AutoCAD always has numerous undocumented commands, and here is one that I missed when I scoured AutoCAD 2007 earlier this year for my “The Illustrated AutoCAD 2007 Quick Reference” book (Autodesk Press).
Notice that the paintbrush cursor appears.
In the end, it is easier to just drag materials off the Tool palette and onto objects.
You can read an informed discussion about the Airbus wiring harness problem over at the airliners.net discussion group.
I would not trivialize this issue. Switching from Cu to Al probably most likely meant increase in wire diameter, increase in connector size and complexity, reduction in the number of allowed connections per cable run, etc.
How many holes and raceways had to be changed because of that?
How many individual airframe parts had holes and raceways going through them?
When EACH one of these parts got redesigned, did it cause any other cascade redesign?
Did they lose configuration control with various versions of these parts making their way into the assembly of MSN001-013?
A Boeing (or ex-Boeing) person posted earlier that when they switched to CAD design for planes, they discovered that the CAD software on the market was inadequate for wiring. I wonder if this, at its core, is not the real problem.
Later in the discussion, the coverage by WorldCAD Access (blush) is mentioned.
The patch that fixes the IE7 & DWF viewer conflict is out!
(Blogged live.) At the ITC conference, Mark Burrows provided an hour-long summary of the work involved in re-creating IntelliCAD.
– 276 LISP atoms, especially those dealing with selection sets, entity data, and graphics; similar for SDS.
The ICAD code will be modularized to help isolate defects; no more spaghetti code. The new DRX manager demand-loads external DRX (ARX) apps; a new command lists the names of DRX commands. Naturally, ICAD’s new API will give access to DRX.
The ITC is adding the entity protocol extension to make entities responsible for themselves (supply own grip points, snap modes, etc).
The command stack can be extended to mimic other CAD packages, making it easier (maybe) to convince users of older CAD packages to switch. One day IntellICAD might just be a user interface, with the DWGdirect-based CAD engine a separate product. Customizable configurations (menus, toolbars, etc) will be migrated to XML; unlike AutoCAD 2006/7, you will be able to edit the XML file to create custom user interfaces.
The graphics is being improved to handle transparency, improved grip editing, drag in color, gradient fills, proxy entities, and more. Also, support multiple display devices, such as GDI, HOOPS, DirectX, OpenGL, and more.
He then demo’ed how little — how few lines of code — it takes in ICAD 7 to implement features like mlines, translucently-colored selection rectangles, and more.
Version 7 allows the ITC to concentrate on new features, instead of chasing bugs. Mr Burrows hopes one day to no longer follow AutoCAD, but instead innovate in IntelliCAD’s own way — no more chasing Autodesk.
Plotting drawings to most raster file formats is slower in AutoCADÂ® 2007-based products when compared to previous versions of the same applications. This is most evident when plotting to bitonal CALS or TIFF files.
This hotfix speeds up the plotting to raster file formats, especially bitonal CALS or TIFF files.