texupport

Missing Language Pack – ACAD.VLX Virus?

In an office full of US English seats of Civil 3D, our users frequently see a dialog which reports a missing language pack when opening DWG files.  I can only assume that at one time a drawing file did contain an object which was worked on in a non-english version of AutoCAD or Civil 3D.  Since we’re seeting this more frequently, I’m a little concerned this might turn out to be yet another piece of contagious “CAD Debris” (such as Named Layer Filters [2000-2002], Scale Lists [2008], and unused RegApps [ongoing]).   According to Matt’s post in this thread, which details Autodesk’s explanation of this issue, it sounds like it’s fairly benign and the user can feel comfortable by checking the “don’t show me this again” checkbox (or, alternately, actually installing the Windows language pack).

However, it has recently come to my attention there there is also an AutoCAD specific virus being distributed in a file called ACAD.VLX which also causes the Missing Language Pack dialog.  Autodesk recently posted an article about the virus.  After following the steps outlined in the article, I determined that we do not have the infected acad.vlx file so my Missing Language Pack dialog is likely caused by an actual object in the drawing file(s).

What bothers me about Autodesk’s article about the ACAD.VLX virus is that there isn’t much information and I still have plenty of questions:

• What is the method of infection and how is the evil ACAD.VLX being distributed?
• Other than the “Missing Language Pack” dialog, is there any additional payload?
• What can users do to prevent infection?
• Do over the counter virus scanners catch this virus?

Clicking links in Outlook 2007 generates “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer”

For doing the things that I do and visiting the webpages that I routinely go to, I have recently come to the conclusion that Firefox and IE, for all intents and purposes, really aren’t all that different. At this point in my career (and life), I simply don’t have the time or desire to be devoted to a cause (Firefox) or to a brand (Apple). I simply use my computer as a tool to complete tasks. That’s it. At any rate, since Firefox 3.0 was having some well documented trouble with Flickr on my system, I decided to save the space and abandon it completely in favor of IE7.

After uninstalling Firefox, I noticed that links no longer worked within Outlook 2007. Clicking on any link produced an error which stated, “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.” As with any error, I turned to Google. I was able to find numerous blogs and pages which simply restated Microsoft’s solution of respecifying IE as the default browser. For every time somebody posted that procedure, there were dozens of, “Thanks, that worked.” replies, so I figured that it would work for me as well.

I followed the instructions in Microsoft’s help document Q310049 while logged in as myself (user permissions), but my links still produced the warning. I then tried making the same changes while logged in as administrator, but I still had no luck. Eventually, I solved the problem by making a SWAG: All I had to do was temporarily add my normal account to the administrators group, follow Microsoft’s instructions from Q310049, and then remove myself from administrators.

I’m not sure which registry keys are directly manipulated by the steps outlined in Q310049. If you are indeed required to have administrative privelages to edit them, then it’s scary to think of how many people run as admin 100% of the time. (Judging by the volume of “Thanks, that worked” responses I encountered when reading blogs which rehashed Q310049).

Norton Antivirus 2009 (finally) delivers

I first began using Norton products in the early 90s, with Norton Advanced Utilities version 4.5, and I was a huge fan of their products for a number of years. For well over a decade, though, Symantec’s Norton line of products has been extremely bloated and every one of them that I have run has added a very noticable system lag. I’ve always found it a little ironic since many of their products are supposed to enhance or monitor system performance. For many years, running Norton System Monitor was analagous to adding a 500 pound fuel guage, a 1000 pound spedometer, and a 1500 pound odometer to your car. The last version of NAV that I ran, which was either 2004 or 2005, was about the same. After installing NAV, even doing something as simple as opening notepad was executed with a bit of hesitation and a lot of grinding. (Note: I’ve never had problems with Symantec’s corporate line of products, such as SAV.)

With that said, now that I have a newer notebook, I had to find an Antivirus program which would run on Vista x64. Over the years, Norton, despite its bloated footprint, has consistently scored at or near the top in all of the virus scanner reviews that I’ve read. Since they offer a version which will run on x64, I decided to give it a shot. I’m extremely pleased with my system performance since installing it – which is to say that I don’t notice that it’s there. Without being able to quantify it, I can simply state that there is no noticable difference in overall system performance with NAV 2009 installed or without it.

