Icad, Dimtext

#1
I am a 2d drafter and i am forced to use acad r14. I am trying to use icad as much as possible so that at some time in the future i can make the switch. I am wondering what can be done to make the two closer together in the following areas:

Associative leaders (move the text the leader follows)

Dimension text scaled to paperspace

entity, object snap indicates which point will be snaped to.

Any information in regards to workarounds or partial solutions will be greatly appreciated.

thanks,

braan

#2
Currently I have heard of no plans to implement associative leaders. I personally dislike having text attached to a leader. I do like associative leaders though. What I mean is that all of the parts of a leader are one entity. The basic infrastructure is in place in IntelliCAD that shows leaders, so the command is not too far off. There is a problem showing Leaders with a spline and I think that is why they are not used to create a leader by default. For now I always create my leaders in AutoCAD and copy them into the drawings I need them in inside IntelliCAD.

What do you mean by dimension text scaled to paperspace. Do you know that dimension text has a comprehensive scale factor?

I can say that I know some members of the ITC are hard at work on the snapping cursors. We should see something at the ITC by the end of the year.

I hope this helps you out a bit. Maybe a clearer description on the Dimension Text scaling issue would help me to answer you better.


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David Trotz

#3
Thx dave for your response. I am glad to hear about the esnap thing. I guess what i am after in the dimscale thing is dimensioning. I have several 100s of drawings using paperspace and having the dimensions in ms but they are scaled to appear correctly in paperspace. (boy this even sounds confusing) I will describe the efforts in acad:

Make structures in ms.

Insert title block and border into paperspace.

Make view port.

Determine scale use the xp zoom to set the ms zoom.

hit ms to have port in ms port open in paperspace and add dimensions, which show up in paperspace as 3/32" but are in ms.

Now when i do the above in icad i get the dimensions but they are minute do to the xp scale. If there is a way to work around it please help me. Please explain what you mean by a comprehensive scale factor. To tanget a bit, I have read the discussions at cadopia about the the use of paperspace. I am all ears for methods on how to avoid its use please explain your position.

Additionally have you heard anything relating to the enabling snap in paperspace to recognize those items visable in ms?

thx again,

braan

#4
I understand completely what you are doing, I do it everyday at work.

Everything I draw is at 1:1. I then go into paperspace and create a floating viewport and set it's scale.

Then I go into modelspace and dimension.

Here is the key to dimensioning. Set all of your settings to their 1:1 counterpart. Meaning set text that should show as 3/32" to 3/32". and arrowheads that you want to be 1/8" set it to 1/8". Sounds simple enough, right.
Image


Now set the comprehensive scale factor to, to the scale factor of your viewport (i.e. 1/8" = 1'-0" is scale factor 96). The comprehensive scale factor is set by typing setdim and going to the tab labeled "units". Under scaling on that page you will fine the comprehensive scale factor.
It can also be set more easily by typing dimscale and typing in your scale factor.

Next it is important to keep all of your dimension styles separate. I do so with a naming scheme that I learned at my job. I attach the scale factor to the end of the dimension style name. (Example Romans-48, or Romans-192 etc.) This makes it easy to track all of your dimension styles. Basically all of your dimension styles should be the same just your scale factor will change from one to the next.

Let me know if this helps.

>Additionally have you heard anything relating to the enabling snap in paperspace to recognize those items visable in ms?


No, I have not heard of any talk to do so, although that would be nice.





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David Trotz

#5
Hey, thanks a lot dave. Correct me if im wrong but acad r14 has a box that can be checked to scale the dimensions to paperspace. It appears that this is not implemented in icad2k.

I have considered what you have told me and i have an idea.

Currently i have a menu setup to control the xp zoom for my drafters, i could add a set of commands such as e. g. 1/8"=1'-0" z;0.0104166xp;dimscale;95.999;
This would kill two birds with one stone. If see anything wrong with this please indicate it.

thx

braan

Print Settings

#6
I have created and stored a *.pcp file. I would like for icad to open and read it each time it loads. Is there a way to automate this action? Or is there a way to change the default configuration?

thx

b

#8
I do not see any obvious ways to do this. I am not sure but doesn't the settings stay the same from session to session once you set them, either by importing a pcp or setting them manually, until they are changed?

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David Trotz

#9
I believe David is right about the settings being the same from session to session.
I suppose your point must be to read in and restore a default plot setup, to disregard any changes made to the setup in previous sessions. If so, there is a way to do it that does not involve the pcp file.
First, load the pcp file, send a dummy print to make sure the settings are saved to the registry.
Close Intellicad.
Start regedit.exe (from Start>Run)
Now, locate the active plot configuration key. If you have more than one Intellicad installed, I think they may differ. For my CMS Intellicad the active plot configuration key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Visio/Intellicad/Config/plot
Select the key, save it to the Intellicad installation dir as plot.reg.

Open Icad.lsp. If it does not already autoload doslib4.dll, it needs the following:
(if (not dos_regset)(xload "doslib4.dll"))

After this line, paste the following:
(dos_exewait (STRCAT "regedit.exe /-s " "plot.reg"))

This restores the plot setup each time icad.lsp loads.

NB! Do NOT use this method to restore toolbar settings, menu settings et.c.

#10
David,

A pleasure to meet you on this forum.

I sent my VBA ToolBar code to Japan and they are using it for their ICAD version. Feel free to alter and post as you wish.

Regards
John Finlay

#12
Since John is OK with it, as soon as I get my copy of IntelliCAD from CMS I will be modifying the application to work with IntelliCAD CMS.

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David Trotz