topic Re: Circles to Autocad in Collaboration with other software

Circles to Autocad

Thomas Holm — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:09:42 GMT

I'm exporting dwg files from Archicad 9 to Autocad Lite (2002 I think).

Everything exports fine except my circles. In Autocad, they look extremaly coarse, much like crude polygons (octagons or the like). I guess there's a setting somewhere to fix this but I can't find it. Anyone?

Re: Circles to Autocad

Ben Odonnell — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:16:38 GMT

Thomas,
It's an AutoCAD thing. Whilst in AutoCAD you will need to do a regen command.
That should fix it.

Cheers.
Ben

Re: Circles to Autocad

Thomas Holm — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:28:18 GMT

Thanks, Ben! No work for me then - I'll inform the consultants!

Re: Circles to Autocad

Ben Odonnell — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:37:39 GMT

No problems.
Funny how they don't know that them selfs You can even change the on screen resolution in AutoCAD, but unfortunately I can't rember the command for it.

This is going to go down well, a MAC ArchiCAD user telling an AutoCAD user how to use their CAD system.

No offence to AutoCAD users but, ya gotta love it.
Cheers.
Ben

Re: Circles to Autocad

TomWaltz — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:44:54 GMT

This is going to go down well, a MAC ArchiCAD user telling an AutoCAD user how to use their CAD system.

Are you kidding?

In 10 years of using CAD, I have spent maybe 6 months of it on AutoCAD. I cannot believe how many people use it all day long, and know less than I do.

I guess that's the problem with product saturation. Everyone with Excel thinks he's an accountant, everyone with Word thinks he's an author, everyone with AutoCAD thinks he can be a consultant 🙂

Re: Circles to Autocad

Ben Odonnell — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 18:56:34 GMT

Tom,
You would not belive how true your statement really is!
I come across this problem daily, our users of ArchiCAD have to contact consultants using AutoCAD and tell them what to do.
Mind baffling really. As you said it has to do with that there are so many people out there with AutoCAD.

Cheers.
Ben

Re: Circles to Autocad

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:06:28 GMT

Ben wrote:
Thomas,
It's an AutoCAD thing. Whilst in AutoCAD you will need to do a regen command.
That should fix it.

Cheers.
Ben

The actual command is viewres which controls how many segments are used for the display of circles and ellipses. I usually set it up to 20000 units. In any case the plot from AutoCAD should be fine since it is a display setting from when AutoCAD used to run on 386's machines.
And YES I was an AutoCAD user...

Re: Circles to Autocad

Ben Odonnell — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:20:10 GMT

eduardo,
Thank you for the command name. Just out of curiosity, what was or is the command for, was it due to the lack of processing power?

One more question, couldn't it be taken away now? With todays computers it shouldn't be a problem to display hi res vector graphics as in ArchiCAD.

Cool that you made the jump from AutoCAD to ArchiCAD MAC.
How was the transition?

Cheers.
Ben

Re: Circles to Autocad

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 19:50:31 GMT

just out of curiosity, what was or is the command for, was it due to the lack of processing power?
Yes it was I remember my first compaq, 50mhz 486, 200mb hd, 8mb ram and 2mb video card and I was the envy of my schoolmates.
One more question, couldn't it be taken away now?
I think so but there are still so many legacy things in AutoCAD in their software and the way the users work that I still wonder how people can be productive using it. Up until ACAD 2004 there was a bug that if you used the fillet (used like the intersect command in AC) command it will always was set to create a 1/2" circle at the intersection, so you were drawing along and things that should measure 10' were actually 9'-11.5" and all snap points were gone to hell. The other one they have not fixed even with the 2005 Version is that when you start a drawing even though you specify Imperial Units ACAD does not recognizes them and it starts in decimal mode. And the list goes on.
Cool that you made the jump from AutoCAD to ArchiCAD MAC.
How was the transition?
I started using Classics and Quadra's a long time ago switched to PC because of AutoCAD and 3d Studio but kept using a friends mac for PhotoShop, PageMaker and ElectricImage. I bought my AC license because I started to work on my own and since I teach I was looking to improve the curriculum for the School and wanted to explore other software (Didn't help that AutoDesks reps are $#^*&# not the local reseller but the company big shots).
So I was happy with my ThinkPad A31p until I bought an iPod (Nov03) and was sucked back into OS X because of Panther. Now my wife has the ThinkPad and as she sees me happy with my PB she is actually pushing for me too buy a dual G5 with all assorted goodies as long as I either giver her either the PB or a new iMac and her own AC licence.
My only trouble with the PB was the lack of a right click button on the mouse but since I knew about it I just bought a MX900.

