A strange mix of AutoCAD, music, image manipulation and video

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30 January 2009 at 10:19 am

Ask Autodesk a question

If you had a real live Autodesk development person standing in front of you right now (an AutoCAD Product Manager, for example) and were allowed to ask one question, what would it be?

Please add a comment here with your question. I would ask that you keep your question civil and reasonably concise (one or two sentences), and bear in mind that the development person in front of you isn’t going to have a useful answer to policy questions about pricing, license agreements, customer service and so on. Other than that, anything goes, so let’s have ‘em.

I can’t promise that your question will get answered, but I’ll see what I can do.

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17
  • Chris Cowgill
    9:41 pm on January 30th, 2009 1

    This is a tough one Steve, its difficult to come up with one good question.

    With the current release cycle being so short, has anyone considered suspending a new release for a time, to spend an entire release cycle working on improving/restoring functionality of existing features and fixing bugs, why, or why not?

  • Matt Stachoni
    11:00 am on January 31st, 2009 2

    Why haven’t the latest Subscription Bonus Packs been released for AutoCAD Architecture Subscription customers?

  • Earl Kubaskie
    1:36 pm on January 31st, 2009 3

    I would ask why there seems to be so little cooperation between the development teams. Vanilla, Map 3D, Civil 3D, each seem to be separate little empires. ACA might be in there, too, but I don’t use it, and thus I don’t apply for the betas.

    I would think that closer interaction (and consolidation of beta testing teams) would smooth out the process – and maybe help get Matt his wish re bonus packs.

    My wish, too, as we have all Map 3D and Civil 3D seats. You’re far from alone, Matt!

  • metis
    5:27 am on February 3rd, 2009 4

    why is program size increasing and performance dramatically decreasing as hardware specs dramatically increase? as features “improve” and are added functionality should not be removed, and code should be streamlined.

    seriously aren’t there any real programmers out there anymore? this thing isn’t written in java by a bunch of scriptkiddies (although 2009 sure is skinned like it was).

  • ANTHONY J. MANGIARELLI
    1:13 am on April 23rd, 2009 5

    As I had to release my draftsman I am going to dhave to do my own drafting and am having a problem with labels. The label for a line with
    bearing and distance putS the distance to 3 decimal places and the bearing to hundreths of a second. In this jurisdiction the agencies want
    the distances to the nearest hundreth and the bearings to the nearest
    second. How do I chane the styles for bearing and distance to accomplish
    this. I have several tutorials about lagel styles but none of them
    get to this problem. I figure it is a sssimple task but I don’t seem to
    be able to find a solution. Having lost an experenced draftsam really
    puts a drain on my time.

    thank you for any help you can afford me

    A. J. MANGIARELLI

  • Victor
    6:53 am on April 23rd, 2009 6

    I’m using AutoCAD 2005 and can’t figure out how to get hatch pattern that I found on the internet and are .pat file into AutoCAD to use! How is this done?

    My comment is that I think it’s great if blog and question sityes like this really work. This is my first time using one. I feel like a virgin all over again!

  • Steve Johnson
    9:09 am on April 23rd, 2009 7

    The purpose of this post was to get some questions that I could put direct to an Autodesk product manager on my then-forthcoming trip to San Francisco. However, I’ll have a go at answering these.

    Anthony, it depends on exactly what you’re using to put your labels in place. Maybe check out the Units and Dimstyle commands and change the units settings in there.

    Victor, you need to put your .pat files where AutoCAD can find them. Use the Options command’s Files tab to look at your Support File Search Path; you can add your own paths in there and use that for these files if you wish. Once AutoCAD can find them, use the Hatch command, pick the … button next to Pattern, then use the Custom tab. Your patterns should be visible in there.

  • mark
    3:50 pm on April 23rd, 2009 8

    can we have an efficient 1 step tool for offsetting data in XREF files?
    When setting out road markings i need to be able to offset the road edges in the highway engineers highway XREF, similarly when setting out highway drainage i need to do the same.

  • mark
    3:56 pm on April 23rd, 2009 9

    can users be given the following 3 options of how PDF files are named when published from AutoCAD:

    DWG Filename – Layout name.pdf
    DWG Filename.pdf
    Layout name.pdf

    It is standard practice for clients to request a DWG and PDF file of each drawing and these files are required to be named as per the drawing number. This simple request is currently un achievable with AutoCAD.

  • mark
    4:06 pm on April 23rd, 2009 10

    can we have the abbility to include predefined standard annotative scales to block definitions.

    For example i know my borehole plans will be printed at 1:100, 1:500 and 1:1000 so i should be able to add these annotative scales to my borehole block definition so that when users place this block the annotative scales are already defined, you should not have to add the annotative scales after placing the block.

  • mark
    4:14 pm on April 23rd, 2009 11

    we need away of identifying what area each area field is measuring.

    there is currently no association between the area field text and the shape(s) it is measuring which is very dangerous.

  • mark
    4:19 pm on April 23rd, 2009 12

    can we have a more automated and flexible PURGE tool a la Microstations compress tool where the user can define what gets purged each time a file is saved. At the moment with AutoCAD you can only purge all (which is not actually all) or 1 item at a time.

  • mark
    4:26 pm on April 23rd, 2009 13

    in the sheet set manager it would be nice to be able to fill in the true sheet title in the sheet title area. this is currently not possible due to the restriction of special characters i.e.
    TOWER 1, 2 AND 3 FLOOR PLAN is not allowed due to the ,

  • mark
    1:04 pm on April 24th, 2009 14

    it would be nice to be able to change the colour, linetype and lineweight of all data contained on a layer regardless of whether those elements we drawn by layer.

    the current by layer approach forces users to create multiple layers for the same data simply to diferentiate line thickness i.e.

    wall 0.5mm thick or wall foreground
    wall 0.25mm thick or wall background

    a wall is a wall and users should be able to put all walls on a single layer but use different line thickness/colour for different walls but still be able to change all elements on that layer to a different line thickness / colour when referenced for various scenarious.

  • James Bloom
    8:40 am on April 26th, 2009 15

    I have A version of Autocad 2007 I think it’s a network version. IT KEEPS COMING UP with Network License invalid or server down and throws me out of the program. Is there any way to fix this problem?.

  • CAD bloke
    3:59 pm on June 16th, 2009 16

    Do you test any UX changes with experienced users. Do you test the UX at all. … Then why do you keep breaking it?

  • Joe Barone
    1:43 am on February 27th, 2010 17

    How do you apply fill colors on a diagram?

 

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