How to select all entities passing through a point in AutoLISP

In AutoCAD if you want to use AutoLISP to select all entities/objects that crosses a point the ssget function can be used by passing the same point twice like this:
(ssget "c" pt1 pt1)

AutoCAD 2011 Hotfix for Complex PLine Measurements

This hotfix repairs the area calculation problem of polylines positioned at a great distance from the origin and is for AutoCAD 2011 with Update 2. When a complex polyline with excessively large curves is positioned far from the origin, its area calculation is incorrect. This hotfix does not fix issues when calculating areas of the polylines including curves that are self-intersecting or contain interior loops.

Download it here: DL18225251

Project Inspire for AutoCAD Map 3D

If you’re in Europe and use AutoCAD Map 3D you may find this Technology Preview from Autodesk interesting. Project Inspire for AutoCAD Map 3D. Description about it:

Today, Government organizations and an increasing number of private sector companies are adopting Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications when implementing new geospatial solutions, helping drive interoperability and easier data exchange across borders and between communities. In Europe, this is primarily driven by the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) directive. // more

Developed in support of the INSPIRE directive, the free* Project Inspire Technology Preview for AutoCAD^® Map 3D^® 2012 software, helps AutoCAD Map 3D users to find, bind, and publish INSPIRE compliant metadata using an open standard CSW (catalog service for the web) interface. With Project Inspire, Map 3D users can more easily share environmental spatial information locally and over the web.

You find Project Inspire for AutoCAD Map 3D at Autodesk Labs.

Kenesto beta opportunity

Here is some of what Alex Neihaus (that moved from Vuuch to Kenesto) emailed me: “Kenesto is developing a new kind of process automation system – one that is elegant in its simplicity, native to the cloud and which can become as universal as email and spreadsheets. Kenesto’s objective is to make it easy for everyone in the company to participate in product-based processes.”

Raykurland’s Blog post mentions that Mike Payne is CEO and explains: “Aimed at the category called business process automation, this cloud-based application allows asynchronous spawning of processes. Different from similar systems that try to model processes, Kenesto builds processes on the fly. Users wanting to track a process they are initiating, for instance an ECO, initiate a process, attach documents to it, and add users to the next process by adding their email addresses. Different types of “next processes” can be defined, such as “review and approve.” At each step in the process the recipient can add additional processes that add steps to the overall process. Kenesto builds the process diagram as steps are added. Note that this differs significantly from the BPM (Business Process Modeling) approach that models processes using a cumbersome programmatic approach. Kenesto calls it Business Process Automation (BPA).”

Press release:

Kenesto Announces Beta Program
New System Attacks the Complexity, Costs of Legacy PLM

Waltham, MA, January 4, 2012 – Kenesto, developer of a process automation system designed to deliver unprecedented ease of use and immediate productivity, announced today the opening of its beta program for customers and value-added resellers (VARs) in the manufacturing industry.
Kenesto is a completely new, 100% cloud-based system that allows users in all departments of the manufacturing enterprise to create processes and manage work easily. With Kenesto, users create processes graphically by simply naming participants and attaching documents, drawings, bills-of-materials (BOMs) and any other required information. Kenesto then manages the flow of that process through the enterprise, keeping information secure and delivering enhanced visibility across the business.
Kenesto automates common manufacturing processes including engineering change proposals, requests for quotation and new product introductions. Processes like these share attributes with many common tasks in an enterprise, including the need to securely share intellectual property, the requirement to involve people outside the R&D group and the desire to include vendors and suppliers in the process. These processes also involve a company’s product and/or service, making them vital to the success of the business. Through its intuitive understanding of what users want to do, Kenesto brings new productivity to a company’s crucial work processes.
“Until Kenesto, users wishing to automate their work were caught in a bind between simple but inadequate tools or very complicated, inflexible and pre-programmed PLM processes,” said Michael Payne, CEO, Kenesto. “Our ‘big idea’ in Kenesto is to use cloud technologies to deliver a system that is as universal as email or spreadsheets without the difficulty, delays and costs of using legacy PLM systems. The customers and VARs who have seen Kenesto during our pre-beta demonstrations have all been excited by Kenesto’s potential. Now, we are ready to bring this new way of working to more customers by means of our beta program.”

How to participate in the Kenesto beta program
Manufacturing companies and industry VARs are invited to participate in the Kenesto beta program. Send a request to beta@kenesto.com with your contact information, type of business and, if possible, an idea of a process you might wish to try in Kenesto. The company will contact you to discuss your participation in the beta program.
Kenesto is seeking companies whose work processes can be completed successfully in the beta version of Kenesto. In this way, beta program participants will be able to measure the real productivity of using Kenesto. Resellers who have clients with processes that have been attempted in legacy PLM systems but which have not delivered the desired level of results or user participation are encouraged to apply for the beta program.
To learn more about Kenesto, download An Introduction to Kenesto at http://www.kenesto.com/intro.

