3D Crosshair color settings in AutoCAD

There are some ways to change the crosshair color in AutoCAD. I made this post since I saw a user in the newsgroup having problem to see the dark blue color on the Z axis.

Tools>Options>Display>Colors and you will see the Drawing Window Colors dialog box that gives you quite many options. This is available in AutoCAD 2006 and later.

 

This works for other elements like the crosshair in 2D that normally look like   but when tinted white it look like this    and if tinted green it look like this .

Unfortunately it's not possible to change the colors on each of the axes but changing the color and using Tint for X, Y, Z goes a long way.

Now this works great in 2D Wireframe mode and in model space (tilemode=1).

If Conceptual is active or if you are in a layout all axes are in one color.

But there is a way to get color if you don't have. This might depend on your graphic card.

Tools>Options>System>Performance Settings>Manual Tune>Uncheck Enable hardware acceleration

This helps at least in model space. Not in paper space. But you will most probably lack of performance using software acceleration.

 

From the help file on Tint for X, Y, Z:

Controls whether X, Y, and Z axis color tinting is applied to the following interface elements: crosshairs pointer, Autotrack vectors, ground plane grid lines, and drafting tooltips. Color tinting applies pure red, blue and green hues using the luminance (lightness) of the color you specify while increasing the color saturation by 50%.

Floating license reports and SolidNetwork License (SNL)

I got a question if JTB FlexReport supports license reporting and statistics from a SNL Server using SolidWorks Network License (SNL). The answer is yes. It does because SolidWorks uses FLEXlm (or actually FLEXnet nowadays) to manage the use of SolidWorks network licenses (floating licenses).

AutoCAD 2008 Service Pack 1

After some beta testing AutoCAD 2008 SP1 is released. Make sure to install it.
You should not worry about installing SP1 because if you got any new issues that you cannot live with you can uninstall SP1 without having to reinstall AutoCAD 2008 completely.
Knowledge Base document: AutoCAD 2008 Service Pack 1
Knowledge Base document: AutoCAD LT 2008 Service Pack 1
One thing that did not make it in SP1 is the issue described here with DWG to PDF.pc3. Another thing is that the Search tab still does not work in the Developer help file.
Instructions on how to install SP1 silently are available in the readme.
_VERNUM is now "B.219.0 (UNICODE)"

Known Issues With This Service Pack

• Problem: After applying the Service Pack 1, all dashboard control panels are displayed regardless of the selected workspace.
  Workaround: Make the desired workspace current.

Via Between the Lines: AutoCAD 2008 Service Pack 1 Officially Released Today

Interviewed by Franco Folini at Novedge

The complete interview is found on NOVEDGE blog and comments on Between the Lines and RobiNZ CAD Blog.

Extra Territory Rights for Autodesk Subscription

Finally Extra Territory Rights have been added to Autodesk Subscription as Ancillary Services. In short it means that for 90 days you are allowed to use your own license of for example AutoCAD in another country when traveling with your computer.

As long as you are current with Subscription for your software program, you may temporarily Access the software program outside your Territory for a period not to exceed ninety (90) days during each calendar year provided that you comply with the details in the terms...

PS. Did you know that most countries in Europe are treated as one territory, namely those in the European Economic Area (EEA). So if you purchased in Sweden there is no problem to use it in United Kingdom for example.

See this Terms of Extra Territory Rights document for all details. Notice that if you have special circumstances you might be able to get a written approval from Autodesk for example be allowed to have this extended for more than 90 days. With borrowing of network licenses allowed to up to 6 months or if you have stand alone licenses it might be useful if you have engineers/users traveling a lot and want to comply with Autodesk's terms.

Lines, ovals, and rectangles on forms in Visual Basic 2005

Some basic controls where missing in Visual Studio for a while but now they are included in the released Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Power Packs 2.0.

The workaround to draw a line before was to use this tip in the post "Draw a line at design time in Visual Studio".

NavisWorks class and lab at Autodesk University

I'm really a fan of the great NavisWorks applications that now are part of Autodesk. It's good news to see that a class and a lab has been added to AU 2008.