Since the license allows me to install it on up to three home computers, I installed it on my older XP Pro (32) system, and I’m happy to report that the results are about the same: NAV 2009 is installed but there is no noticable lag.

This is exactly how system utilities such as antivirus software should work. Since the work that we all do is predominantly productive work (right?), then we shouldn’t know any utilities are there until we need them.

Disclaimers:

• Yes, I’m aware that there are free versions of Avast and AVG. I’ve used them before on some systems and I’m likely to use them again in the future.
• Yes, I’m aware that as of this post, MacOS and Linux are less susceptible to viruses. I also can’t run any of my applications on them so it’s a moot point.

Surfaces which should yield one single minor contour don’t show any contours

In Civil 3D 2009, any surface which uses a style under which only one minor contour would show for the entire surface, no contours are shown.

This is very difficult to explain verbally, but the image below illustrates the problem.

Workarounds:
Create a temporary style which shows major contours at the interval that you would typically show minor coutours with. Make those major contours the same color/layer/linetype as your regular style’s minor contours. Apply the new temporary style to the problematic surface.

First Appeared: Civil 3D 200x?
Status as of Civil 3D 2009 version 2: Still reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved

2d solids do not observe fillmode withinin certain layouts

Since rolling out 2009 to a large userbase, we have encountered several drawing files which contain specific layouts within which any viewport will not show filled 2d solids properly. This behavior seems to be specific to AutoCAD 2009. The same drawing files behave as expected in AutoCAD 2008 (and, presumably, earlier releases).

Although fillmode is turned on, a viewport within an affected layout will show 2d solids like so:

Of note:

• fillmode is set to 1
• All viewports are set to 2d wireframe / hideplot is turned off in all of the viewports
• I do have raster design 2009 installed. Neither the “filled object hotfix” nor SP1 corrected the problem
• An example drawing can be found here: http://www.texupport.net/acad_examples/fillmode.dwg

Workarounds: Recreate the entire layout, including the viewports and any paperspace annotation.
First Appeared: AutoCAD 2009
Status as of AutoCAD 2009 version 3.1: Still reproducible.

Most Recently Used Documents fills up with DST files

Starting with AutoCAD 2009, the most recently used files list is designed to list both DWG and DST files.  Unfortunately, once nine (cumulative) DST files have been opened by one user, then the most recently used documents list will no longer contain drawing files. 

Workarounds:
I wrote this command to completely reset the MRUF list.  This will remove all entries from the list.  Over time, be prepared for it to be populated by nine DST files again.  When that happens and it gets to be too annoying, simply re-run the command.  (Note: I’ll add the LSP file to the downloads section ASAP.)

;;Reset Most Recently Used Files
;;This utility can be used to clean out the mess that 2009 and 2009v2 leaves in
;;the Most Recently Used Document list after opening nine or more DST files
;;absolutely no warranty
;;feel free to modify as necessary
;;I use this only periodically.  I run it manually when my Recently Used Files list gets filled up with DST files.
;;v2008.12.01
(PRINC “Reset Most Recently Used Files (rmruf) v2008.12.01 – www.texupport.net“)
(DEFUN c:rmruf (/ regkey mruf)
 (SETQ mruf (GETENV “MRUFilesToList”))
 (SETENV “MRUFilesToList” “0″)
 (SETQ regkey (STRCAT “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\” (VLAX-PRODUCT-KEY) “\\Recent File List”))
 (VL-REGISTRY-DELETE regkey)
 (SETENV “MRUFilesToList” mruf)
 (PRINC “\nMost Recently used files list has been reset.”)
 (PRINC)
) ;_ end-defun

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2009
Status as of AutoCAD 2009, version 2: Still reproducible

Hacking the Nvidia performance driver (powerdraft) into Civil 3D

Several months ago, Nvidia released a performance driver for AutoCAD 2009. Unfortunately, using the included installer, this driver can only be installed on AutoCAD. When you only have Civil 3D installed, you get an error which reads, “Setup was unable to find an installed version of AutoCAD 2009.”