About Kenesto
Kenesto (www.kenesto.com) is a new kind of process automation system. In contrast to legacy PLM systems, Kenesto is people-centric, product-based and enterprise scalable. Kenesto combines these three attributes into the first system that can be widely deployed across an enterprise to improve a company’s teamwork and efficiency. Kenesto revolutionizes process automation by making process automation more widely applicable, more affordable and easier to use than ever before. Kenesto is privately-held and based in Waltham, MA.

Let’s see how this will compete with Autodesk 360 for PLM.

AutoCAD 2012 for Mac Service Pack 1

This update resolves compatibility issues that have been reported while using the software on the latest versions of Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6.8) and Mac OS X Lion. It also resolves problems reported by the Customer Error Reporting (CER) utility and other general problems identified after AutoCAD 2012 for Mac was made available. Please refer to the associated readme for more details and installation instructions.

Get SP1 here: DL18344661.

UPDATE: AutoCAD LT for Mac version 2012.1 is also available. Open Mac App Store and check the Updates.

Sheet Set Manager for AutoCAD LT videos

Kate Morrical, LT Unlimited has put together some videos showing usage of Sheet Set Manager usage in AutoCAD LT.

1. Introduction to the Sheet Set Manager
2. Creating Sheet Sets from Existing Drawings
3. Organize and Display Sheet Lists
4. Use a Sheet Set to Plot Drawings
5. Create Transmittal & Archive Sets
6. Add Layouts to an Existing Sheet Set
7. Use a Sheet Set to Create New Drawings
8. Add Content to Sheets
9. Place View Labels
10. Automate View Label Data
11. Automate Callout Label Data
12. Create Custom Properties
13. Automate Title Block Data

But if you would like to edit properties on multiple sheets SSMPropEditor can save a lot of manual work. Change properties like a revision, date or name on two or more sheets at the same time something that cannot be done using only Sheet Set Manager.

Computer Performance and Flash Player problem and solution

Having problems with the computer being slower that expected?

Is the Flash Player causing the CPU fan to sound too much? The Flash Player is known for using a lot of CPU and is often a first indicator that it’s time to clean the computer. Check the CPU temperature using for example Real Temp.

Vacuum cleaner and Gas duster (canned air/compressed air) can do magic with the computer performance and eliminate noise. Note! Shut down the operating system and remove the power cord.

You don’t want it to look like this.

All the dust will lead to overheating because it acts like an insulation blanket on heatsink cooling surfaces and clogging fan filters. Optical disk drives like CDROM and DVD are very vulnerable as they contain motors and servos as well as rely on a dust-free light path for the laser-light and optical lenses to function properly.  The keyboard and mouse are also affected by dust and might lead to stuck keys or sticky mouse movements.

When did you clean yours last time? When did your IT department perform cleaning of the office computers?

Autodesk acquires T-Splines technology

Autodesk has acquired certain technology-related assets from T-Splines Inc., a privately-held surface modeling software company, based in Utah according to this short press release.

“The technology acquisition will strengthen our Digital Prototyping portfolio with more flexible free-form modeling and will help achieve even closer integration between industrial design and engineering workflows,” said Buzz Kross, senior vice president, Manufacturing Industry at Autodesk. “T-Splines technology will benefit designers and engineers that require watertight surfaces for downstream analysis and manufacturing.”

The image below is from the T-Splines technology page for T-Splines showing a duck toy model converted from polygons to T-Splines to NURBS. The duck in the middle is done with T-Splines. “All T-Splines surfaces are 100% compatible with NURBS and create gap-free, smooth and manufacturable surfaces.”

It will be no surprise if we can see this added across products like AutoCAD, Revit, Maya, Alias and Inventor in the future. But from what I understand there is a lot of work to make a easy to use UI as it has been missing so far.

Last chance to access AU Virtual 2011 is today

Today is the last day to access AU Virtual 2011. If you want to see a class or the  General Session  Keynote go there now.

For my class Autodesk® Network License Manager visit the AU Player and search for Network License Manager.

UPDATE: AU Virtual Classes Have Moved

AU Virtual classes are now available from the Online Classes tab on the AU website. Members can access all AU Virtual class recordings, handouts, and other materials from there.

Autodesk and AutoCAD knowledge base documents

Some recent useful knowledge base documents from Autodesk:

AutoCAD 2011 Hotfix for Complex PLine Measurements

For AutoCAD 2011 with Update 2 installed, this hotfix repairs the area calculation problem of polylines positioned at a great distance from the origin.

Get it here: DL18225251

Autodesk 2012 Content Explorer Service Hot Fix 2

This hotfix applies to the Autodesk 2012 Content Explorer Service (Public and Personal) and addresses the following issues:

• In some cases renaming a folder in Windows Explorer, which is currently being watched by the Autodesk Content Service, can cause the service to stop running.
• The Autodesk Content Service could not be started because the size of the database file was larger than the configured maximum size. If you have encountered this issue please follow the steps found in the companion document "Configuring Maximum Database Size in Autodesk Content Service.pdf" after you have installed Hot Fix 2. If you have not encountered this issue these additional steps are not needed.
• Files fail to index when an English Autodesk Content Service is installed on a Turkish operating system.