Via BIM Manager

Vista virtual address space usage hotfix

Will this hotfix improve memory usage when running CAD programs like AutoCAD?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

The fix "reduces virtual address consumption" and speaks about "Existing games and other graphics applications". Especially for "Applications that use graphics APIs that are earlier than DirectX 10 and that target GPUs that have large amounts of video memory can easily exhaust their virtual address space."

Here is how it can be downloaded:

If anyone dare to try share the result.

PS. It's now even more easy to download it. Download here.

SQL query syntax invalid or unsupported - solution

Here is a solution to a problem that is described more in detail in this thread: http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=603521

The problem is related to deployment of AutoCAD 2008 using group policy (GPO). The event error is having ID 107 and the description "Software Installation was unable to read the MSI file \\path\acad.msi. The following error was encountered: SQL query syntax invalid or unsupported." ERROR_BAD_QUERY_SYNTAX 1615 might also show up in some logs.

The solution is to use Orca that can edit the MSI file.

Download the free Orca from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?linkid=55774

Orca is a GUI .msi file editor that is provided with the Windows Installer
SDK. It provides full access to the Windows Installer database tables.

A set of Help files are provided with Orca. To obtain the orca.exe and Orca
documentation you must download and install the Windows Installer SDK, which
is provided as an Orca.msi file. After you install the Microsoft Windows
Software Development Kit (SDK), double click the Orca.msi file to install
Orca. (Installing the SDK can take quite a long time, up to 30 minutes. Make sure to deactivate your antivirus during the installation. You can also only install the minimum needed that includes Orca.msi.)

Orca.Msi is then typically found here:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0\Bin

Run Orca and open the MSI file
Select Tables>Add table>select and add the Upgrade table.
Save the MSI file

That's it.

Trivia. Did you know that that Orca is the acronym for One Really Cool App. The story of Orca.

Lisp company first with a domain in 1985

http://symbolics.com was the first domain registered back in 15-Mar-1985. Looking at the site I saw this sentence. "The old Symbolics was the premier producer of special-purpose computer systems for running and developing state-of-the-art object-oriented programs in Lisp." Did you notice Lisp? I thought it was pretty funny being a Lisp programmer.

PS. My jtbworld domain is only from 2002.

Via The 100 oldest domains on the internet.

WinZip E-Mail Companion 2.0 Beta

WinZip E-Mail Companion is a handy application that I just gave a try. Do you know of some free alternatives that maybe supports 7-zip?

WinZip® E-Mail Companion Beta makes it easy to zip (compress) the documents and other files that you attach to Microsoft® Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail e-mail messages. Zipping attachments saves transmission time and disk storage for both the sender and receiver of the e-mail.

If you want to try the beta download it from here: http://www.winzip.com/betaout.cgi

Update. I found that on Vista and Outlook 2007 the Configure settings are not retained. After contacting WinZip they explained that it is only when accessing configure from within an email message. When using Tools/Options/WinZip E-Mail Companion it works. Hopefully they will fix this in due time.

NOVEDGE blog keeps the interviews coming

Some of the latest interviews that Franco Folini has are:

Mary Hope McQuiston, Autodesk, head of the Extended Design Group of Autodesk, the group in charge of all DWF products including Design Review, Freewheel, and the DWF Toolkit.

Robert Green, CAD writer that all CAD Managers should read or hear.

There are now 28 interesting interviews.

Kaspersky Internet Security - Neutralize all

I can understand that if a normal user should not get too much information but when I get a dialog box only saying "Security threats have been detected. You are advised to neutralize them immediately." I want to know what it is that I'm about to neutralize. Either I can dismiss the warning or I can click on Neutralize all.

Afterward I can go in and look at the Reports and data files and try to see what was neutralized but then it could be too late if the security threat was false. I wish I could see more details about the threat directly from that dialog box.

Undo and Redo in Windows Explorer

This is a trick not many are aware of in Explorer. Especially in Windows Vista that added Redo (Windows XP only had Undo) and you as default don't see the Edit menu. You can quickly activate the menus by holding down the Alt key.

Here is what I start with as a test.

I rename the files.

Then I start using CTRL+Z for Undo. I can undo the renaming of all files in three steps.

Then I try CTRL+Y for Redo. I can redo all steps.

Undo and Redo seems to work for some actions like renaming, deleting and copying files. So if you unintentionally deleted a bunch of files and folders you can undo that quickly without having to go to the Recycle Bin.