Cadalyst - June 2008 - (Page 50)

hottipharry By Bill Kramer Just a Few CAD Renovations Harry shares some productivity tools, including this month' s Top Tip Ð a duplication drafting tool. earing a carpenter' s toolbelt along with his trademark fedora and trench coat, Harry looked out of sorts as he walked in quickly. ª Doing some renovation work,º he said. ª Here are some great tips to help with those changes.º Then he dropped off this month' s tips, turned, and left. W Tip 2295: Draw Closet Detail Mike Carter sent in Draw Closet Detail, another architectural plan detail tool. This tool draws shelves and rods with clothes hangers after you select the walls of a closet. A document file describes how to use this LISP utility. Tip 2292: Area of Closed Polylines Area of Closed Polylines, sent in by Ronald Maneja, computes and adds an area annotation for closed polylines. Load the LISP code and type AreaRon, supply a scaling factor, and select polylines using the AutoCAD selection mechanism. Only closed polylines can be selected. The routine calculates the area of each object and displays the result as a text object at the averaged center point for the polyline. Area text is added to layer AreaRon for easy manipulation. Tip 2296: Squares Made Simple Noel Gemilga submitted Squares Made Simple, a tip with two short functions for drawing a square using two different approaches. Load the LISP code and type either SQ (to use the Rectang command) or SQQ (to use the Polygon command). This utility is a great learning example for those looking to speed up basic AutoCAD operations using Visual LISP. Tip 2297: Time/Date Stamp with RText Time/Date Stamp with RText essentially is a reminder from Jerry Frey that using RText is the easiest way to include a time/ date stamp in your drawing. This tip includes a single DWG file that contains RText with Diesel code embedded. Just insert this drawing as a block and watch the magic unfold. RText isn' t a normal AutoCAD command Ð it was included as part of the Express Tools in earlier releases Ð so don' t expect to find any useful information in the Help or documentation. Instead, just open this drawing and take a look. Tip 2293: Add Text Values Brock Narum submitted Add Text Values, which adds the values found in text and attribute entity objects. Load the LISP code and type AddValues at the AutoCAD Command line. Next, select text and attribute entity objects that can be converted to numeric values. The text is extracted, converted to a real number, and added to the running total. When finished, the sum is output as a text entity at a location you select. The output text is sized based on the drawing scale, and you may need to adjust it to your application. Tip 2298: Make More of the Same Mosad H. Elewa sent in this month' s Top Tip, Make More of the Same. This really neat drafting tool allows you to select an object in a drawing and make more objects of the same type and properties. This tool saves you the time and effort of looking up the properties of an object, setting them as current, and then running the command. Load the LISP code, type Setas at the Command prompt, and select an existing object in the drawing. If you select a basic graphic object, the routine extracts layer, color, and linetype information and makes them current, then initiates the command to draw more of the same. When you select a text object, the routine sets the text style as current and starts the default text location just below the selected text. Send your tips to harry@cadalyst.com and until next month, keep on programmin' . Cadalyst contributing editor Bill Kramer has been programming AutoCAD solutions, writing magazine articles and books, and teaching CAD/CAM/CAE customization for more than 20 years. Bill wrote the first article about AutoLISP in Cadalyst back in 1986. www.cadalyst.com cadalyst June 2008 Tip 2294: Draw Stairs in Plan View Draw Stairs in Plan View from Kent Cooper draws a detail for stairs based on your parameters. Architects will find this function handy when laying out stairs in a floor plan. It supports IBC and ABA standards through a series of default values and can be used for residential and commercial work. Load the LISP code and type StairPlan. A series of prompts will appear that let you define what kind of stairs you want drawn. Get the Code! 50 Download Harry' s June 2008 code at www.cadalyst.com/code. Downloads are free, provided as is without warranty or support. Tips included in ªH ot Tip Harryº ar e tested with AutoCAD 2008, unless otherwise noted. Review tip submission guidelines at www.cadalyst.com/tips and then submit your AutoCAD tip to harry@cadalyst.com. Authors of all published tips will receive a Cadalyst T-shirt. The author of Harry' s Top Tip each month will win a $100 cash prize, and all published authors will be entered in the Hot Tip Harry 2008 Hot Code Contest random drawing for a chance to win a trip to Autodesk University 2008. http://www.cadalyst.com/code http://www.cadalyst.com/tips http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - June 2008

Cadalyst - June 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Community Building in Progress A Quarter Century of Cadalyst Tracking a CAD Giant The Highs and Lows of CAD Hardware Industry Insights — Looking Ahead Cadalyst Lab Reviews: HP xw4600 Workstation with LP3065 30” LCD Monitor NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 — Graphics Card LaCie 324 — LCD Monitor CAD Manager: Making Standards Stick MCAD Modeling: Rational vs. Irrational Decisions AEC Insight: Data Collection in AEC CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Just a Few CAD Renovations

Cadalyst - June 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.