BITS AND PIECES

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BITS AND PIECES

Postby Dent Cermak » Mon Aug 15, 2011 8:50 pm

As I have worked with Carlson Survey 2010 and have somehow managed to fix a problem or find a new way to do something, I write it down. At my age I will not remember it the next time I hit the problem. Thus this list is for me to refer back to. I'm sure the folks that have been using Carlson for sometime already know this stuff, but maybe it can be of help to the other new users like me. Hope so anyway.

(Note that this is mainly for the office drafters use.)


CARLSON BITS & PIECES




EXCEL FILES IN CARLSON

To import an Excel file into a Carlson drawing, type “pastespec” on the command line. To change the table format, type “_tablestyle” on the command line.


CARLSON ARCS

Carlson has many ways to draw arcs. Unfortunately, they left out the most commonly used one, “Start, End, Direction”. To use this style in Carlson, enter “_arc” at the command line and follow the prompts.


CARLSON QUADRANT AND ANGLE CODES

1=Northeast
2=Southeast
3=Southwest
4=Northwest
5=North Azimuth
6=angle left
7=angle right
8=deflection angle to the left
9=deflection angle to the right


DIMENSION STYLES

Type “dimstyle” on the command line to reset your dimension styles to deg-min-sec, etc.


MBUTTONPAN

To be able to use the popup snap menu in Carlson, like “mbuttonpan” does in AutoCad, go to the “SETTINGS” pull down and scroll down to “MOUSE CLICK SETTINGS”.


ERASE ALL POINTS

To erase all points in a drawing, type ALL on the command line. (No need to do Numbers, 1-9999).


POINT GROUPS

A descriptor setup can be coded to go to multiple point groups. Add the group identifiers separated by a comma.


PDMODE

Always be sure to set pdmode=0. (This prevents the unassigned point nodes all along your line work.)


LINE AND CURVE TABLES

To generate a line and curve table along a continuous polyline, go to ”ANNOTATION”, then down to “AUTO ANNOTATE”. Be sure to check the “always use line table” and the “always use curve table” boxes. Also be sure to check the numbers in the “Starting Table Number” boxes.


FLIP POLYLINE DIRECTION

EDIT/ POLYLINE UTILITIES/ REVERSE POLYLINE



POLYLINE DATA TABLE PRINTOUT

SURVEY/ POLYLINE TOOLS/ POLYLINE REPORT



SETVAR “FILEDIA”

Set to 1 (one) to turn on dialog boxes.


SETVAR “PLINEGEN”

Set to 1 to give even spaces on linetypes.


SURVEY POINT COLORS

If you find some colors make reading the survey point data difficult, those colors can be changed. Look and see which point style you are using, style 1 through 9. Then go to Program files/Carlson survey 2010/SupTemplate and look for file svpno1.dwg through svpno9.dwg. Open the appropriate drawing file and use the layer menu to change the color of each item.


QUICK KEY LIST

2DP=2DPolyline MI=Mirror
3DP=3DPolyline O=Osnap
A=Arc OF=Offest
AL=Align OP=Occupy Point
B=Block (create a block) P=Pan
BB-Bearing-Bearing Intersect PL=Polyline
BD=Bearing-Distance intersect PR=Properties
C=Circle PREF=Preferences
CH=Change Properties R=Redraw
DD-Distance-Distance Intersect RO=Rotate
DI=Distance SC=Scale
E=Erase SET=Set Environ. Variables
EA=Enter-Assign Point SS=Sideshot
EX-Extend ST-Style
F=Fillet T=Traverse
I=Inverse TR=Trim
L=Line VP=Viewport
LI=List W=WBlock
LP=Draw-Locate Point X=Explode
M=Move


QUICK KEY FIX


A fix for the Carlson Quick Key limitations has been developed. The SURV.pgp file needs to be added to all computers under:

C:/Documents and Settings/username/Application Data/Carlson Software/Carlson Survey 2010/R2010/enu/Support



This restores most of the regular AutoCad Hot Keys. However, the Carlson Quick keys over-ride any command conflict encountered. This will cause a few user adjustments:

br=break -t=mtext
co=copy (single insertion) n=regen
cp=copy (multiple insertion) x=explode (one item only)
-h=hatch _arc=arc/start,end,direction
bl=insert block w/dialog box(also –i) cg=change
d=dimstyle -i=insert block
q=Open Coordinate File ib=DDINSERT
ct=chgtxt ob=chgoblique
exp=explode(with crossing & window)


NEW QUICK KEYS FOR TEXT

TL………………….Text Line, Aligns text to selected line
TN…………………Text In, This replaces “drag and drop”
TOT……………….Text Out, allows text to be exported to Word as .txt file


ZOOM COMMAND QUICK KEYS

Z=Zoom
ZC=-Zoom Center
ZD=Zoom Dynamic
ZE=Zoom Extents
ZIN=Zoom In
ZOUT=Zoom Out
ZP=Zoom Previous
ZW=Zoom Window


NEW ZOOM STYLE

If you do not care for the new way Carlson does a zoom, you can reset this to the regular AutoCad style zoom. Type ”VTOPTIONS” on the command line. Uncheck the 2 boxes at the top of the pop-up menu.



