Anybody running 2 monitors on AutoCAD? Was just thumbing through the current Cyberguys (
formatting link
they have lots of cool stuff) catalog and saw a plug that would enable you to connect a 2nd monitor to your machine through a USB port. Sounds cool, eh? It was like $89.95. Anyway I was wondering if you could then have 2 autocad drawings open, with 1 on each of the 2 screens, and drag and drop stuff from one drawing to the next without having to do that annoying cascading of screens. Waddya think?
I ran AutoCad on two monitors for a while, at my last job.
I don't remember being able to drag and drop things from one drawing to another. But the thing that was really nice was that I could have one monitor that was just my workspace, and all of my menus, toolbars, text window, etc. on the other. This was especially nice in 3D Viz, where there are more menus and toolbars.
When I was using R12 I learned how to make my own toolbar with just the buttons I wanted to use. Then when I jumped to 2004 last year I did the same thing. When I fired 2004 up the first time there were about 8 floating menus hanging around, I couldn't have that. So I drew up the bitmaps and created my own toolbar and keep it docked across the top, it takes up minimal space.
A question for you guys, if you're not *dragging and dropping* stuff from one drawing to the next, how do you put a standard item like a toilet in the drawing, with wblock or xref? My Template drawing is setup with 500'x500' limits, though I only use
144'x96' for plotting. Outside the drawing border I have all of the standard items that I will use on a typical drawing set, plumbing fixtures, doors and windows, room identifiers, hatches, electrical symbols, everything. All of these things are arranged in a tight pattern and are on their respective layers. There are actually 4 sets of these symbols, one for each of the 4 floors of a typical home. So if I am doing the 3rd floor electrical plan I just pan up to that area and copy the whole series of electrical symbols down to a blank space within the drawing envelope, and from there I copy or move them to their proper place(s) on the drawing. This method is far easier than searching vast block libraries and going through all of that. When the drawings are completed and ready to be plotted, I wblock each of the sheets (1-20) and label them accordingly and set the limits to 144'x96' (24"x36" paper). It makes bulk plotting so much easier.
The boss, she pretty much uses four buttons. She learned ACAD on r1. Beta. She types everything.
The other boss still uses a tablet with all those commands in little "buttons" on the surface.
Toilet would be a block.
Even if it were being dragged and dropped around it would be a block. Though I don't think I could make an argument that group wouldn't work just fine for a toilet.
alt-i b \xlib\gen\plum\wc-2 enter
I've watched people for whom, no matter how much typing it looks like to you and I, that isn't even a speed bump to work flow. Also it could be put to menu or buttons. The main point is that when you set up your library and you use your library there isn't really all that much "searching" involved.
Now, ask the kid at the front desk how much searching around he does in the incomprehensible library setup you've created with the tiny indecipherable names left over from the 8.3 days and you may well get a different answer.
Each job is done in 1 dwg file, but it has over 100 layers. (not all layers are used on every job.) Thus, if all layers are turned on at the same time, it looks like a jumbled mess. So, when it comes time to plot I turn on the appropriate layers for a particular sheet, say, Sheet 3, 1st Floor Plan. Then I wblock that into a file called (for example) [0512-03 1st Floor Plan.dwg]. I do that with each of the sheets. That way when I do the actual plotting I don't have to full around with turning layers on and off. This is especially helpful if a client calls and needs an additional floorplan or whatever.
Prolly *regular* folks don't use as many layers as I do and none of what I explained makes sense to them.
Don I would rather (maybe) update layer settings in a viewport after a change than re block and reset up a sheet ! That said even inspite the fact my 2000i likes to crash after viewport layers are changed !! Maybe as you see a job won't need certain layers you could purge them too ? Ron
My layer setup is an evolution, as it has changed over the years to support the complexities of the homes I am designing. Back in the early 90's I was mainly doing smaller single story tract type homes. Now I'm doing mainly 4 story custom homes. Wblocking my sheets only takes a minute or 2 per sheet, and then that sheet only shows the layers that are used on that sheet, not the 100+ on the original drawing file. I can't purge unused layers out of the original drawing file because as soon as I do that some client will come back for revisions on the very layers I purged. Thats the way my luck runs. One of these days when work slows up I may delve into some of the other aspect acad has to offer such as viewports, xrefs, etc. Or, maybe I'll go buy a bandsaw and become a carpenter........ heh-heh
Basement (no, Gruhn, not in Floridia), two and attic?
I think the XREFs might be of good use to you with the way you currently work. I'm trying to remember what stumbling blocks they offer to piss you off for slowing you down... I'm failing.
I dabbled with xref way back when and it seemed like it messed me up something fierce, put a whole buncha layers with wierd names in my lineup. Terrified me and I haven't ventured there since. I really don't see how they would help me now as everything I use is already in my main template file, just D n D. I'm a small operation and control the whole thing, ya know. ;-)
Actually we use xrefs almost exactly the way you use your drawings (except there is that wierd layer naming, but you get used to it). Basically you take all that jumbled mess and make it an xref drawing (leave out the stuff specific to a certain sheet). Then you make a new sheet that just has your border, and anything specific to that drawing, insert the xref, and just turn off the layers in the xref you don't need. It helps to name the layers so you know what to keep on and turn off. You can make a seperate drawing for each sheet, or you could make each sheet its own tab in one drawing. Once you change the xref, it changes everywhere.
That's how they showed us in school. That's not how this office works (for what that's worth) and doesn't seem to be how Don works. I've no clue what my pref is.
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