I was able to hack the driver in to my Civil 3D 2009 installation on an XP (32) system by doing the following:

1. Download Powerdraft2009_XP_Vista_32_64.exe from nvidia’s website.
2. Run the install program and let it error out as noted above.
3. At this point the install program has actually unpacked the archive to a directory called C:\04-28-2008-0710\ navigate to C:\04-28-2008-0710\Disk1\win32 and copy all of the files from that location to C:\Program Files\AutoCAD Civil 3D 2009\Drv
4. Finally, back in Civil 3D, run 3DCONFIG and select the new Nvidia specific driver for either Direct3D or OpenGL.

Unfortunately, since I don’t have a supported video card on my notebook, I haven’t had the opportunity to test this workaround with Civil 3D 2009 (a 32 bit application) on Vista x64.

RegappID cleanup utility

It just came to my attention that Autodesk quietly released their own RegApp cleaner a couple of months ago. This still doesn’t do anything to prevent Registered Application IDs from propagating through xrefs and inserts so unless you clean everything that your file might come into contact with, you can count on getting infected with AppIDs over and over again. Still, along with the -purge R option that was reintroduced in 2005 or 2006 (after a very long absense), it’s a step in the right direction.

Autodesk’s CleanupRegApp tool isn’t any more or less effective than cadthinking’s PurgeIDs, and in fact, its interface is lacking compared to PurgeIDs. Still, it’s nice to know that this is an Autodesk developed (and, presumably, Autodesk supported) tool to address a problem that has been swept under the rug for far too long.

Importing color images from Google Earth into Civil 3D

Since Civil 3D added the ability to import georeferenced imagery from Google Earth, I regularly get comments from users who would prefer the image to appear in color. While it doesn’t appear to be a feature, with a little hacking this is actually very easy to do.

First, open your Civil 3D drawing file and make sure to set the coordinate system properly.

 

Sheet set templates must have have all lowercase dst extension

When  creating a sheet set template by placing a DST file in the SheetSetTemplatePath location, the file must absolutely have an extension of .dst (case sensitive).

 

 

If an uppercase character exists in the extension, the sheetset template appears with the extension in the listbox and the system will then search for YourTemplateName.DST.dst. 

 

 

When it doesn’t find the template, a “File Not Found” dialog reports “Cannot find the specified sheet set data (DST) file.”

 

 

Workarond:
Create sheet set templates with a lowercase dst extension.

First Appeared: Unknown
Status as of AutoCAD 2009 version 3: Still Reproducible.

Things that should have been better in Vista

I’ve been working with Vista x64 for about a month now and while my experience has been surprisingly positive, there are a few very simple things that could have and should have been much better.

1. Since Windows ‘95, Microsoft has earned a lot of bad publicity by making it way too easy for grandma to double click on things like README.txt.vbs when file extensions are hidden (which I believe was the default in 95,98,ME, NT4, 2k, and XP). With security supposedly being a top priority of Vista, this would have been such an easy change to make, but, by default, extensions are still hidden.
2. There are now dozens of available columns in windows explorer, but there still isn’t a column for “extension.” If I want to sort by extension to find *.PAT in a particular directory, I naturally look for *.PAT, not “AutoCAD Hatch Pattern Definition.”
3. The smallest unit in Windows Explorer is still a kilobyte. I don’t care how large hard drive capacities are now or how large they will be in the future – there should always be an option to show file sizes in bytes.
4. It’s incredibly difficult to make “Remember Folder Settings” work. I like details view. For everything. Really. Don’t try to outsmart me. Luckily, this article seems to have a fix which actually works.
5. Shift-RightClick / “Open Command Window Here” only works in explorer’s right pane.
6. Windows Explorer’s status bar no longer shows the total size of files in the current folder. It used to in 95,98,ME,NT4,2k and XP. Now it doesn’t. To get the total file size, you have to ctrl-a to select all and then the status bar shows you the cumulative total size of the files.
7. In previous versions of windows you could log out with just the keyboard. CTRL-ALT-DEL followed by “L” would log you off. Vista has removed this functionality. CTRL-ALT-DEL gets you to a purely point and click page where you must then use your mouse to hit “log off.”