TO GET RID OF THAT ANNOYING SHORTCUT MENU

It is often preferable to have the right mouse button set to repeat the last command from an edit feature or from the command line. Carlson prefers its shortcut menu.
Go under “SETTINGS”/”MOUSE BUTTON SETTINGS” and uncheck the bottom 2 boxes “Enable Edit Mode menus” and “Enable Command Mode Menus”.
This should fix the problem.

RESET BASE ANGLE

Right now there is a bug in Carlson 2010 Survey that sets the Base Angle to an odd setting whenever you use the Deed Writer function. When you finish with the Deed Writer, be sure to open the UNITS dialog box, click on the DIRECTION bar and reset the Base Angle to EAST.


COPY TO ANOTHER DRAWING

To copy details from one drawing to another, you do not have to use the WBLOCK function to create an insertable block. You can copy the details to the clipboard and then insert them into the second drawing.
Go to the “EDIT” tab, down to the “CLIPBOARD” line and select “Copy with base point” and follow the prompts.
Then open the second drawing and go to “EDIT”, then down to “CLIPBOARD” and select either “Paste” or “Paste to original coordinates” if appropriate.

RESCALING ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS

When you receive a drawing set to architectural units you will need to scale it down by 1/12th, converting inches to feet. At the SCALE command prompt, instead of entering 0.0833, enter 1/12. This fractional entry is more accurate because there is no “rounding off” of the value.

RESCALING ARCHITECTURAL UNITS BLOCKS

Sometimes when you insert a block from a new source, it comes in huge because its base units are set to inches. Instead of scaling the block down, go to the code for that block in the F2F code table and set the “Symbol Size Scaler” to 0.0833. If that is too small, adjust the scaler until you get what you want. All future insertions of that block will then be correct.


SPOT SHOTS ON 1”=30’ DRAWINGS

In order to place spot shots with the decimal point on the shot node, DO NOT use the Carlson Option “Elevations Only……..Place Decimal On node”. This option does not work. Instead use the ELEVATION ONLY option with the style set to “SPOT” and the text size set to 0.0600. Once the shots are imported, move from a base point of 0,0 to 0.02, -0.09. This will center the decimal point of the elevation on the node.



SPOT SHOTS CLARITY

On drawings with dense contours the spot shots tend to get lost. To fix this use the DISPLAY ORDER option to send all of the contours “to the rear”. This allows the spot shots to appear above the contours.


CALL OUT NUMBERS-ALTA/ACSM EXCEPTION IDENTIFIER NUMBERS

Under the DRAW menu is a selection called SEQUENTIAL NUMBERS. Use this option to create the Exception reference numbers in the drawing for consistency. Several shapes are available for the numbers. Create the identifiers once and copy to the locations to be identified.


LTSCALE LINETYPE SPACING

Sometimes a drawing will not display dashed line types properly regardless of the LTGEN or LTS settings. In this case, type SETVAR and then enter VIEWRES and set the value to 2,000. This should correct the problem.


TEXT ALIGNMENT

To align text to a line, go to DRAW, then TEXT, then select “TEXT ON LINE”. You can also use the Quick Key Command “TL” for the same result.

To align text that is already in place to a given line, go to EDIT, then go to TEXT, then select “ROTATE TEXT”, select option “E” for “Entity Segment”, then follow the prompts to pick the text, then to pick the line.
Dent Cermak
 
Posts: 486
Joined: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:54 pm
Location: Clinton, MS

Postby jhenning » Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:48 am

I have found another helpful tip to add to your potpourri of drafting aids.
When you perform an erase, move, rotate, or any command that is used to modify an object within a drawing, just after executing the command, type in options or any other character that autocad will not recognize as an invalid input which will result in the following:

Window/Last/Crossing/BOX/ALL/Fence/WPolygon/CPolygon/Group/Add/Remove/Multiple/Previous/Undo/AUto/SIngle

I find the fence, wpolygon, and cpolygon options to be most helpful.
Window polygon will only select items that are fully contained within the selection window and cpolygon will select anything within and crossing the selection window. Fence only selects what crosses the selection segments.
The major improvement of using these options vs pre-selecting features is that it allows you to perform irregular selections as opposed to a rectangular selection.
jhenning
 
Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Jan 03, 2010 1:09 am
Location: Fort Worth, Texas


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