DWGEditor less than perfect...it seems?

If you know something about ACAD, you know what having dimensions moving
around can do. There are a bucket full of DIMVARs that control them. Anyway,
apparently SW has buggered this up in SP0, and in PR2, at least.

I have a routine that runs everytime an ACAD drawing is opened, and it works
fine in ACAD, and issues NO errors in DWGEditor. It sets ALL my DIMVARs
appropriately. So I place a dimension, either horizontal or vertical, and
then, run a dim update on it. The text moved. Now I look at the dim settings
(setdim) and look at the preview. Not what I see on the drawing is it I
asked myself?

Looking through my routine and comparing to what "they" use as defaults, not
much is different. They have DIMCLRT (text color) set the red. whoppie. THey
DIMFIT (text fit location) set to 3, where I use 2, so keep note of it. I
use DIMTAD (text above dimension line) set to 1, they use 0, so note that. I
use DIMTOH (align outside text) set to 1, they use 0, so no biggie on this
issue. They have DIMUPT (cursor mode on user-positioned text) set to 0,
where I use 1. HUMMMMM

So, we check on DIMUPT. Yikes!!! If I set mine to ZERO, when I place
dimensions, and then update them, they stay where they are at. YIPPEE !!!

OPPS, every dimension that WAS on the drawing, now gets its text "scooted"
away from the dimension line. Thats right fans. Everytime I do a DIM UPD, my
text gets firther away.

Back to the drawing board (pardon the pun)


Mr. Pickles

 

So, it sounds like what you're saying is that there is no workaround.
Correct?

 

Well, so far Sporkman, the workaround for it, is to not use it.

Having been an AutoDesk VAR, and being certified on AutoCrap (shoot me
now!), I'd think I'd know why my dimension text is incrementally growing
away from ther dimension line, but I don't. Of course, maybe it is because
it is so freakish thing that some programmer put in there, whether he (she)
knew it or not.

When my temperture lowers some after wraslin' wiht it for awhile, I go back
and look some more. I also now know that my DIMPOST does not work. I used to
have DIMUNIT set to 7 (Fractional), and had the post of " (inch marks), but
it no like that set in a startup LISP routine.

Mr. Pickles

 

You know what is really weird, that you really have to remember?

DWGEditor uses the Aliases FIRST when doing "shortcut" commands. If you have
an autoloading LISP that has certain kets assigned, they may NOT be the same
as your default Aliases. So you have to delete the Alias. As soon as you do,
the LISP routine will take over the keystroke. You DON'T have to reload the
LISP routine.

I mentioned this before, but figured I would again.

Mr. Pickles

 

In case anybody wondered, the Entity Properties toolbar is misleading. One
would assume that it is showing the Layer, Color, and Linetype for the thing
your fixing to draw. It ISN'T.

It is showing the last entity you "used" or something.

To see what layer you are fixing to use, a "clue" might be to look at the
bottom of the screen (just right of center), where the LAY is. It is color
coded to the layers color.


Mr. Pickles

 

Hi Pickles,

The other thing that I saw with the dims that made me shy away was the
lack of an origin grip for ordinates. I rely heavily on the ordinate
grip to confirm that I have not messed up my ordinate dimensioning (1
out of 100 is bad on a good day) by using a mis located UCS.

I think that if one is used to the "real" autodesk products, then this
tool will perform adequately at about 90% the power. If none of these
are avaialable, then this little "extra" would be really nice for many
users.

I'm comitted to thinking of it as a bonus for users without any DWG
editor, but not as a replacement for my tried and true "real" one
(i.e. the one with 20 years of development and debugging backing it).

Later,

SMA

 

SMA,

I think that is more than 90% there, but the little bitty things that are
important, are VERY important when they are missing. There isn't too much
"missing", but some things are quirky, but maybe they are suppose to be.
Since i don't use the Ordinate Dims, this doesn't bother me, but I see it
could bother some like yourself.

I can live with it instead of the tried and true. I have a work around for
most of my issues, and some of the DWGEditor things I like better than the
big guys. Kind of like a Microsoft/Linux deal....


Mr. Pickles

 

Sean,

I did notice that if you change your UCS in the SP0 version of the
DWGEditor, and perform a dim update, the ordinate dimensions update to
reflect the new origin point.

Not as convenient as moving a grip, but will get the job done.

Hope this helps your situation.

John

 

I think it should be obvious that ADesk is not going to license ACAD to SW.
IntelliCad was probably a good choice for those customers that need a seat
of ACAD to continue using/purchase SW and not have to remain with ADesk.