Re: Circles to Autocad

Dwight — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 21:53:01 GMT

I'm astonished that there would be trouble with sending simple circles to AutoCAD since we here at ArchiCAD have been sending them the finger for some time.

Re: Circles to Autocad

Ben Odonnell — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 09:14:21 GMT

The problem usually occurs upon opening a DWG from ArchiCAD the first time.
They freak when they see circles looking like hexagons, mainly because they don't know how to rectify the problem.

Ben

Re: Circles to Autocad

Ben Odonnell — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 09:15:27 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
just out of curiosity, what was or is the command for, was it due to the lack of processing power?
Yes it was I remember my first compaq, 50mhz 486, 200mb hd, 8mb ram and 2mb video card and I was the envy of my schoolmates.
One more question, couldn't it be taken away now?
I think so but there are still so many legacy things in AutoCAD in their software and the way the users work that I still wonder how people can be productive using it. Up until ACAD 2004 there was a bug that if you used the fillet (used like the intersect command in AC) command it will always was set to create a 1/2" circle at the intersection, so you were drawing along and things that should measure 10' were actually 9'-11.5" and all snap points were gone to hell. The other one they have not fixed even with the 2005 Version is that when you start a drawing even though you specify Imperial Units ACAD does not recognizes them and it starts in decimal mode. And the list goes on.
Cool that you made the jump from AutoCAD to ArchiCAD MAC.
How was the transition?
I started using Classics and Quadra's a long time ago switched to PC because of AutoCAD and 3d Studio but kept using a friends mac for PhotoShop, PageMaker and ElectricImage. I bought my AC license because I started to work on my own and since I teach I was looking to improve the curriculum for the School and wanted to explore other software (Didn't help that AutoDesks reps are $#^*&# not the local reseller but the company big shots).
So I was happy with my ThinkPad A31p until I bought an iPod (Nov03) and was sucked back into OS X because of Panther. Now my wife has the ThinkPad and as she sees me happy with my PB she is actually pushing for me too buy a dual G5 with all assorted goodies as long as I either giver her either the PB or a new iMac and her own AC licence.
My only trouble with the PB was the lack of a right click button on the mouse but since I knew about it I just bought a MX900.

Thanks for your input. Very interesting.
Cheers.
Ben

Re: Circles to Autocad

Thomas Holm — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 10:23:25 GMT

Funny how they don't know that them selfs You can even change the on screen resolution in AutoCAD, but unfortunately I can't rember the command for it.

This is going to go down well, a MAC ArchiCAD user telling an AutoCAD user how to use their CAD system.

This time it was me. I opened the file in Autocad on a PC to test, and found these hexagons, and didn't know what to do. But I have never really USED Autocad.

I'm not new to teaching Autocadders from outside, though. In my 10 years of using Microstation, I often had to solve Autocad issues to make collaboration work. My experience tells me I have to anticipate all translation issues, because I am always the minority, and thus the culprit.

This is why I appreciate the smoothness of Archicad 9's dwg compatibility so much!

One small thing, though - when exporting to Autocad, there are many kinds of translation options, for example a STYLE one. However, last time I couldn't find a FONT translation table option. Is it available?

The reason for this is we prefer to use our own beautiful Postscript font (we bought it) for our drawings. But when exporting, it's easier to use Arial or Arial Narrow for everything. I don't like to have to do this substitution manually all the time. This means that for projects that need exporting, we resort to producing unnecessarily ugly drawings. Not funny. Any ideas?

