Part II - How to get your AutoCAD Menus back in AutoCAD Architecture...

Hi everybody.... This is Part II of my last AutoCAD Architecture post How to get your AutoCAD Menus back in AutoCAD Architecture... As I said before some times the ACA.cuix (AutoCAD Archicture Menus) and the ACAD.cuix (regular AutoCAD Menus) don't play well together, in my last post I showed you one way to make it work, but some times loading the ACAD Menus generate a problem with the Ribbons, so here is another way to get it done...
Please take a look at the video and if you have any question feel free to drop me a line...

ENJOY!!! ;)

Have you seeing this Autodesk Site Before???

Hi there... Autodesk has a new support site for all of us.... It's call Autodesk - WikiHelp ...

Go ahead and check it out, they have a tons of information and it is product related...

Have a great searching experience.... and let them know what you think about it...

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 Update 2... Is Out!!!

Hi everybody... In a continuing effort to provide high quality products, Autodesk has released AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 Update 2, which fixes or addresses a variety of issues discovered by customers and by Autodesk's internal testing team.
AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 Update 2 contains the fixes included in AutoCAD 2011 Update 2 and AutoCAD Map 3D 2011 Update 2.
You MUST first have AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 Update 1 installed prior to installing this update.

How to get your AutoCAD Menus back in AutoCAD Architecture...

Hi everybody.... I know that this is not a Civil 3D post, but I have been asked this questions so many times lately that I decide to do a post about it....
As probably all of you know by now when Autodesk introduced the Ribbons in 2010 for every single Autodesk product, your Menus in AutoCAD Architecture (ADT or ACA) are no longer loaded by default, and if you being working with ADT since before, you also know that the ACA.cuix and the ACAD.cuix don't play well together, but we can make it work just doing a couple of steeps...
Please take a look at the video and if you have any question feel free to drop me a line...

Hope this will help... have a good one...

Binding a Raster Image in AutoCAD...

Hi again... After a really quiet time, I am back... I being ask lately about How to Bind a Raster Image in AutoCAD, as you probably already know raster images can only be referenced into AutoCAD drawings. If you send the drawing to someone else, you must send the image file also, if you will end up with a broken reference.
One way to get it done is inserting the image as an OLE object.
Go to the Insert Tab and look for OLE Object or just type INSERTOBJ on the command line.
Choose "Create New", then choose "Paintbrush Picture".

Next, Windows Paintbrush should open up.
In Paintbrush, choose the from the ribbons -> Paste, then Paste from...

Select your existing image file (JPG, BMP, PNG, TIF, etc.)
Close Paint and save your AutoCAD drawing...

Hope this will give you some ideas and help you somehow...

CONFIGURING NETWORK LIC UNDER IP GROUPINGS WITH DIFFERENT SUBNETS THROUGH A ROUTER WHEN SERVER NAME IS NOT RECOGNICED

Hi there.... This is one of those really weird cases, those that you rum into something completely different that a regular Network Lic setup, This is from one of our Central American Customers for our partner company Down To Earth Technologies, they are an Autodesk Authorized Distributor for Central America and the Caribbean. The situation was a fallow, the customer wanted to install 25 Network License without having a fisical server setup.... everything was done through a router, not mapping drives at all, and they wanted to use an IP address to access the License Manager, which represent quiet a challenge, for the way that the LM Tools work, the Deployment wasn't able to access the information and it was rolling back...

This is how we were able to make it work...

Go to ...

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

- Open with note pad the hosts file

- Add to the list, the IP address (TAB) server name save ... it should look some like this...

- Also add system variable ACADSERVER = server name

That should do it...It worked fro us... Hope this will give you some ideas, to work around your problems... Courtesy of James Cuervo, DTE Autodesk License Compliance Specialist

Civil 3D 2011 Installation problem!!!

Hi there... I being really active lately, well this time is about a problem that I faced with one of our customer.... He wasn't able to install his AutoCAD Civil 3d 2011 on his office workstations with Windows 7 Professional 64Bit....

The installation wizard was giving him the following errors, and the installations was failing...

How I work around it was like this...

