While I was unable to get a blog post put together last week, I did manage to finish developing a course on Annotative Scaling for my firms internal training program. One nifty discovery I came across in developing the course was the variable ANNOTATIVEDWG. So what exactly does this guy do?
Quite simply – it makes an entire drawing annotative. For companies whose block libraries are organized into a series of DWG files, this new variable is rather cool. By opening those block drawings, and changing the ANNOTATIVEDWG variable from 0 to 1, the entire drawing becomes annotative. Now whenever you insert that drawing into another as a block, its block definition will be Annotative.
A couple things to know about the ANNOTATIVEDWG variable. First it can only be set to 1 if you do not have any other annotative objects in your drawing. Once AutoCAD detects annotative objects in your drawing it makes the variable read-only, and thus unchangeable by the user. Secondly, AutoCAD ignores the INSUNITS setting when a drawing whose ANNOTATIVEDWG variable has been set to 1 is being inserted into a drawing.
So if insunits is ignored when annotativedwg is set to 1. Does that mean that those of us that draw some projects in metric units and some projects in imperial units require us to maintain two separate sets of blocks?
I guess I do not have a good enough grasp on annotative issues to realize the significance or ramifications of making a whole drawing annotative as opposed to creating annotative objects in a drawing. I think the ability to set a whole drawing annotative in mostly applicable to simple “block” drawings rather than production sheet drawings but I’m not yet clear if this is accurate. I’m still trying to find a tutorial or article to fill in my understanding on the whole annotative issue; specifically information that covers “best practices” concepts, and details that help me understand how and when to apply various annotative options.
I’m with you Richard regarding the “best practices” concepts!! Have you found a tutorial which explains annotative objects?? If you have could you post it, I’ve been searching for awhile now for info on this subject and as of yet haven’t found anything which truly explains from start to finish.
Vicky – Personally I would not suggest enabling the ANNOTATIVEDWG variable unless the DWG is to be used as a block. For instance many companies have 1 DWG file for each of their standard blocks. If that’s your company, than the ANNOTATIVDWG may help you out. If not, I’d stay away.
Great posting. This is great for symbols like property corners\monumentation in LDT 2008. As annotative blocks they scale per viewport! Something we have been looking at for years!
You’ve been kicked (a good thing) – Trackback from CadKicks.com
http://www.cadkicks.com/adkautocad/Make_an_Entire_DWG_Annotative
I don’t know the Annotative options are going to help you too much. AutoCAD 2007 did of course see a lot of new 3D features. On a side note it may be worth taking a look at the Autodesk Labs. They have their upcoming Inventor LT available as a free download. Inventor is specifically aimed at the Mechanical industry.
I am mechanical engineer and I need ad.autocad help speacially in mould making and 3D making