Discovering what your version of Autodesk software, or a version you plan on upgrading to, requires of your workstation is a simple Google search away. I’ll make it a little easier, though. Below are the system requirement pages for Autodesk’s major 2012 products and a resource link for future reference in finding support topics on Autodesk software:

• AutoCAD
• Map 3D
• Civil 3D
• Autodesk Revit Architecture
• Autodesk Revit MEP
• Inventor
• Navisworks
• 3Ds Max
• Autodesk Support Resource Link

Processor and Operating System

Looking through these requirements and recommendations you should start to see quite a trend: High CPU speed, lots of RAM, and a certified workstation graphics card. 64-bit programs require more resources, but the extra cost is well worth it given the additional computing performance shown in review-after-review. Not that there’s much of a choice any more. Pretty much any new workstation (and most bought within the last 2-3 years) already have a 64-bit capable processor and Windows Professional 64-bit is becoming more the norm rather than the exception.

Memory (RAM)

Memory (RAM) is becoming a major commodity these days as its price has fallen dramatically and motherboards are manufactured to accept more slots with higher capacities and faster chipsets. That’s a good thing, too. Most of Autodesk’s latest offerings are very RAM-hungry with users of complex Revit models even being suggested to work with 16 GB+ of memory on their machines . At the time of this writing, there are numerous desktop motherboards which can accept more than this quantity of RAM, only 3 notebooks that I’m aware of, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit won’t even recognize more that 16 GB of memory (better than the 3 GB limit of 32-bit operating systems!).

Graphics/Video Card

Graphics cards have always been the talk of the town when it comes to CAD workstations. Autodesk (and many other CAD developers) recommend certified workstation cards which cost 2-3 times more than their gaming equivalent. Although these graphics cards may be built on the same platform, workstation cards may have more shader pipelines opened up and higher clocked processor cores, as well as proper drivers for Direct3D, OpenGL, OpenCL, and CUDA drivers.

These differences are what make workstation cards work better for CAD geometry and database calculations compared to gaming graphics cards; they are also what make them much more expensive. Are they worth the extra money? I’ll leave that up to the people with dozens of machines to test repeatedly with billions of calculations. My opinion? Decide whether you intend to purchase a business-level workstation or a consumer grade computer and get the best video card you can within your budget (best != most expensive).

Hard Drive/Storage

Although Autodesk doesn’t mention much along the lines of storage drives aside from free space, faster is better. There are 5400, 7200, and 10k RPM Hard Disk Drives and Solid State Drives with read/write speeds which vary drastically. Solid State Drives (SSD) are newer technology which is finally starting to drop in price a little, but is well beyond what most consider affordable for their computer purchasing needs. They are much faster, but they are also very misunderstood and earlier/entry level models aren’t much of a performance jump compared to a 7200 or 10k RPM Hard Disk Drive (HDD).

What matters the most when dealing with Autodesk software requirements and recommendations is that you have plenty of free space (8 GB+ at the absolute minimum) available on the storage drive you are using and it is running error free. Storage drives are one of the most common components to fail on computers and carry the most value after use – you did back all your data up to a server or external hard drive before it failed, right? Get a 7200 RPM HDD for affordable storage at a decent speed and a small (80-128 GB) SSD to install your OS and CAD software on for quick starts and fast load times without breaking the bank…so long as you have 2 storage drive bays to take advantage of.

Wrap-Up

Buying a CAD workstation to fit the needs of your software is always a bit of a mystery. You know what the requirements and recommendations are for this release of the software, but what about next year? Or the year after that? Remember you are buying this hardware to work for you with little-to-no upgrades necessary for about 3 years.

Purchasing a bottom-feeder now will leave some money in your wallet, but have you crying later when a 600MB Revit model won’t load. Going over-the-top may help you keep your sanity a few years from now working with huge CAD files, but you may still be broke from the home equity loan you took out in the process. Finding a great sale/promotion or an average workstation which has easy-to-upgrade components is the ideal way to go. We’ll explore more on this as the 2011 Indydrafter CAD Hardware series continues.

So why is this happening and how can you speed up your process? Well the reason this happens is because you probably have several hundred or even thousands of Layers in your drawing and/or several Layer Filters which are compounding the issue further. When working on any operations in AutoCAD (or any of the vertical products such as Civil 3D or AutoCAD Architecture) that require an “update” of the view within model or paper space, the program will attempt to reload and recalibrate all of these layers and filters in the drawing.

So that was the “why” this is happening, so now let’s explore the “how” to resolve the issue. The over abundance of layers and filters is the cause, but you likely don’t want to go sifting through your CAD Standards and start paring down layer names. That would be absurd. However, there is a simple way to control how AutoCAD handles this process. Within AutoCAD there is a system variable called SHOWLAYERUSAGE. By setting SHOWLAYERUSAGE to “0″ (zero), the program will stop trying to reprocess all the layers and filters every time you zoom, pan, regen, or any other “update” process. A simple solution to a very annoying problem.