Running history of new features in AutoCAD which failed to deliver

Ever since AutoCAD went to the one year releases, I’ve been pretty critical of how rushed all of the new features have been. This is a running list of all of the new heavily touted “bullet list” features which failed to deliver.

 

2005:
New Feature: Hatch Gap Tolerances (HPGAPTOL)
Incomplete implementation: Works in simple figures where users wouldn’t need it to work, but simply doesn’t work on figures where most users we would need such a feature to work. As of 2009, it is no better than it was in 2005.
Result: Most customers can’t use it which makes them revert to 2004 techniques.

New Feature: Background mask property
Incomplete implementation: Doesn’t work when printers are set to “lines merge”
Result: Many customers still have to use wipeouts, which do work with “lines merge.” Again, this essentially forces many users to revert to 2004 techniques.

New Feature: Sheet Sets
Incomplete implementation: Publishing can be painfully slow when there are several page setups which refer to several plotters. Often, the publish dialog can take several minutes to appear. Also, DST files on networks are still known to cause performance issues.
Result: This really is a useful feature, but incomplete aspects noted above weren’t improved in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009.
New Feature: Dynamic input
Incomplete Implementation: Should have been more useful than it is. There are still issues with overlapping values and sluggish performance. Done right, it could have been as great as autosnap markers.
Result: With each rollout, I field dozens of calls asking how to turn it off and revert to 2005 behavior.

2006:
New Feature: CUI/Workspaces
Incomplete implementation: Simply wasn’t thought out very well from a workgroup point of view. The enterprise/main division is very cumbersome, not to mention enterprise partial and main partials, the fact that workspaces are stored in the CUI file, and many other overdesigned aspects. Visit this thread for user complaints on this feature. This wasn’t just a case of users being resistant to change. The thread started over two years ago and it’s still being posted to.Main, partial main, enterprise, partial enterprise? Hacked ICON.DLLs? Workspaces in main and enterprise but not partials? LIFO conflics? Can’t edit workspaces when “automatically save changes to workspace is on? “Save current as” saves the current space as “start on”? Cumbersome ACLs for enterprise/partial? .. What a convoluted mess! Novice to semiexperienced users simply want this: How can I drag these three buttons from this toolbar to that toolbar like I did in 2005? That’s it and that’s all.

FWIW, the CUI feature has always reminded me of the Simpsons episode when homer’s long lost brother allows him to design a better car that “the people” would buy and they end up with this. (In case you don’t remember, the car ended up with a sticker price of over $40,000 and the company went bankrupt).
New Feature: Built-in PDF driver
Incomplete Implementation: Didn’t work well then and doesn’t work well now. Huge margins, poorly translated lineweights, objects in paperspace layouts can appear on the wrong PDF page.
Result: Many/most users resort to using a 3rd party PDF driver, just as they had to do in 2006.

2007:
New Feature: xref palette
Incomplete implementation: Simply selecting an image in the list creates excessive “image processing,” even when the image is unloaded and/or on a frozen layer. Doesn’t work when SDI is turned on (as some verticals still force).
Result: Many users have to resort to the 2006 method of using CLASSICXREF.
New feature: PUBLISHCOLLATE variable is supposed to allow users to send one multi-page print job (1) or several one page print jobs (0).
Incomplete implementation: known to cause fatal errors
Result: For many users, publishcollate must be left at 0 which completely disables the new feature and reverts to the behavior of the previous version.

2008:
New Feature: annotative mtext
Incomplete Implementation: Doesn’t work with the lisp function (entmod) which means that many firms either can’t use their existing customizations or can’t use the new feature. Also, many annotative entities can’t be manipulated until a drawing is audited. Many users simply couldn’t live with the quirks, didn’t have time to invest in developing in-house workarounds and gave up on the feature.
Result: As stated, for firms who have existing customizations, the new feature can’t be used and users must revert to 2007 and earlier techniques.

New Feature: annotative scales -
Incomplete Implementation: Generally caused tons of CAD debris that will have to be fought off for years to come – and that debris was only introduced in the short period between 2008 and 2008SP1.

