I know of-- can't do everything, but it's a misconception that it can't do accuracy
i think the knock i hear against sketchup has been that it limits you to "blocky" shapes...while you can do a lot with it, blob-itecture it can not...however, there are emerging plug-ins that would surprise a lot of people who haven't seen them and use the traditional lathe, loft, rails, etc. techniques...
my fixation on Sketchup's UI is that it works for me because it's the closest thing to working with my hands on paper or clay...very rarely do i need to click buttons, select modifiers, etc or even be aware of any of these things because most of the time you are working visually using intuitive mouse motions...the selection and grouping tools are just perfect...why is it that i can not group a simple object in autocad with a one step click?
if you look at bonzai 3D, which is a Sketchup-like package from the makers of Form-Z, you might see more of what i'm trying to get at...looking at bonzai, you can tell that it has been influenced by Form-Z in the way you select the commands and type of operations...so the user is conscious of selecting discrete commands...granted, bonzai is more powerful and like sketchup on steroids, but the heritage of the maker shows...
for me, autocad and sketchup are as different as working with a DOS system and a Windows/Mac GUI...you could learn DOS commands and become good at it, but why would you when a 5 year old could sit in front of a Windows/Mac GUI and be up to speed in minutes just because it's intuitive...
the fact that offices used to (and most larger ones still do) need a full-time Autocad expert to handle all the technical issues and write macros says something - that the software is so removed from a designer's natural intuition, that someone else has to bridge that gap...Revit benefits in that it developed as a separate company and i've followed them from the very beginning, but was crushed when Autocad bought them out...
i would just turn to 'classic mode' and then turn everything on and flatten..... then re-layer everything....purge that crap too.....
/dont get me started on dwgs from other sources..especially ones coming from firms\
ahh, that brings back memories of an experience i had years back when a high profile firm i worked at was first switching over to autocad...we started working on base drawings provided to us without knowing there was 3D info on them...so we ended up with things snapping on various Z co-ordinates...
this was before there was a "flatten" command in autocad, or our cad guru didn't know about it...about 6 of us spent a week manually converting the stray points back to zero level by selecting each stray point in the side elevation and typing in each of the desired three co-ordinates...8+ hours each of those days...it may explain my aversion to "dumb" work...
wish it was as simple as that 6-step...flattening isn't my major problem with this one, and you have to explode everything to flatten right? then you'd have to rebuild the all the blocks and make sure the instances weren't rescaled post-insertion too...
part of the problem is in proper teaching of users in making sure there is a theoretical knowledge of why total accuracy is required, but the other part lies in how robust the software is in allowing variation...personally, i'd rather have autocad with 10% of the variables it currently has and lock down the rest so people can't screw it up...
i once met an old-school architect who drew on screen as if it were paper...she'd eyeball it on screen and her rationale was that you barely notice when it's printed out...
the biggest issue that is hard to co-ordinate for what i'm working on right now is annotation...i use matchprop a lot, yet with all the slight variations that exist in how people use fonts, spacing, and hidden tweaking (changing things in the properties list) of individual annotations, you end up not being able to cut and paste simple things at all...dims and text get all rescaled and scrambled
I see what you mean, sorry I misread that you had a long break and now returned to AutoCAD again, yes, this can be a problem. They did change quiet a bit of interface, took me some time to get used to it, but its not that bad, I guess you are working on an urgent assignment and don't have time to learn all the new features. But once you pick it up, it actually is easier than older AutoCAD versions,
IMO.
Lordy, I don't miss Autocad! Not sure if this is possible for you, but I tend to redraw things if the files I was given are not good enough to use. Make some coffee, pull an all-dayer and an all-nighter, then it's done so you can focus on other problems.
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