To be thorough, however, I must mention it is always a good idea to PURGE your drawings of extraneous layers, blocks, dimension styles, etc. in order to keep the file size as small and workable as possible. Going another step further, utilizing the Command Line prompt for -PURGE and cleaning the REGAPPS (or Registered Applications) will also help your drawings process much better. There are dozens more operations for maintaining your files such as AUDIT, RECOVER, RECOVERALL, etc. which all have their place as well. So as you can see, SHOWLAYERUSAGE is just one of many commands and system variables you should have in your AutoCAD tool box for improving speed and productivity in your drawings.

Please leave any drawing maintenance tips and tricks you might have in the comments section!

What are the first thoughts that comes to mind when confronted with this issue? Is your first action to run a REGEN or REA command in the drawing? Text size, color, boldness are also likely culprits. You’ll probably move on to checking the AutoCAD Text Style of the text entities to see if one of them is different. Not different? No big surprise there, because you probably couldn’t figure out why one or a couple instances of text entities would have ended up on a different text style anyway. How about some of the text being standard DTEXT and others being MTEXT? Eh, probably wasn’t the solution either. Run as many commands as you’d like, but there is only one that will help you (though there are multiple methods to to perform the same fix).

So, why do you have some AutoCAD Text entities displaying slightly bigger, bolder, or darker than others when the are on the same Text Style, height, color, layer, font settings, and were created in the exact same function (DTEXT vs. MTEXT)? The answer is simple, but equally bewildering. Select the AutoCAD Text object that looks different. Using whatever means you prefer, check the elevation of that text object. Now compare the resulting elevation to another instance of text. What did you discover? They were created or moved to different elevations, weren’t they?

Well, it doesn’t matter how or why it happened, but the solution to your problem is easy. Select all the text in your drawing and set it to an elevation that makes sense for your purpose. You can select the irregular text entities and MOVE them or select all of them and adjust/correct all text via the Properties Palette. I would like to say that elevation would be 0 (zero), but that won’t always be the case as we move more and more into designing within a 3D world. As long as all your AutoCAD Text entities get moved to the same elevation, you will have consistency in the size, boldness, and darkness that you want and need. I really hope this helps solve one of the AutoCAD mysteries you’ve come across!

All the content from last year will be available again. However, if you took part in it, you’ll know that I added several bonus exercises to the course forum. Not only will that bonus material be posted, but I’ve created even more exercises and will offer them as well. In addition to the course material, though, I stay pretty active on the forum threads in order to answer any questions you might have during the run of the ATP course.

This extra material and Q/A opportunities will only be available on the AUGI ATP forum for the course and you’ll have to register in order to access it. If you are interested (and I hope you are), please follow this link to the AUGI ATP registration page in order to sign up for the ATP 259 “FIELD of Study” class. Also, if you aren’t a member of AUGI, register now for free here.

The first thing you must do is make sure that absolutely no one on the network has that .dst file open or loaded on their “recent” list of sheet set projects in the SSM.  Once you have confirmed this, go to the drop-down menu of the SSM and right-click the project associated with the .dst file you are attempting to delete (this can also be done from the sheet list if you already have the project open within the SSM). After right-clicking, select “Close Sheet Set” from the short cut menu.  Now you can go to the .dst file on your PC or server and delete it without it “magically” returning to haunt you.

If you, or anyone on the server is referencing a .dst file, it cannot be deleted. It is not necessary to remove the sheets from the sheet set, only that everyone be out of it and have it removed from their lists within the SSM drop-down menu.  Once the .dst file is erased, you are free to re-associate the layouts to any existing or new sheet set.

If someone has a drawing(s) from the set open while you are attempting to publish, the publish job will not send that specific drawing(s) and may actually stop all-together because of it.

It is easy enough to tell when someone is in a drawing from the set by simply looking at the SSM.  If someone has a drawing open for editing, a small symbol representing a lock will be displayed by that layout in the sheet list.  However, I like to perform a “Resave All Sheets” action from the SSM short-cut menu before publishing as it updates the Sheet Set Manager display to remove the “locked” icons that are inactive.  Doing this will also prompt you with a window containing all layouts that are open for editing and who has them open.  The last thing that the “Resave All Sheets” action does is absolutely guarantee that all the external references are updated in your layouts.  If you’ve done this and no one but you has any of the drawings open, you can proceed to Publish with one less concern of what could go awry.

If you work in an office where many users could potentially work on a project together, you don’t want to create a sheet set  and place the .dst file on your PC.  If you do this, and others attempt to create a sheet set on their machine or on the server, it will be impossible for any of the layouts referenced in your .dst file to be included in theirs.

Before you know it, users are copying drawing files in order to include the layouts in their version of the sheet set and people are working on different copies of the same drawing. Not Good.  Long story short, create sheet sets and place the .dst files where they are accessible to everyone in the office.  Better yet, come up with a company standard on where the .dst files are to be located on the server (I always suggest in the same project folder that the drawing files are located).