New Feature: mleader
Incomplete Implementation: Extremely quirky, even in SP1. Sometimes when the text width is modified, its location pops to a random position. Also, you can’t use a field within mleader text and have it justify to middle.
Result: Many users had to pass on this feature until it was more completely implemented, which meant that they had to revert to the 2007 (and earlier) quickleader techniques.

New Feature: multiline attributes
Incomplete implementation: Arbitrary code can bleed through into the displayed value; attribute position can jump anound.
Result: Many users gave up on the feature and had to revert to using single line attributes as they had to in 2007 and earlier.
New Feature: Extended tooltips
Incomplete implementation: Undoubtedly cause sluggish performance. There is no way to only turn off said verbose tool tips.
Result: Tooltips must be turned off completely, which mimics a circa R12 environment.

2009:
New Feature: Ribbon interface
Incomplete implementation: The ribbon, its tabs, and panels have to be in the “main” CUI file.
Result: A step back for people who had been using the dashboard.

New feature: DST files are added to most recently used files list
Incomplete implementation: After 9 sheet sets have been opened, only dst files will show up in the most recently used file list.
Result: New feature leaves users worse off than with previous version

New feature: Layer Manager Palette
Incomplete implementation: Severe performance issues when leaving palette docked
Result: Users do not realize any benefits from new feature. Palette must either be closed after each operation, or use classiclayer/LAYERDLGMODE=0. Each of these operations reverts to an environment similar to 2008 and earlier releases.

Office 2007 first impressions

I like to wait for the early adopters to report back on the first service pack before I deploy any major software releases myself. With that said, I’m just now getting my first taste of Office ‘07.

So far, I don’t have much good or bad to say about it. I guess it is what it is – just the next version of Office. I don’t mind the ribbon and I imagine it’ll be just fine once I get used to it.

I do have one issue with it, which is more of a peeve than anything that truly affects productivity. The color schemes are absolutely useless. It’s not that I feel left out because want a green scheme, an orange scheme, or a purple scheme (for the uninitiated, you’re given the choice of blue, silver, or black). My issue is this: what good is configuring your OS appearance preferences if applications don’t observe them? These “skinned” applications all seem like they were created by someone who just didn’t have anything better to do. Unfortunately, almost all applications seem to be going that way. Norton has been doing it for years with their consumer stuff (luckily their corporate stuff still uses normal window appearances). Winamp has never used regular Windows forms. Roxio has recently started using the skinned appearance, and even AutoCAD now restricts users to either a “light” or a “dark” color scheme. To me, applications like this can just be distracting. I much prefer when apps have a consistent look and feel. Wasn’t that one of the original selling points of Windows in the first place?

Windows Tip: WindowKey + E starts up Windows Explorer

After years of observing Windows users, I’ve learned that most users enter windows explorer in the following directory:

c:\documents and settings\username\start menu

This doesn’t seem to be a very good starting place, but from what I’ve seen, most people launch windows explorer by right clicking on the start menu and selecting “explore.” Going back to the advent of Windows ‘95, this method was probably intended to manage the shortcuts in your start menu. Since the explorer shortcut was originally very deep under the start menu, I guess users just found their way to explorer via the start menu editor.

A quicker method of launching Windows explorer in all modern versions of Windows is to hold down the window key and the e key together. It also starts you in the “my documents” folder which is a better starting point.

Vista x64 first impressions

I recently upgraded to Windows Vista x64 on a Dell M6300 with 4GB of RAM. So far I’ve been blown away by the snappy performance of the system itself and, in particular, all of the Autodesk software that I’ve run on it so far (Civil 3D 2009, AutoCAD 2009, Map 2009).

I’ve heard all of the horror stories of Vista and, yes, I’ve seen the Apple commercials, but since I purchased the system new as a 64 bit workstation, Dell naturally configured it with hardware which is all supported by Vista x64. The only peripheral that I had to worry about was my old Lexmark P4350 printer, which luckily, Lexmark provides a driver for.

