Issue Using Home View for Thumbnail

[TwilightTumbler]

In AutoCAD Options on the Open and Save tab there is a Thumbnail Preview Settings button. I have selected to generate the thumbnail preview using the Home View. However, when saving a drawing, the thumbnail always displays the current view.

Can someone confirm that this setting works?

Any ideas of why it is not working for me?

• I set my homeview by right-clicking the house icon by the viewcube and selecting Set Current View as Home.
• I have searched for evidence that this option actually works for someone.
• I have restarted my computer after setting these options.
• I am running AutoCAD 2024.1.5

These are my complete Thumbnail Preview Settings (note that the displayed Home View shows the current view rather than the home view previously set):

[VincentSheehan]

Have you checked the UPDATETHUMBNAIL System Variable?

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2025/ENU/?guid=GUID-8DEFD44A-66B1-479E-9FBC-8ECADA03EFAC 

[TwilightTumbler]

Hi Vincent,

Yes, UPDATETHUMBNAIL is 15 (default). Also, as I tried to explain, the thumbnails are updated on Save, but they are not using the Home View.

[pendean]

Are you perhaps unaware that thumbnails only change after a DWG file is opened and saved? There is no retroactive setting that applies anywhere, not in AutoCAD anyway.

[TwilightTumbler]

No - I am aware. And again - I can see the thumbnail updating. It is just that it is not using the Home view for the thumbnail.

Could you let me know if this setting works for you? Can you have the system use the Home view for thumbnail generation even if you are in a different view when saving ?

[pendean]

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@TwilightTumbler wrote:

...Could you let me know if this setting works for you? ...

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We don't use thumbnails like you do here, it's never been reliable for anything other than a quick-check.

In some quick testing in AutoCAD2025, it seems to not work like you want it to do.

[TwilightTumbler]

I'm not sure what you mean by reliable, but an issue we see is that the thumbnail is generated with the current view when saving, which might be anything. It could be zoomed in on a detail or pointing away from the object of interest. By setting thumbnails to be generated using the Home view (which can be set for each drawing) we were hoping to make them more useful.

Thanks for confirming that this option seems not to do what at least I expect.

[pendean]

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@TwilightTumbler wrote:

...which might be anything. It could be zoomed in on a detail or pointing away from the object of interest....

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In the meantime... staff training (and resorting to LISP for casual users) usually resolves that decades-long issue for most of us.