Civil 3D Command Task Manager

[redtransitconsultants]

Have you ever worked on a complex drawing and made the fatal choice of running a command and selecting an object of considerable size? Like a 3D polyline with 30,000+ vertices?

Rather than having to CTRL ALT DEL and shut the entire program down with Windows Task Manager, it would be nice to have a command task manager where you can end a particular command that is attempting to process. I would guess this might be pretty difficult to do for Autodesk, but it would be great if there was a Task Manager for AutoCAD / Civil 3D.

There are times when working on complex drawings that you select the wrong type of object to work with and it freezes the software - eventually it will process but takes a considerable amount of time or doesn not process at all. Example is when attempting to trim a 3D polyline that came from the Minimum Distance Between Surfaces command but there are a number of others I've seen in the past.

I realize this could be something that would have to be built in from the AutoCAD side - not sure if it's even possible.

[Anonymous]

This is a great idea! I personally run into this problem almost daily. The ability to have an internal "Task Manager" within Autocad where a menu would give you the list of processing commands and then give you the opportunity to close the commands that are stalled, would greatly increase productivity and time management while eliminating down time waiting for your drawing to process commands.    

[srksphillips]

Can you do the of the following please?

• Include a timeout limit - forcing it to cancel after hitting the timed limit
• A cancel function (Escape key rarely works)
• A hatch processing boundary limit e.g. visible bounds or draw a polygon to limit the processing area
• Fix the HATCH command - getting tired of it trying to analyse everything!

[ChrisRS]

I agree,but:
I think that you are suggesting an improvement to a core AutoCAD functionality, not a Civil 3D functionality.

This is a forum for Civil 3D Ideas. It is very unlikely that the core AutoCAD team will ever see this thread, much less react or respond to it. I have been told by active, respected forum participants, with high badge levels, that the Civil 3D Ideas Forum is monitored by the Civil 3D team; I will accept this on faith as I have seen absolutely no evidence of any monitoring over the last several years. 

Your idea is better suited to the nonexistent core AutoCAD Ideas Forum.

Unfortunately, ADESK chooses to depend on the external AUGI Wish List (https://www.augi.com/wish-list) for AutoCAD ideas. I find the AUGI Wish List system to be unnecessarily complicated, at best.

Alternately, you can you can post an idea in the ADESK Product Feedback page. (https://www.autodesk.com/company/contact-us/product-feedback)

I have been told that all feedback posts are at least read by an Autodesker. 

[ChrisRS]

I agree,but:
I think that you are suggesting an improvement to a core AutoCAD functionality, not a Civil 3D functionality.

This is a forum for Civil 3D Ideas. It is very unlikely that the core AutoCAD team will ever see this thread, much less react or respond to it. I have been told by active, respected forum participants, with high badge levels, that the Civil 3D Ideas Forum is monitored by the Civil 3D team; I will accept this on faith as I have seen absolutely no evidence of any monitoring over the last several years. 

Your idea is better suited to the nonexistent core AutoCAD Ideas Forum.

Unfortunately, ADESK chooses to depend on the external AUGI Wish List (https://www.augi.com/wish-list) for AutoCAD ideas. I find the AUGI Wish List system to be unnecessarily complicated, at best.

Alternately, you can you can post an idea in the ADESK Product Feedback page. (https://www.autodesk.com/company/contact-us/product-feedback)

I have been told that all feedback posts are at least read by an Autodesker. 

[CurtisClarkCA]

Yup, brilliant.

I don't know if it needs to be a task manager or maybe just a simple button to interrupt/cancel (with option to revert) the currently running command (because there is never more than one running at the same time, correct?). A convenient way to do this would be a huge help!

[Anonymous]

As I write this I am waiting for what should be a simple feature line offset command to complete or maybe, based on the fan noise from my graphics card, for my computer to turn into a drone and take off.  I have no idea if the command is actually making any progress or it is stuck in a loop and will never complete. 

If there were a little bar that at least showed if the command is making any progress or it is just repeating to itself some error code over and over again and will never finish would be very useful.  This could be something as simple as detecting if the same thread is stuck in a loop that has repeated 50 times or something.  

With this, although this idea has been floated before with varying amounts of support, a button/key combo to stop the command in progress and return to the state prior to starting the command.  Clearly the state is already saved by autocad, as ctrl z would do it if it could break out of the loop.  I have heard that the issue is that this would require commands to continuously poll for that key press but I do not see how that makes any sense.  Does autocad really not have an interrupt feature in its API?

[gofastmonkey]

YES! I have wanted this for years! Please implement. So much wasted time "wondering" if CAD is working or frozen.

[Anonymous]

This would be AMAZING!

as someone who went from using primarily vanilla Autocad, to almost exclusively using Civil3D, a big part of the learning curve was identifying which  C3D commands will take a long time to execute,  why they are taking a long time, and how to streamline the workflow when files get large and complex. 

sometimes if you forget to save for a while and then you execute a command that may takes hours to complete (or just not work at all and crash the software) - you end up having to force-close the software and just accept the lose of progress.

[ziar25]

Hi,

Please develop an option to cancel some commands when they process data. 

For instance, when I create a grading with automatic surface creation, Civil 3D process data so long (it depends on complexity of my feature lines), that I want to cancel the command. Sometimes I don't know if C3D crashes or it still processes data. Adding remaining time to finish process data would be helpful as well.

Regards,

Wojciech Ziarek

[sgoodrichWS3Q5]

I agree that a kill switch is needed.  The idea that 100 MB is to large a file is interesting.  After 35 years the number of large files autocad could handle without locking up has gotten smaller.  It does to much anticipating to your actions and making things up.  The osnap is a function I have used since 1984 and it worked great except not it will sometimes not turn off as it should.  layers are ignored for snapping to end points at time or the time it take disgusting.  I always tell my students, when I have taught,  I have lost years to autocad and it eats its children.  But not to worry as I was told by John Beaver once "we don't have to worry about the way you older engineers do things.  Yous till die soon."  So don't ask I have been told by AutoDesk consultants there are work a-rounds  for most things.

Computers are a help but as dump as a light switch.

The old Control -C which was changed to EXCape.  I think the big problem is the operating systems.  To much when it is not necessary.

Steven Goodrich, P.E.

[peter_thomson]

...and we have been asking for this for at least the last 10 years.
Don't hold your breath, it won't be good for your continued health.

[bshaner]

10 years later and I would still love a solution for this!!!