If you use Carlson at all, if you select a point number, and then click on the blue node for the point, then double tap the space bar, you can rotate the point number, elevation and description around. Very useful when trying to see all the points in a congested area.
> I personally like the shift right click that brings up a list of onsnaps. Must thank Andy Nold for teaching me that one.
>
> Cy
an even better way to bring them up if you have a "scroll" wheel on your mouse, type "mbuttonpan" and set it to "0". now when you push down (click) your wheel, the osnap menu will pop up. one of my favorites.
DIMALIGNED
And in the properties you can make it display whatever you want. It's right under the actual measurement display in the "text" portion of the properties (in case you want to keep the precisions of the drawing different than what is displayed, or the measurement is off from what you want but don't want to fiddle with the drawing).
> The Group command is one of my favorites.
>
> You can group together any assortment of objects on the screen into a single, translatable and rotatable entity for easy placement. It trumps a Block, since there is a simple toggle to turn the grouping on and off.
>
> I use it a lot for architectuals that I want to have reside in the drawing, and not merely xref'd.
Amen !!!:-)
> If you use Carlson at all, if you select a point number, and then click on the blue node for the point, then double tap the space bar, you can rotate the point number, elevation and description around. Very useful when trying to see all the points in a congested area.
Excellent Ken, thanks!
DIMALIGNED
Just beware that in most cases, it's a very bad practice to simply change the text override to a different value, rather than actually fixing the model. That's a really good way to create errors and cause problems further down the line.
In Dimensions, you can use two angle brackets (i.e. "") in the Text Override, and that will get replaced with the actual dimension value. That lets you add custom text, yet still have a Dimension that is reporting its true value, and not whatever numbers you type into the text override.
defpoints
One of my favorites is the non-plotting defpoints layer. When resolving a complex boundary, drawing a complicated ALTA or topo, or even for simple reminders it's something I use quite a bit and find extremely useful.
Another trick I love is hiring a local college kid to draft the tedious stuff!
CHSPACE
CHSPACE
The following prompts are displayed.
Select objects:
Set the SOURCE viewport active and press Enter to continue:
Returns prompts similar to the following:
N object(s) changed from MODEL space to PAPER space.
Objects were scaled by a factor of n to maintain visual appearance.
The moved object is scaled appropriately in the new space.
When transferring objects to paper space, the SOURCE viewport that you click determines the paper space location of the transferred objects. When transferring objects to model space, the TARGET viewport that you click determines the model space location of the transferred objects.
deftext
I create a layer and call it deftext. I put notes in my drawing concerning boundary resolution and why I choose to do what I did, just in case I need to remember some day 😉
DIMALIGNED
@Sinc, of course, and if possible use it sparingly. But when a dimension is, say, .02' different from what you want, and it's not really important to even have 100ths precisions... As an example: a well, much bigger than .02' is 43.02' away from a boundary line. Who cares about the .02', it's not important. And since the precision I have formatted in the drawing is .000, It is easier to use the text override than to draw leader lines and text. that is what I meant when I said "the measurement is off from what you want but don't want to fiddle with the drawing" Though I could have expressed it better, in hind sight.
That trick is pretty cool though, and I will have to try it.
DIMALIGNED
You don't need to type anything in the Text Override in order to change the precision. You can just change that in the Properties (although this creates an override on your Style, which is not necessarily as good as creating a new Style... but that's another topic).
You can also select the Dim and right-click to adjust the Properties (although for Civil 3D, you'll need to go into the CUI editor and copy the "Dimension Objects Menu" into your Shortcut Menus from the acad.cuix to get the right-click menu):
defpoints
Autodesk recommends that you avoid using the Defpoints layer.
Starting some time ago (R14...?) you can make any layer "non plotting".
The Defpoints layer is supposed to be reserved for internal use by Autocad, which is why Autodesk recommends you not use it. Defpoints also has some weird behaviors linked to Layer 0, which is why I recommend you not use it.
Another benefit to avoiding Defpoints is that you can name your non-plotting layers something descriptive, indicating what sort of data is on them. This makes it easier for others to make sense of your drawing. It also lets you separate things and keep them cleaner, as opposed to simply dumping all non-plotting items on a single layer.
defpoints
> Autodesk recommends that you avoid using the Defpoints layer.
>
> you can name your non-plotting layers something descriptive, indicating what sort of data is on them. This makes it easier for others to make sense of your drawing. It also lets you separate things and keep them cleaner, as opposed to simply dumping all non-plotting items on a single layer.
That's a good idea, I've been creating blocks of the figures of previous plats and surveys in the area I'm working, to compare to my final resolution. This way, I don't have to worry about turning them off before I plot.
Thanks sinc!
Dugger
DIMALIGNED
Nice tip, Richard.
My dim edits are generally to add "R/M" or "M" then the record measurement.