I found this link regarding IntelliCAD:

http://www.intellicad.org/aboutintelliCAD/default.asp#lisp

It is going to be interesting to see how the VARS are going to support this.
Maybe they will have to hire one of the many out of work ACAD users I have
seen in the last few years, because just from your few comments here about
DIMVARS, etc. I think not many VARS will be able to support this product.
Will SW have training in ACAD?

DWGEditor was probably a real bargain too:

http://www.intellicad.org/membership/default.asp

One thing we found yesterday was that you could import solids into DWGEditor
using ACIS. Parts and assemblies both worked. For those who want to model
in SW and do the drawings in ACAD this could be a real help.

 

Yes, you are right. Support on this is probably up in the air. The more
corporate adds, the more the VAR is going to have to up their ability to
handle the many different "paths". I have to get with my local VAR and find
out and see what they find out on support.

As for its use, I think time will tell. I could pretty much ditch my Big A
and use this and work with any "limitations", which for me aren't very many.
I think there were SW versions with more issues than this DWGEditor.

Mr. Pickles

 

Hmmm. I think that's not a good thing. I used to use a ton of ordinates in

Absolutely agreed. This to me would not be usable as a "neat"
feature, but a nasty little oddity at best and more likely a bug. For
the moment, I'm sticking with the tried and true.

I would also use a very tiny crossing selection around the 0,0 point
and do a quick "toolbar" color change to reveal that all the ordinates
were a common color. The unchanged dims would reveal themselves as a
problem. I'm surprised that the ordinate origin grip is not even
implemented. Tiny nuances like this could make life bad and make for
a flakey program. But nobody is obligated to use this tool that they
have so nicely supplied - those without any dwg editor will benefit
from having this addition.

Thanks to John as well for pointing the update thing out.

Regards,

SMA

 

Mr. P,

The thought occurred to me that with this software, putting an
Exchange like interface or having it replace the whole drawing
environment might be a really good step.

The logic is that SW does 3D solids and assemblies really well; ACAD
does detailing really well; therefore put the two together instead of
having them at odds.

Here is the big question:

If you had ACAD as the detailing/drawing interface in SW would you be
more or less productive?

Another slightly smaller question:

If ACAD and SW were integrated in such a way that 3D solids and
assemblies could be imported into the ACAD side and detailed, would
this open SW up to the whole civil and plant engineering fields? This
would get SW past the 1km limit and allow the Civil types to drop 3D
buildings, machines, etc. into the ACAD environment where there is no
practical size limit.


On a BTW note I saw Intellicad in Chicago back when it and Visio were
the same company. Intellicad had several features that ACAD later
picked up on like the explorer for blocks.

 

I don't use 2D (acad, intellicad) very much, but I do have a thought
concerning all of this complaining:

When someone switches from some other package (Acad, ProE, IV, etc.) to
SWX and begins complaining, a common suggestion from people here is to:
Forget what XXX taught you, SWX is a hole new game.
Keep an open mind.
Focus on the positive instead of dwelling on the negative.

As a different product from a different company, DWG Editor will never
be exactly like Acad.
If you can't do what you need to do with DWG Editor, you have 2 choices:
1.) Do some sort of workaround. You can get what you need, but it takes
longer.
2.) Evaluate the necessity. Do you really NEED to do it that way? Why
not do something different to make life easier? (change is not always
bad)

 

If SW had the Acrap detailing interface, I would be more productive, but
only because I am very familiar with it. Others who have spent little time
or those that have spent no time in Acrap, would not be more productive. I
agree with Dale that they (SW) are getting better at it. They still have
some work to do to make it even better. Hopefully they understand that and
continue to work on fixing it and other issues that have been there for a
LONG time that they don't SEEM TO CARE ABOUT....

Mr. Pickles

 

Kman,

Worth consideration as compared to Acrap? Don't really know what you mean by
that. If you are asking if it could replace Acrap, then it depends on you. I
could use DWGEditor instead of the other. I think it does nearly 100% of
what I would need to do. It does LISP and VBSript too. I haven't had much
trouble with the LISPs not working. The bigeest thing for me is the Aliases
(keyboard shortcuts) that are built into DWGEditor. They override any LISPs
loaded. So you have delete the offending Alias.

It opens all the old drawings we have, and our current Aversion will not
save back to R14, and DWGEditor WILL. As a matter of fact, DWGEditor will
save back to 2.8 or some such.

I think if you get past the little interface differences (dialog boxes are
laid out differently), the DWGEditor can certainly replace the big boy...

Mr. Pickles

 

The thought occurred to me that with this software, putting an

This wouild be a godsend if it were truly associative and parametric,
a curse if it were not.

Personally, I would be about 60 percent more effective in detailing.

Why?