I should also point out that I’ve turned off all of the eye candy which I just don’t need. Even in XP, I’ve always been one to turn off window animations, cursor shadows, smooth scrolling, start menu animation, and all of the rest of the fluff that just doesn’t add to productivity. With Vista, I’ve decided to configure it about the same. After just a few days, things are going extremely well.

It’s still way to early to tell, but I think I’m going to be very happy with Vista x64 and this system in general.

I’ll post some benchmarks as soon as I can.

(For the Linux trolls, I should also point out that this system is for business apps that Linux simply won’t run. I like linux. I get it. I know that it’s good and I have ubuntu on my old old laptop. I’ve used it off an on, when I had a specific use for it, since about 1993 when I used slackware on a ‘386. So please don’t try to convince me that any Linux flavor is superior to Vista. For the apps I run, it’s very apparent that Vista x64 was a wise choice).

Dragging child styles can create a \”multiply owned object\” warning

   1. New drawing from acad.dwt
   2. Save as ADVANCED.dwg
   3. Create a general line label style named PARENT
   4. Qsave ADVANCED.dwg
   5. Right click on the PARENT style and select New…
   6. Save the child style as CHILD
   7. Qsave ADVANCED.dwg
   8. New drawing from acad.dwt
   9. Save as BASIC.dwg
  10. Drag the PARENT style into BASIC.dwg
  11. Qsave BASIC.dwg
  12. Drag the CHILD style into BASIC.dwg
  13. Qsave BASIC.dwg
  14. Check the command line for the error message:  *Warning* Multiply owned object, handle “###”

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3648349943
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2009 (verified on XPSP2 [32], Vista 32, and Vista 64)
Status as of Civil 3D 2009 Update 1 (aka Civil 3D 2009, Version 2): Resolved

Warning: An error occured during save

“Warning: An error occured during save” arises when saving a drawing which contains a style which was created with a layer from another “layer source” drawing.

1.  File new from _AutoCAD Civil 3D (Imperial) NCS Extended.dwt (drawing2.dwg) 2.  File new from acad.dwt (drawing3.dwg) 3.  Under toolspace/settings for drawing3.dwg, right click on General-Label Styles-Line and select New.
4.  General tab, left click on the box next to Layer that currently contains 0, then click on the … to the right.
5.  Left click on Drawing3.dwg under Layer source at the top left of the Layer Selection dialog and select Drawing2.dwg.
6.  Select C-ANNO then OK and OK and save the drawing as temp.dwg.

This results in an AUTOCAD Message box with this text:

Warning:  An error occured during save.
We recommend that you run RECOVER on the drawing.

Workarounds:
… bring the layer into the new drawing prior to assigning it. … This, unfortunately, negates the functionality of using “layer source”.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#1-3608470141
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 200?
Status As of 2009: Still Reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved

“Middle of Text” mleader connection doesn’t work when text attachments contain fields

When using a multileader style with the leader connection point set to “middle of text,” the text attachment point jumps to the “middle of the top line” when any field is added to the text.

Figure 1 – Middle of Text justified mleader

Figure 2 – The same mleader with a field added

Thanks to Christian Billiot for submitting this report.

Workarounds: None Known

First Appeared: AutoCAD 2008
Status as of 2009: Still reproducible

Hatch Island Detection is incorrect when hatching around MTEXT entities

Under certain circumstances, the hatch command’s island detection feature does not work when mtext entities are contained within the area to be hatched.

Steps to reproduce:

   1. Create two mtext objects with this text (include a return after each word):  test centered text
   2. Set the width on both mtext objects to 0.
   3. Change the first mtext object to be middle centered justified.
   4. Edit the second mtext object:
   5. Select All
   6. Select the “Center” icon on the Text Formatting toolbar

   7. Both mtext objects look the same at this point.
   8. Draw a rectangle around each mtext object.
   9. Hatch inside each rectangle (allowing island detection).
  10. While the island detected around the middle justified text is correct, the border around the center justified text is incorrect.

Workarounds:
Either use middle justified mtext entities or do not use zero with mtext entities.

