May 25, 2017

AutoCAD® 2018 Users Alert

If you have AutoCAD® 2018 or any vertical built on AutoCAD 2018 installed AND you installed the 2018.0.1 update during the short period of time that was available BUT have not yet installed the 2018.0.2 update, please do so immediately. The 2081.0.1 update included code from the pre-release Beta version that will cause the license to time out on June 1, 2017. Installing the 2018.0.2 update will remedy this situation. If you do not act, you will not be able to run AutoCAD 2018 on June 1.

How Can I Tell if I Have the 2018.0.1 Update Installed?
At the command line, type ABOUT and then press the ENTER key.
  • For AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT®, look at the Product Version line (the only one there).
  • For vertical products, such as AutoCAD® Architecture, pictured above, look at the Built on line.

If you see
  • O.49.0.0: You have the shipping version installed, without any updates. You are NOT impacted by the license timeout issue, however, it is recommended that you install the 2018.0.2 update to take advantage of the fixes contained therein.
  • O.61.0.0: You have the 2018.0.1 update installed, and you WILL BE AFFECTED by the license timeout. You do NOT need to uninstall anything, simply install the 2018.0.2 update. See the Autodesk Knowledge Network article link below for more information on the 2018.0.2 update.
  • O.72.0.0: You already have the 2018.0.2 update installed. You are NOT impacted by the license timeout issue and need do nothing further with regard to this.

The number of people who installed the 2018.0.1 update who have not already installed the 2018.0.2 update is expected to be small, but you do not want to be "that guy." Take a few moments to check your version now, and, if it is 0.61.0.0, install (or have whomever is in charge of updates install) the 2018.0.2 update now, and make June 1 just another Thursday.

This Autodesk Knowledge Network article gives an overview of what the update includes. If you never installed the 2018.0.1 update, no worries, the 2018.0.2 update includes those fixes, too. There are links at the bottom of the article to the full README for the updates, if you are interested in all of the details.

Read more about the 2018.0.1 Update issue in this article in the AutoCAD Blog.

Note: Should your version number be less than O.49.0.0, then you have a pre-release beta version installed. This will timeout on June 1, 2017. Your only recourse is to uninstall it and then to install the shipping version, if you are entitled to do so.

May 23, 2017

ACA: Wall Rotation Property

I came across a request today from someone who wanted to be able to set up a Display Theme based on the rotation of Walls, to graphically call out any that were close to, but not quite orthogonal. Rotation is not one of the automatic property sources for Walls, but it is a property of a Wall and that data can be extracted using a Formula property. The raw data is in radians, but you can apply the appropriate factor to covert that to degrees in the Formula property. Here are the formulas I created to make the Wall rotation value available as a property that could then be the basis of a Display Theme:

Radians
On Error Resume Next
Set acadApp = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application")
Set wallObj = acadApp.ActiveDocument.ObjectIDToObject( [ObjectID] )
RESULT = CDbl( wallObj.Rotation )

Degrees
On Error Resume Next
Set acadApp = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application")
Set wallObj = acadApp.ActiveDocument.ObjectIDToObject( [ObjectID] )
pi = 4 * Atn( 1.0 )
RESULT = CDbl( (wallObj.Rotation * 180.0) / pi)

In both cases, the formulas above assume that, in the same Property Set Definition, an automatic property called ObjectID has been added, referencing the ObjectID automatic property source. The reference to this property in the formula needs to be made by double clicking on that property in the lower left pane of the Formula Property Definition dialog, when creating the Formula property.

Please note that I have had issues with Formula properties that use the Set acadApp = GetObject(,"AutoCAD.Application") line to get the AutoCAD application object, when multiple versions of AutoCAD are open at the same time. Something to keep in mind, should you see Formula properties failing, particularly ones that had worked before. (I am not certain whether the same effect occurs if you have multiple instances of the same version running simultaneously; I rarely do that, but often have multiple versions running at the same time.)

May 21, 2017

ACA-AMEP 2018: ByLayer Values in Objects in External References

5/30/2017 UPDATE:
On 5/26/2017, AutoCAD® Architecture 2018.0.1 Update and AutoCAD® MEP 2018.0.1 Update (in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) were released, and are supposed to resolve this issue. I have not yet had an opportunity to install this to verify. You can read the full release notes here.


There is a bug in the 2018 release of AutoCAD® Architecture and AutoCAD® MEP that affects how the "ByLayer" property value of an AEC object in an external reference is being resolved. If a component is assigned to Layer 0 and then the Color, Linetype, Lineweight, Plot Style, etc. is set to ByLayer, the value assigned to the layer of the parent AEC object should be assigned. When the object is directly in the current file, that works. But if that file is externally referenced into another file, the property value of the layer of the external reference is assigned, rather than the property value of the layer of the parent AEC object. In the image below, the left side shows a Door that has been placed on a layer called A-Door-Demo. The visible components are assigned to Layer 0, with ByLayer Color and Linetype. Layer A-Door-Demo has Color set to 32 and Linetype set to HIDDEN2. On the right side, that file has been externally referenced into another file, and placed on a layer called A-Anno-Refr, which is set to Color 212 and Linetype Continuous. As you can see, the Door components have picked up the Color and Linetype from the layer on which the external reference is placed, not from the layer of the parent Door object.
The suggested workaround, changing "ByLayer" to "ByBlock" works, but would be a major undertaking if you have many components assigned to Layer 0 with ByLayer attributes. We will hold off on deploying 2018 until this is fixed.

As noted in this Autodesk Knowledge Network article, Autodesk is aware of the problem and working on a fix. Keep an eye on that article; I suspect that when a fix is released, the article will be updated to reflect that.