(Don’t) 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.

Note: comments are now closed, as this post keeps getting mistaken for an ongoing mechanism for asking Autodesk questions.

32 thoughts on “(Don’t) Ask Autodesk a question

  1. Chris Cowgill

    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?

  2. Matt Stachoni

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

  3. Earl Kubaskie

    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!

  4. metis

    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).

  5. ANTHONY J. MANGIARELLI

    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

  6. Victor

    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!

  7. Steve Johnson Post author

    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.

  8. mark

    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.

  9. mark

    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.

  10. mark

    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.

  11. mark

    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.

  12. mark

    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.

  13. mark

    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 ,

  14. mark

    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.

  15. James Bloom

    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?.

  16. Douglas De Mers

    Is there a way to auto set text size in model space, so that when printing from layout (paper) space the text is always the same size no mater what size paper you are printing from?

    I do drawings from as small a scale as a few inches to drawings many times larger then a football field, and scale the text in model space is a pain. I like solved this for awhile by doing all the text in paper space, but many times I must alter the direction and position of the drawing in model space, so paper space text becomes all squewed.

  17. Don

    I am working with Civil 3D 2011 and I want to set up my plan and profiles sheet so that when I do a profile it will come up with my company sheet and not the standard sheet with Autocad , How can I make my company sheet come in with the profile sheet .

  18. Akhilesh

    Somehow the model panel ( on the left of our sketch)in which we see parts and operations performed on model went away.How to retrieve it back? This is regarding Autodesk Inventor 2011.

  19. Steve Carlson

    Autocad 2010 – Quick Access Toolbar. Our company is finding that on some computers(all are OS=WIN7 – 64bit), when the designer clicks on the QAT open button, they experience a FATAL ERROR. This is consistent throughout the day, but very random with any drawing. As a workaround, we have had to turn the OPEN button off and asked the designers to use the old method.

    The old method being; drag the STANDARD toolbar up to the top left of the screen (blocking the QAT toolbar) and using the buttons on it instead.

    This has reduced our FATAL ERRORS to NONE. We are running CADWorx 2010 on top of AUTOCAD 2010.

    Please let me know if there is a patch or a solution for the QAT OPEN issue.

    1. Steve Johnson Post author

      Steve, you’re a couple of years too late with that question. 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. I’m afraid I know nothing about your QAT issue.

  20. Edward

    Hi i was wondering whether it is possible to draw a spline curve (the fit points option not the control vertices) through points which are already drawn. I was wondering whether you can select all the points at once and commanding a spline to be drawn through them rather than having to select the points one by one?
    Thanks a lot
    Regards
    Edward

  21. Eugene Boahene

    I need to have an extruded item be opaque when the hide command is used.
    Right now when I hit hide, the items beneath the extruded shows through, like transparent.
    I want the extruded counter to behave like a solid.
    Please help. Thanks.

  22. JT

    I opened a LDD file that our surveyor uses to make an addition with Civil 3D(2011) and now he can’t find the points data in his LDD. Is there any way to recover the points data in the drawing so it can be used in the older LDD format?

    Please help because I have one P.O.ed surveyor on my hands
    Thanks

  23. Soopida

    Hello, I’m working on a drawing that is empty in ModelSpace(AutoCAD 2012) even my Crosshair was not displayed , but there is many objects in LayOut view that has been drawn in ModelSpace. With “EXPORTLAYOUT” command, the drawing came to ModelSpace. But where is my 1st drawing in model Space? Any idea?
    Cheers, Soopida Tabib

  24. Soopida

    Hi, after using an old Lisp program that is protected & I do not access its source code, there is some temporary plus signs, that disappears with “REDRAW” ,“REGEN”, “ZOOM” or “PAN”.
    prior to AutoCAD 2012 with changing the “BLIPMODE” System Variable to “OFF” this problem had been fixed, but for now this command is obsolete. These marker Blips are annoying. Please let me know if there is any solution. Thank You
    Best Regards,
    Soopida Tabib

  25. Mafeer

    Hai,

    we are planning to buy a workstation for 3Ds Max and Maya rendering, somebody suggested Dell Precision T3500MT.

    Specs are below,
    Processor : One Intel Xeon W3565
    RAM : 12 GB
    Graphics : 1 GB NVIDIA Quadro 2000 1DP & 1DVI
    HDD : 1 TB

    Kindly tell me above specs enough to do work on 3Ds MAX and MAYA rendering ?

  26. m.iman

    recently my computer does not show the content of the .dwg files in thumbnail,how it may be activate?

  27. Steve Johnson Post author

    I’m closing comments on this long-dead subject. People don’t see the date and keep asking Autodesk questions that are never going to be answered.

Comments are closed.