First Appeared: Unknown.  Bug didn’t exist in 2004, but is easily reproducible in AutoCAD 2008.
Status as of 2008SP1: Still reproducible

Submitted By: TommieR

Bhatch does not find a hatch boundary

Ever since bhatch was introduced in R13, it has had trouble finding the boundary of many areas which are bound by arcs or polylines with arcs.  This bug seems to be more troublesome the farther the linework is away from the UCS origin.  It appears to be worse still when the linework is far from the WCS origin (such as any geospatial drawing).  Over the past 14 years, the user community has come up with numerous workarounds to coax results from the bhatch command.  Unfortunately, no single workaround works in all cases.  Furthermore, none of these workarounds make sense to younger users who have never had to massage results from their software and have grown to expect applications to “just work.”  These workarounds are documented below.
 

Workarounds:

• If the linework is polylines, sometimes it helps to explode them before hatching
• If the linework is lines and arcs, sometimes it helps to convert them to polylines before hatching
• Sometimes it helps to temporarily set the UCS closer to the current view *
• Sometimes it helps to temporarily move the linework closer to the WCS origin
• Sometimes it helps to continuously cut the figure that won’t hatch into halves and hatch each half until a “leak” is found
• You should always to check the entities in question for an “extrusion direction” and if they have one, remove the extrusion direction with the express tools FLATTEN command. 
• HPGAPTOL almost never works

First Appeared: When bhatch was introduced in R13 (1994).  It’s possible that the hatch command from previous releases exhibited the same symptoms, but I simply can’t remember.
Status as of 2008 SP1: Still reproducible.

* I have written a short lisp command which automatically sets the UCS close to the current view, runs the bhatch command, and then sets the UCS back.  Although it still fails in many of the same situations that cause the “out of the box” bhatch command to fail, it definitely does a better job than the default command in many cases.  In particular, it sheilds the users from quite a few hatch errors when working in geospatial drawing files.  The code is as listed below.  I’ll add it to the downloads section as time permits.

;; bbh.lsp (Better BHatch)
;; ralph sanchez (rsanchez at texupport dawt net)
;;
;; As most users know, AutoCAD has trouble hatching anything but simple figures when working far from the WCS origin
;; The user community has come up with several workarounds and this code attempts one of the most common.
;; In short, it will temporarily change the UCS to the current view before executing the bhatch command.
;; As with all of the workarounds, it is not perfect and does not work in many situations.
;; It does, however, work better than the default bhatch command.
(DEFUN c:bbh (/ ucsorg ucsx ucsy)
  (DEFUN savars (sv0 / x)
    ;;excellent savars/revars functions from paul turvill
    ;;(prevents user ESC from killing variables)
    (COMMAND “._undo” “begin”)
    (SETQ svx1  nil
   olderr *error*
    ) ;_ end-setq
    (FOREACH x sv0 (SETQ svx1 (APPEND svx1 (LIST (LIST x (GETVAR x))))))
    (SETQ ucsorg (GETVAR “UCSORG”))
    (SETQ ucsx (TRANS (LIST 1 0 0) 1 0))
    (SETQ ucsy (TRANS (LIST 0 1 0) 1 0))
    (DEFUN *error* (msg) (revars))
  ) ;_ end-defun
  (DEFUN revars (/ x)
    (SETQ *error* olderr)
    (FOREACH x svx1 (SETVAR (CAR x) (CADR x)))
    (SETQ svx1 nil)
    (COMMAND “._ucs” “3p” (TRANS ucsorg 0 1) (TRANS ucsx 0 1) (TRANS ucsy 0 1))
    (PRINC)
    (COMMAND “._undo” “end”)
  ) ;_ end-defun
  ;;******************************************************
  (savars ‘(”cmdecho”)) ;’saves variables to be reset later
  (SETVAR “cmdecho” 0)
  (COMMAND “._ucs” (GETVAR “vsmin”) “”)
  (INITDIA)
  (COMMAND “bhatch”)
  (WHILE (= (LOGAND (GETVAR “cmdactive”) 1) 1) (COMMAND pause))
  ;;****************************************************** 
  (revars)
  (PRINC)
) ;_ end- defun

Spline option in PEDIT command doesn’t work after join has been executed

After joining lines or polylines within the PEDIT command, the SPLINE option can’t be run until the command is ended and reexecuted.