Get it here: DL18247986

Comparing the drawing-specific system variables of different DWG files

To compare the drawing-specific system variables of two DWGs, you can convert the drawings to DXF and compare them using a tool that can compare text files, for example the free open source program Winmerge.

Full details here: TS17915749

How to find the product key for your Autodesk product

Starting with the Autodesk 2010 product releases, most Autodesk software required both a serial number and product key to successfully install and activate.

Product keys are used to differentiate products that are both sold independently and sold as part of a product suite. For example, a user installing AutoCAD 2010 would use product key 001B1 while a user installing AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite 2010 (which includes AutoCAD 2010) would use product key 241B1.  The same AutoCAD is in both software packages but the product key differentiates one package from the other.

Full details here: TS1105767

How to write AutoLISP that works on both Windows and Mac

If you want to write AutoLISP code that works for both AutoCAD on Windows and AutoCAD for Mac remember that there is no support for DCL or COM interfaces such as VLA or VLAX (Visual LISP).

There are 4 new AutoLISP functions in AutoCAD 2012 that can help as long as you don’t need backward compatibility:

• dumpallproperties - Outputs all the properties and their current value for the specified entity.
• getpropertyvalue - Returns the current value of the specified property for an entity.
• ispropertyreadonly - Returns T or nil of the specified property for an entity is read-only or not.
• setpropertyvalue - Sets the specified property to a new value for an entity.

The following example demonstrates how to get the current radius value of a circle.
Command: (command "_circle" "2,2" 2)
nil
Command: (getpropertyvalue (entlast) "radius")
2.0

The following example demonstrates how to change the radius of a circle.
Command: (command "_circle" "2,2" 2)
nil
Command: (setpropertyvalue (entlast) "radius" 3)

For more see Hyperpics and Accessing Information About Layers in a Drawing with GETPROPERTYVALUE.

Autodesk Customer Care on Twitter

Contact  Autodesk Customer Care Team @AutodeskCare on Twitter for issues or questions about Autodesk business services like getting "up and ready" to use your Autodesk software from licensing to activation issues, renewals, suites, registration and versioning questions, cloud provisioning, logins, trial versions, student software, subscription benefits.

Starting December 1st, the Autodesk team will be listening and engaging 24 hours a day, 5 days a week Monday to Friday. Behind the scenes, your hosts on @AutodeskCare are Céline, Camilo, Philip, Angelo, Arlin and Joane. Follow @AutodeskCare

Customize AreaText.LSP to change the text justification

I got a question how to customize this AutoLISP/Visual LISP AreaText.LSP to change the text justification. The solution is to make use of vla-put-attachmentPoint as seen in the example below.

(defun Get-ObjectIDx64 (obj / util)
  (setq util (vla-get-Utility (vla-get-activedocument (vlax-get-acad-object))))
  (if (= (type obj) 'ENAME)(setq obj (vlax-ename->vla-object obj)))
  (if (= (type obj) 'VLA-OBJECT)
    (if (> (vl-string-search "x64" (getvar "platform")) 0)
      (vlax-invoke-method util "GetObjectIdString" obj :vlax-False)
      (rtos (vla-get-objectid obj) 2 0)
    )
  )
)

(defun c:AT (/ entObject entObjectID InsertionPoint ad)
  (vl-load-com)
  (setq entObject (vlax-ename->vla-object(car (entsel)))
        entObjectID (Get-ObjectIDx64 entObject)
        InsertionPoint (vlax-3D-Point (getpoint "Select point: "))
        ad (vla-get-ActiveDocument (vlax-get-acad-object))
  )
  (vla-put-attachmentPoint (vla-addMText (if (= 1 (vla-get-activespace ad))
    (vla-get-modelspace ad)
    (if (= (vla-get-mspace ad) :vlax-true)
      (vla-get-modelspace ad)
      (vla-get-paperspace ad)
    )
  )
  InsertionPoint 0.0 (strcat
  "%<\\AcObjProp Object(%<\\_ObjId "
  entObjectID
  ">%).Area \\f \"%pr2%lu2%ct4%qf1 SQ. FT.\">%"
  )) acAttachmentPointMiddleCenter)
)

acAttachmentPointMiddleCenter can be changed to any of the following Visual LISP constants:

acAttachmentPointTopLeft
acAttachmentPointTopCenter
acAttachmentPointTopRight
acAttachmentPointMiddleLeft
acAttachmentPointMiddleCenter
acAttachmentPointMiddleRight
acAttachmentPointBottomLeft
acAttachmentPointBottomCenter
acAttachmentPointBottomRight

See also Customize AreaText.LSP for AutoCAD and AreaText.lsp updated for 64-bit AutoCAD.

AU 2011 General Session Keynote on AU Virtual

The AU 2011 General Session Keynote is now available on AU Virtual under AUTV.

I finally got the chance to see the crowd sourced edition of the legal disclaimer.

For more on the legal disclaimer visit Between the Lines.