- Have the administrator try running the installation.
- Disconnect the mapped drive.
- Use the SUBST command from an MS-DOS prompt to map the invalid drive to the temp folder on drive C. (Start -> RUN -> subst U: c:\temp)

For example, to map an invalid drive T to the temp folder on drive C, enter subst U: c:\temp at the MS-DOS prompt.

Run the installation back again, pay attention and check your setting just to double check that in effect you are installing the software in your C drive, and when it finish, please remember to delete the invalid drive.

- To delete the mapping, enter subst U: /d at the MS-DOS prompt.(Start -> RUN -> subst U: /d)

Hope this can help you in case that you run into some like this!!!!

Release Comparison Matrix for AutoCAD Civil 3D!!!

.... Yes is that time of the year again, Autodesk is getting ready to release the 2012 products, so here is a Comparison Matrix for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 - 2011 and 2012, where you can see all the Supported Features, Enhanced Features and New Features added by Autodesk to Civil 3D in every release....
Release Comparison Matrix for AutoCAD Civil 3D

Operating System Compatibility for AutoCAD Civil 3D

Hi Everybody.... Autodesk put together this nice and sweet table where we can find what operating systems are supported for the different releases of AutoCAD Civil 3D.
Check this out...

System requirements for AutoCAD Civil 3D...

.... A really common question is about system requirements for Civil 3D, here is a list that Autodesk put together to help us out....
The following links provide the recommended system requirements for AutoCAD® Civil 3D® products.
System requirements for AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2012 (current release)
System Requirements for 2011
For 32-Bit AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011
Windows® 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (32-bit); Windows Vista® Enterprise (SP1 or SP2, 32-bit); or Windows® XP Professional (SP3, 32-bit).
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor or AMD Athlon, 2.0 GHz or faster; or Intel or AMD dual core processor, 2.0 GHz or faster.
1 GB RAM minimum required, 4 GB RAM minimum recommended.
7 GB disk space with 2 GB free after installation.
1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter (true color) 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card. 1,600 x 1,200 or greater recommended. Multiple monitors are supported.
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later.
DVD drive.
For 64-Bit AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011
Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (64-bit); Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, Ultimate (SP1 or SP2, 64-bit); or Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (SP2, 64-bit).
AMD Athlon 64, AMD Opteron, Intel® Xeon with Intel® EM64T support, Intel® Pentium® 4 with Intel EM64T support.
4 GB RAM minimum required, 8 GB RAM minimum recommended.
7 GB disk space with 2 GB free after installation.
1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter (true color) 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card. 1,600 x 1,200 or greater recommended. Multiple monitors are supported.
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later.
DVD drive.
Notes:
Microsoft® Windows® 7 is recommended.
Microsoft® Windows Vista® offers better memory management over Microsoft® Windows® XP.
64-bit operating systems are recommended over 32-bit operating systems because of the larger amount of available memory for applications.
System requirements for AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2010
System requirements for AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2009
System requirements for AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2008

Important Info... System Requirements for AutoCAD Products

Hi there.... It is important to know the requirements for the software that we are using or planing to use, in a continues effort to improve our lives Autodesk has put this list together to make it even easier... System Requirements for AutoCAD Products, with the release of the 2012 Software around the corner, it is really important for you to know the 2012 System Requirements that will give some time to plan ahead in case that you are thinking to make the move...
For 32-Bit AutoCAD 2012
Microsoft® Windows® 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (compare Windows 7 versions); Microsoft® Windows Vista® Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium (SP2 or later) (compare Windows Vista versions); or Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Home edition (SP3 or later)
For Windows Vista or Windows 7: Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® dual-core processor, 3.0 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology; for Windows XP: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon dual-core processor, 1.6 GHz or higher with SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM
2 GB free disk space for installation
1,024 x 768 display resolution with true color
Microsoft® Internet Explorer® 7.0 or later
Install from download or DVD
For 64-Bit AutoCAD 2012
Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise, Ultimate, Professional, or Home Premium (compare Windows 7 versions); Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, Ultimate, or Home Premium (SP2 or later) (compare Windows Vista versions); or Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SP2 or later)
AMD Athlon 64 with SSE2 technology, AMD Opteron® processor with SSE2 technology, Intel® Xeon® processor with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology, or Intel Pentium 4 with Intel EM64T support and SSE2 technology
2 GB RAM
2 GB free space for installation
1,024 x 768 display resolution with true color
Internet Explorer 7.0 or later
Install from download or DVD
Additional Requirements for 3D Modeling (All Configurations)
Intel Pentium 4 processor or AMD Athlon, 3 GHz or greater; or Intel or AMD dual-core processor, 2 GHz or greater
2 GB RAM or more
2 GB hard disk space available in addition to free space required for installation
1,280 x 1,024 true color video display adapter 128 MB or greater, Pixel Shader 3.0 or greater, Microsoft® Direct3D®-capable workstation-class graphics card
Hope this will help!!!