Steps to reproduce:

• Draw three lines which meet end to end
• Enter PEDIT (if peditaccept is turned off, hit “y”)
• Select J to join the segments
• Select S to spline the resulting polyline
• Notice that the command is exited

 

Workarounds: Exit the PEDIT command after joining the segments, then reexecute PEDIT and select S to spline.

First Appeared: 2007? (This bug is definitely not evident in 2004 and is known to exist in 2007.  Its status in 2005 and 2006 is unknown)
Status as of 2008 SP1: Still reproducible.

Thanks to Opie for submitting this report.

Several Map Menu inquiry commands do not work

In Civil 3D, several of the inquiry commands under the map menu don’t work:

Map-Inquiry-Line and Arc Information
Map-Inquiry-Angle Information
Map-Inquiry-Continuous Distance
Map-Inquiry-Add Distances
Map-Inquiry-List Slope

 

Workaround:
Use the equivalent Civil 3D commands as documented below.

MAP MENU           CIVIL 3D TOOL
COMMAND            COMMAND
mapcglist    ==>   cglist
mapcgang     ==>   cgang
mapcgcdist   ==>   cgcdist
mapcgadist   ==>   cgadist
mapcgslist   ==>   cgslist

Alternately, you can use the commands under the Map menu in Land Desktop or Land Enabled Map

First Appeared: Civil 3D 2007
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 Sp2:  Still reproducible
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still reproducible

Submitted By: TommieR and Christian Billiot

Text in Curve Label Style doesn’t align with its border and mask

1. Create a Curve Label Style with the following settings:
   • Allow Curved Text = true
   • Border Visibility = true
   • Background Mask = true
2. Before you OK the label style, you’ll notice that the border is not going to be correct.
3. Draw an arc.
4. Place the curve label style on arc and check the location of the border and the background mask.

The background mask matches the border, but neither matches the text.  It works fine if you don’t use “Allow Curved Text”.

 

Workarounds:
… add two spaces before the start of “L=….” in the Contents row.  This will take care of the border overlapping the “L”, but unfortunately, does not address the extra masking being added at the end of the text.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052813 
Submitted By: TommieR
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2007?
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 SP2: Still reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still reproducible.

Point label style arrowheads don’t work through xrefs

1. Create a new drawing from the acad.dwt drawing template.
2. Set the annotation scale to 1″=40′.
3. Place some points manually.
4. Drag the labels of the points so that the leader arrowhead is visible.
5. Create a new Point Label Style with the dragged state arrowhead set to origin indicator 2.
6. Change the Point Label Style of the manually placed points to the new Point Label style.
7. Save the drawing (Points-1.dwg).
8. Create a second drawing from the acad.dwt drawing template.
9. Save the drawing as (Sheet-1.dwg).
10. Set the annotation scale to 1″ = 40′.
11. Overlay the first drawing (Points-1.dwg) into the second drawing.
12. Zoom extents and view the arrowheads.

The arrowheads revert to closed filled when viewed in the xref drawing (Sheet-1.dwg), but are still origin indicator 2 in the original drawing (Points-1.dwg). 

Workaround:
The current work-around is to use the origin indicator 2 as the marker style but that leaves a gap between the end of the leader and the marker.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3618052864
Status as of Civil 3D 2008 SP2: Still reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: (unknown)

3gb switch breaks map-image-insert for georeferenced raster images

1.  Take a computer with 4GB RAM.
2.  Start the OS with the /3GB switch enabled *
3.  Start Civil 3D 2008
4.  Map-Image-Insert
5.  Select a tiff with a world file attached, or a SID file
6.  Let the error messages begin…

Note – this behavior also takes place when using x64 Windows (which doesn’t require the /3GB switch) as noted on “Civil 3D for Beginners”

 

Workaround:
Either don’t use /3gb switch with the OS or use Raster Design to insert georeferenced raster files.  Alternately, you can try to use the Add Raster Image or Surface Connection from the Map Task Pane.

Autodesk Service Request: SR#:1-3608470203
First Appeared: Civil 3D 2008?
Status as of Civil 3D 2009: Still Reproducible.
Status as of Civil 3D 2010: Resolved