MAP2006 Service Pack and New DWG Viewer from Autodesk

From the MAP General Discussion Forum: MAP 3D 2006 Service Pack

In a continuing effort to provide high-quality products, Autodesk has released Autodesk Map 3D 2006 Service Pack 1, which includes fixes or addresses issues for Autodesk Map 3D 2006.http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=5967985&linkID=2786655

The following is a list of features affected by this service pack:

• Connecting to ArcSDE
• External Databases
• Display Manager
• Globalization
• Topology
• Import/Export
• Query
• Oracle
• Performance
• Image
• Civil 3D

Regards,Tom Bradley - Autodesk ISD Product Support

http://forums.augi.com/forumdisplay.php?f=70

From the CAD Manager's Discussion Forum: DWG Viewer

http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=428602

Some users are reporting that they have gotten press releases from their local resellers announcing a new free DWG viewer from Autodesk. But, there is nothing on Autodesk's site, or any official announcements so far.

Printing only a portion of a pdf from Acrobat Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader (verified on versions 6, 7, 8 & 9) tips for printing a portion of a pdf page.

Typically, if I only wanted to print a portion of a page, I would use the 'Snapshot' tool to capture an image of the desired area and paste it into another program for printing (such as photo editor or a word processor).

But! did you know that you can use the 'Snapshot' tool (under Tools > Select and Zoom) to capture part of the page then, when you pull up the print dialog, you will see under the 'Print Range' group, the option for 'Selected Graphic' (not normally available in the dialog box). 

You can then choose 'None' for 'Page Scaling' or expand the selection to 'Fit to Paper', depending on your needs.

This does NOT work for the 'Select Text' tool.

Also, from Adobe Standard 6 Help:
To convert each image in an Adobe PDF document to an image file format:

1. Choose Advanced & Export All Images.
2. In the Export All Images As dialog box, choose the image type for Save as Type (Windows) or Format (Mac OS).By default, the source filename is used as the filename with the image file type appended.
3. Click Settings.
4. In the Save As Settings dialog box, select the conversion, color management, and file settings for the file type. (See Converting to JPEG or JPEG2000 format, Converting to PNG format, and Converting to TIFF format.)
5. For Exclude Images Smaller Than, select the smallest size of image to be extracted. Select No Limit to extract all images.
6. Click OK, and in the 'Export All Images As' dialog box, click 'Save' or 'OK'.

RENAME? What's that?

Alright, after 10 years of using Autocad, I KNOW I don't know everything, but, man, sometimes you're just surprised with something and go 'how could I NOT know about that yet?!?!'
Well, big news, it happened to me (yet again). 


I wanted to rename an existing block, and used the help file (always the first course of action), but no joy searching for block & rename. So, I posted a statement/question on one of the discussion groups that I belong to. I was advised about 'save as', alright, no surprise there... but, then, Rick M mentioned the Rename command.

Now, there is something new! I refuse to believe that I'm the only person who hadn't heard of this, so, go ahead and try it!

neat commands and upgrading...

BURST is used to Explode blocks with attributes. But, unlike explode, it will convert attribute values to their text equivalent (rather than to the attribute's prompt). Also, this command does not explode plines into lines or mtext to text.

In the right-click menu in MAP 3D 2006, when you have an object selected you can choose to 'select similar' objects to save you a lot of time picking by hand. This isn't ideal for every situation but has saved me loads of time. 

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=25652

Autodesk looking for 2002 to 2006 stories

I haven't been on since I got back from my trip, just have to say that I had a lovely time and it couldn't have gone any better. London and Dublin and the surrounding areas are really neat places. Enjoyed the people, the architecture, the food and, believe it or not, the weather. It was perfect the entire time I was there.