C3D general questions

[Anonymous]

I’ve got a bunch of question that maybe someone can help me with:

How do I turn off snapping on xref files, so it only snaps to my active file?

When I hover over an element from an xref, it only says External File and Layer 0. How do I see the xref name and layer that specific element is on (other than NCOPY it to my active drawing)?

Is there a way I can Undo without undoing the viewing operations? I know I can combine zoom and pan commands, but it is still thoroughly annoying.

Is there any way I can stop my arcs from turning into a bunch of tangents without regening?  I’ve tried the arc smoothness options and regenauto is turned on.

Civil3d 2012-SP1

Windows 7-64bit

HP Z400, 16GB ram, NVIDIA Quadro 4000

[Neilw_05]

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How do I turn off snapping on xref files, so it only snaps to my active file?

That is a Microstation feature. It is not available in Autocad.

When I hover over an element from an xref, it only says External File and Layer 0. How do I see the xref name and layer that specific element is on (other than NCOPY it to my active drawing)?

Again, Microstation feature. Autocad NA. You can use the XLIST command to get some info on the element but it doesn't work on nested XREFs or blocks.

Is there a way I can Undo without undoing the viewing operations? I know I can combine zoom and pan commands, but it is still thoroughly annoying.

Again, Microstation, Autocad NA

Is there any way I can stop my arcs from turning into a bunch of tangents without regening?  I’ve tried the arc smoothness options and regenauto is turned on.

Arcs will become tesselated when zooming in from a large to small scale. I believe Autocad does not automatically refresh the arcs to improve performance. Type RE (=Regen) to refresh the graphics.

[Anonymous]

When I hover over an element from an xref, it only says External File and Layer 0. How do I see the xref name and layer that specific element is on (other than NCOPY it to my active drawing)?

I use the command "-xlist" to get this information.  Just type the command and then the object you want more information on.

Is there any way I can stop my arcs from turning into a bunch of tangents without regening?  I’ve tried the arc smoothness options and regenauto is turned on.

I agreen with Neil on that. I use regen a lot. It's used so much I like having it mapped to F12. 

Good luck!

[Jeff_M]

With Viewres set to 10000-20000 I rarely notice much tesselation.

[Anonymous]

Thanks.  I was afraid that the response would be there is no Autocad functionality for some of these things.  I don't need to start another MS vs ACAD thread (maybe another day)...there is enough of that already...I'm really just trying to learn what makes this program work the best.

The xlist command is helpful.  The viewres doesn't seem to affect the arcs after I rotate my view in 3d, it still appears as a bunch of tangents until I regen though.

One other question, whenever I use any of the wizards and want to repeat it with slightly different settings, I have to type in all of the information again on every page.  Is there any way for c3d to remember what you just last typed in, so you don't have to repeat it every time?

[owenmull]

Spacebar will repeat the previous command.

If you turn Dynamic Input on, that can help you find tools and commands much quicker, when you don't know them by heart.

[Jeff_M]

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@Anonymous wrote:

One other question, whenever I use any of the wizards and want to repeat it with slightly different settings, I have to type in all of the information again on every page.  Is there any way for c3d to remember what you just last typed in, so you don't have to repeat it every time?

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You can have C3D save the settings entered for a command automatically by setting this:

But, this can actually be a 'Bad Thing' with some/many commands. There was a blog post about this a few years ago, perhaps by Dana Probert, which explained some of these 'Bad Things'.

[Anonymous]

If anyone knows what these "bad things" may be, please let me know. But so far, this is exactly what I was looking for.  Thank you.

[Jeff_M]

I probably should have used the term "undesireable things", not "bad things". I searched for the post I was recalling but could not find it. Perhaps it's more of a "once you get settings pretty much to your liking, turn off the automatic saving of command settings". 

And now that I think some more about it, I think I was linking this to the use of * for layer name suffixes under the ObjectLayers settings.