The H-Factor

Changing the Color of Nested Objects Within Blocks

Thanks to John Hulett of Western States Fire Protection for handing over this tip.

Many times background drawings have large blocks contained of many elements, and those elements may have many different colors. How to get them all to be the same color you might ask. Or linetypes

1. Pick the Change to ByLayer command from the AutoCAD Modify pulldown menu

-or-

2. Pick the Set to ByLayer button on the Home tab/Modify panel from the ribbon menu

-or-

3. Type in SETBYLAYER

Then select the objects to change. Then enter Y when asked to change ByBlock to Bylayer. Lastly, enter Y if you want to include blocks.

My crystal ball say that I forsee adding a button to access this on our Clean up Backgrounds toolbar in a future update.

How to Specify Elevations for Multiple Floors

From a Customer: "Is there a way to set multiple floor elevations in 3D so the elevation tags and ceiling hts will be set correct from each floor elevation?"

Yes (you didn't expect me to say no, did you?). Using the Structure Elevations (TOS) command from the Steel toolbar (or Elevate ribbon panel) use the Floor Elevation button to specify this. You can even use it to compensate for those structures where the top of steel elevation is adjusted + or - for the joists

Multi-Core Processors and AutoCAD

I'll get right to the point  - AutoCAD does not support dual or multi-core processors. So, if you go out and buy a machine with eight-cores, you will be going as fast as a single-core machine for the most part.

If the software is not written to take advantage of multiple cores, then it does not matter how many of them you have. From Autodesk's website on the matter: Support for multi-core processors with AutoCAD:

"Issue

You are using a computer with a multi-core processor, and you have noticed that the acad.exe process does not use 100% of your available CPU resources. You want to know if AutoCAD supports multi-core processors.

Solution

AutoCAD only supports multi-core technology in a couple of very specific areas of the product, including:

• 2D regeneration
• MentalRay rendering

In order to fully benefit from multi-core processors, you need to use multi-threaded software and AutoCAD is predominatley a single-threaded application.

A CPU-intensive operation that uses 100% of the resources of a single-core processor will only use a maximum of 50% of the CPU for that same operation on a dual-core computer, and only 6% of each CPU on a 16-core computer. This is shown in the following image:

Due to the lack of multi-threading, AutoCAD is not capable of using more than 50% of the CPU on a dual-core computer, so there is no significant performance gain over a single CPU computer except for the areas noted above."

Converting a Background Drawing into a HydraCAD Drawing

These instructions assume that the drawing in question already has sprinklers defined and/or piping drawn.

1. Start new drawing using one of our templates
2. Insert the background drawing
3. Define one HydraCAD sprinkler for each sprinkler in the background drawing
4. Insert one of each of these heads some on the drawing that is easy to get to
5. Use Change Block (CHB) to replace existing sprinklers with HydraCAD sprinklers, one for one. Use the Change Circle option if that is how the heads are drawn. Otherwise, use Change Block. The current version of HydraCAD (V50/51.7 Rev 4 will match the scale of the existing heads
6. If the background piping is constructed of Polylines, exlpode them to turn them into lines
7. Isolate the piping layer and put the branch lines in SPRKDAT2 and the mains in SPRKDAT1. Underground goes into SPRKDAT3. Use Match Properties if you find that handy
8. If the mains do not end at each line intersection, use Automain (AUM) to break them up. No gaps can be left between pipes
9. Connect the sprinkler heads to the branch lines using grips, if necessary. No gaps can be left between pipes or between heads and pipes
10. Add elevations
11. Run Checkups from the Calculations toolbar (HCH) to look for and correct drawing errors
12. Go to 3D and look for errors

If you are on the support plan, we can often help you figure out what to do with a background that you would like to convert. Just let us know.