Re: Circles to Autocad

Eduardo Rolon — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 13:07:15 GMT

The ACAD user typical mindset is that since I am using ACAD and since it is the STANDARD software and since I don't know other programs and you didn't use ACAD then you have the responsibility to be compatible and, by the way, your dwgs have to be drawn exactly as I would have drawn them using ACAD if they are not that means you don't know how to draw.
Sometimes it gets weird, I know some cases in which a consultant has sent the files in pdf format to an architects office and they have called him because they cannot open them in ACAD and print them. I have seen also faxes written in ACAD, office brochures and letters. I know of people who learned to draw using ACAD R10 (c. 1989) who refuse to use paper space and xref's (available since ACAD R12) and if you send them a drawing where it is set using those commands they will call you back for you to change them to make them compatible with how they draw in ACAD.
If you go into ACAD's upgrade cycle the program has not changed since ACAD R12, the upgrades which now are yearly have been:
R12 windows: compatible with MS windows 3.1 and buttons
R13: change to internal engine
R14: fixed everything that didn't work on R13 plus interface enhancements, introduced the match properties command
2000: change in icons, added more options to different commands, tabs for paper space and model space, interface changes to make commands more easy to find
2000i: internet publishing of dwgs
2002: fixed all the bugs of R2000 and 2000i
2004: smaller file sizes and faster opening of them, non-rectangular viewports and option of having non-printing layers
2005: smaller files and faster opening of them

And of course if you don't upgrade your version to the latest one within the time specified by Autodesk then you loose your right to upgrade and have to pay full price for the latest release.

Sorry for the Rant...

Re: Circles to Autocad

Thomas Holm — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:14:50 GMT

And of course if you don't upgrade your version to the latest one within the time specified by Autodesk then you loose your right to upgrade and have to pay full price for the latest release.

Reason enough to switch!

Re: Circles to Autocad

Djordje — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 10:40:06 GMT

Ben wrote:

The problem usually occurs upon opening a DWG from ArchiCAD the first time.
They freak when they see circles looking like hexagons, mainly because they don't know how to rectify the problem.

Regenauto is also off, as your 64K EGA graphics card can't handle it ...

Re: Circles to Autocad

stefan — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 10:07:18 GMT

Thomas wrote:
And of course if you don't upgrade your version to the latest one within the time specified by Autodesk then you loose your right to upgrade and have to pay full price for the latest release.
Reason enough to switch!

Actually, you can still upgrade older versions (<2002) and receive a reduction of about 30% on the full license price!
It's called the legacy program. It can be ordered through the reseller.

I'm not an advocate for Autodesk and I don't like their license-retirement program, but I also don't like incomplete or wrong information.

Bentley has abused the matter in their "You Deserve Better"-campaign.

It's bad marketing to the users to not talk about this when they advertise the retirement program, though. It's all over the place. In their own publications they announce this license retirement. Yet, most Autodesk users stay very faithfull...

Re: Circles to Autocad

Eduardo Rolon — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:08:19 GMT

In the interest of full disclosure and to correct the missing info on Autodesk upgrade policies I shall quote the latest brochure . The brochure that came with the latest Cadalyst says:

Upgrade from Acad 2000i to 2005
before jan 15 $1915 US
after jan 15 $4170 US

in small print at bottom "Price shown does not reflect discounts that may be available if you purchase a full seat with Autodesk Subscription after January 15, 2005. The Autodesk legacy program offers qualifying customers an opportunity to purchase a new Autodesk software license at up to 30% off the suggested retail price." (emphasis added)

30% off $4170 = $2919 you pay actually $1000 more for the upgrade cost if you get the maximum discount after missing the deadline and they don't say what is needed to qualify.

At the end of the brochure it has a FAQ that says:

What happens if I don't upgrade before January 15, 2005?
Remember, Autodesk will no longer sell upgrades from Autocad 2000i, Autocad 2000i-based products, or Autodesk Inventor Series 6 after January 15, 2005. That means that after the retirement date, you will need to purchase a full seat instead of an upgrade. The bottom line is you don't have to upgrade now, but it's more cost effective to upgrade before the retirement. (emphasis added)

There is no small print offering the Legacy program on this page of the brochure.

So the question is what applies to an Acad 2000i user- full price or 30% off? The FAQ is crystal clear while the small print is ambiguous and I have had the pleasure of buying a version just before the new one comes out and been stuck with the older one with no exchange. To clarify this the person that did not honor the exchange was Autodesk's rep not our local reseller.

Re: Circles to Autocad

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 08:44:10 GMT

sounds like a great way to keep customers