One of the first and most common issues people have had with the Sheet Set Manager and, specifically, publishing, is the system variable PUBLISHCOLLATE.  The PUBLISHCOLLATE system variable was discussed earlier this month in this post, but as a quick review:  PUBLISHCOLLATE controls whether sheets are sent to a plotter individually or as a whole and whether or not plots by others can be sent between yours.  When applicable to plotting PDFs, it controls whether a separate file is created per sheet or a multi-sheet file is written containing the entire set.  Many people have experienced issues with PUBLISHCOLLATE when it is set to “1″. As I said, this is a quick review.  Go to the original post to understand the concepts behind the PUBLISHCOLLATE system variable fully.

My first suggestion for creating a sheet list table is to first organize your layouts within the SSM.  Drag and drop the layouts in the order they will be displayed on the table.  You can see an example of a simple, yet very organized project below.

The next tip I’ve got is to rename and renumber your sheets.  The information contained within this data set is going to be exactly as it displays on the sheet list table.  The easiest way to do this is by right-clicking a layout and selecting “Rename & Renumber…” from the short cut menu.  An example of this is represented below.

Bonus Tip: Selecting “Next >” will proceed to the next layout instead of jumping in and out of the Rename & Renumber dialog.

Super Bonus Tip:  Try using the CTAB system variable in a Field for your title blocks on all your sheets.  This way, when you update the Layout name in the Rename & Renumber dialog, the sheet numbers will update in your title blocks.

When all of your layouts have been organized and rename properly (as you can see in the image below), it is time to insert the sheet list table.  To do this, open the drawing that you wish to place the sheet list table and make sure that it is a drawing within the same Sheet Set Manager project.  With the layout open that you want the table to be placed in, right-click on the project within the SSM and choose “Insert Sheet List Table…” from the short cut menu as seen below.

Now you will be presented with the Sheet List Table dialog box.  This dialog works similar to the Insert Table dialog and shares many of the same options, but it is specific to inserting a sheet list table and offers properties that the Insert Table dialog does not.  Start by selecting the ellipses (“…”) button next to the “Table Style name” drop down.

This will take you into the Table Style dialog.  There are three standard options available, of which I’m going to modify the “Index” style.  You can create a new one for a company or client standard, however.  Select the desired style and then pick the “Modify…” button.

You are now in the Modify Table Style dialog.  Now, I know there’s quite a few dialogs here, but once you have your settings created, you shouldn’t have to worry about this again.  Continuing on…you can modify the “Title”, “Header”, and “Data” cell styles as well as any additional styles you wish to create.  For the purposes of a sheet list table, those should be all you need.  Go through the “General”, “Text”, and “Borders” tabs of all three styles (which can be chosen via the “Cell styles” drop down menu).  Once you have your preferences made and confirmed through the preview pane, select “OK”.

Back in the Table Style dialog, you are given the opportunity to preview your table style again and choose to modify and create other styles or close the dialog and return to the Sheet List Table dialog box.  When you’re done, select “Close”.

Okay, now just fill in the title of your sheet list and tell AutoCAD what data to pull into each of the columns as well as what the header should be for those columns.

Switch over to the “Subsets and Sheets” tab to confirm that all of your layouts are included within the selection set.  Pick “OK” when you’re finished.

Note:  If you have subsets and need a cell to divide and notate them, you’ll need to create a cell style for that.

Once out of the Sheet List Table dialog, just select the insertion point for the table (which will be the upper left corner of the title cell).

Your finished product should look something similar to the image at the right.  You’ll likely notice that the text in the cells are AutoCAD Fields.  AutoCAD uses those Fields to dynamically update the information in the cells with any changes made to the Sheet Set Manager.

Keep in mind that you may not get everything right the first time.  If you paid really close attention to the images in the walk-thru, you may have noticed that I altered the sheet number “NO.” column from being middle left aligned to middle center.  You may have to settle with the fact that some things you just won’t be able to do within the dialog boxes either.  As a whole, though, it’s a lot better than continuously modifying it to match your individual sheets.

A:  AutoCAD doesn’t prompt you to select an object from the drawing you’re inserted the text block into by default. However, there is a default way to select an object in the drawing.

-Go ahead and insert the block containing all of your title block text including the Feld for a Viewport scale.
-Double-click the block to enter the Enhanced Attribute Editor.
-Select the attribute for the scale within the list and right-click the “Value”.
-Select “Edit Field” from the short-cut menu.
-Pick the “Select Object” button from the dialog box and pick your Viewport.
-Hit “OK” back in the dialog box and “OK” in the enhanced attribute editor.
-If you don’t see the change immediately, update your Fields.

There you have it. This solution isn’t as seamless as it could be with a “built in” prompt to select the Viewport when the block is inserted, but it’s an excellent alternative for anyone not skilled or willing enough to create a routine to make it happen.