Problem Installing ACAD 2011 (From the Revit Arch Suite)

Hello everybody... I know that this is not a Civil 3D topic but all the installations problem are important, so in case that you come across something like this you know how to make it work...
We were experiencing an installation error try to install AutoCAD 2011 from the Revit Arch Suite packet on Windows 7 64Bit OS, the installation was failing because it wasn't able to install DirectX 9.0, this is one of the requirements to any Autodesk software.
There are many suggestions as workarounds. Here is what we did...
1. Re-starting the computer in "Safe" mode and then run the DirectX 9.0 package. 'Safe' mode should prevent any applications from accessing the DX9 files and putting them in use.
2. Try running install but this time running from a newly setup user account that has full administrator permissions. This may correct the issue if it is due to a corrupt Windows user profile.
3. You can, copy the DVD content on C or in the network to run the installer locally, Autodesk suggested to modified the Setup.ini file commenting out the prerequisite for DirectX 9.0 so that the install will run successfully, but we left it as it was and run the installer normally resulting in a successfully installation of the software.
Hope this can help you in some way...

Carlson Connect for Civil 3D and LDT!!!

Hi there... In a continues effort to improve our work, Carlson Software is dedicated to providing the finest software to Land Surveyors, Civil Engineers, Mining Engineers, and Land Development Professionals.




** Please click on the image to download the file **

How to Create and Set Profiles in Civil 3D!!!

Hi everybody.... I being ask this question a lot lately, How come I create and modified my own profile in Civil 3D, but every time that I open the application is not current???... How I can make it work???...
Well it is a couple of extra steps that you need to do, the first and most important one is creating your own profile with all the changes that you want, and the second one is set it default... Here is a video to show you how....

Hope this will help you to make it work...
Take care...

Revit Architectural Suite 2011 Error on Installation...

Hello everybody, even dough this blog is not an Architectural Blog, this is a problem that I came a cross with one of our customers...
The problem was that every time that they were trying to launch the installation for Revit Architectural Suite 2011, the initialization was producing the following error:

There were no install logs, no events logged in the Event Viewer or any other helpful information. When checking the version of Windows Installer on the machine (XP), it was 3.01. The user upgraded to Windows Installer 4.5 and the error was resolved. Here is the link to download the installer base on your respective OS just in case...
Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable
Hope this will help you regardless of the Application that you are using in case that you experience the same problem...

I don't like the Ribbons... What else I can do???... Part 2

Hi there.... In my first post, I don't like the Ribbons... What else I can do???, I show you how you can create your own custom pallets, now I will show you how you can export and import them, in and out your AutoCAD Base software to save them, share them with other people or just install it in a different computer...
Here is the the Part 2...

I don't like the Ribbons... What else I can do???

Hello everyone... Hope that everybody had a WONDERFUL Holidays...
This a question that I get a lot, I don't like the Ribbons... What else I can do???... Some people that are so comfortable with the old ways of AutoCAD create a lot of resistance to the Ribbons, they like their toolbars and thats it... Well since Autodesk move away from that environment in 2009 and it is fully implemented in every software since 2010, a good alternative for that are the TOOL PALLETS... They are 100% customizable, you can create your own Library of blocks or just have in there the commands that you use the most, organize this information in any way you want too and also export your pallets to use them in another computer if you have too...