Command line (two hands always beat one - the major reason). True
customisation (lisp,PGP,Diesel,menus). Real blocks. Better control
over geometry. Strong layering. I love the acad interface.

The SW interface for 2D - an aferthought based on the bad presumption
that what works in the modeling interface also works for detailing.
It doesn't.

Solidworks is great, and for product design, there is no discussion on
its value over the other, but pound for pound, it just can't keep up
with acad for detailing. I would not take autocad over solidworks for
product design. But for 2D drafting, it smokes Solidworks (at least
when I them - I'm proficient at both of them). I can't even make an
"inter-view" dimension with Solidworks - stuff like that keeps SW from
being great in detailing.

Remembring that acad is was and always will be a 2D drafting package,
of course it is good at that. That's it's reason for being (yeah
sure, you can monkey around with solids in acad, but why bother, the
developers know that it's massivley hindered unparametric stuff -
there may be add ons that make it bearable).

I'm also astounded that the folks at adesk have not merged the
parametrics of inventor with the autocad 2d interface, making them
truly parametric and associative. If they made this move, I would
likely be an ex-solidworks user immediately.

Fortunately, most cad developes are not interesed in making their
products good for both 2D detailing & 3D modling all in the same
program, so no change seems eminent (and yes I am practicing sarcasm).

Later,

SMA

 

Dale,

It just depends on who you hang with. I don't really know ACAD and
only know what I do know out of painful necessity. But I have been
around enough ACAD old timers to know that they can run circles around
me on detailing tasks in ACAD. For that group and not the enlightened
group here doing what I suggest would actually allow these "old
timers" to be productive and would cut down a lot on the grousing I
hear.

The other thing is that in ACAD you pretty much have full control of
everything and not what somebody in Jam Land* wants you to control. A
lot of companies detail to their own standards. If you go to far
astray from ANSI, GOST, etc. SW can be a realy bear.

* Jam Land -- The association goes like this: Jam - Grape Jam -
Concord Grape Jam - You know who.

 

Hi KMan -

You obviously have a strong grounding in reality. Good post. Most of
the crap you mention happens to us all and it is the bad baggage part
of the 2D process. This, as you said, does get exponentially worse as
people begin to hack and get lazy, or are simply unskilled.

The major advantage that I like about Solidworks is that the
foundation of any drawing is a model, which means that there are no
geometry errors. This too is occasionally what I hate about it. What
I mean is that often in the 2D realm, I would make a section view and
include only the 7 elements that were needed to "tell the story".
When I do a solidworks section view, I do not have this type of
ability (without lots of work), so while the fidelity is a million
times higher, my "story" sometimes gets lost in all of the fidelity.

(apples vs oranges I know)

SolidWorks lacks many of the traditional detailing capabilites of
acad, or are underpowered, and by that I mean dimensioning/dim/text
style control (take for example the dimscale variable - no equiv in
SW), general text and block handling, direct geometry control,
window/crossing selection, layering (with recallable states), the
ability to copy geometry with impunity (bad if hacked, but good if
not) for layouts, ability to change the detailers perspective to the
drawing (ie set ucs then use PLAN to change your viewpoint),
revclouds, blocks with real attributes, linetype by layer/block
option, view-to-view dimensions,__insert your favorite____.

For 2D detailing, autocad still offers many capabilities not found in
SW, but that's the extent of it. The bad baggage of the 2D process
makes it unfavorable for most types of work (but not all - it's still
good and yes even better at times). Given perfect geometry and no
future changes, I personally would take autocad detailing and
interface over SW any day. What stops me from doing it that way is
lack of parametrics, so SW wins in the end, but not always.

Nice Post.

Later,

SMA

 

I didn't say these "Old Timers" who ran circles around me got it right
most of the time. That is another story. The predominant culture in
this geographic area frequently measures productivity in drawings
completed per hour, not correct drawings completed per hour. grin.

Hasn't anybody spoken to you about meeting schedules? another big
cynical grin.

 

I'm terribly confused. I worked with ACAD up through Release 14.
That totaled about 6-7 years of experience in ACAD. I am now working
with SW and have been consistently for about 3 years. I don't miss
one single thing about ACAD. I can create a detail far better than I
ever could with SW b/c it only takes seconds to add several views in
place of hours. Also the fact of companies not following standards
causing difficulty??? Hello!!! A cad package had the common sense to
integrate all the major standards right into the software and limit
the users to that. Ever try to implement standards with the only
limitations being trusting your users? Unless you're an amazing
individual you'll never get every single person to follow unless
they're totally limited by the software. If you're company hasn't
caught up with the times and conformed to a standard it's time to step
up to the plate and accept some change!