Transitioning from 2d to 3d autocad drawings

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Introduction to AutoCAD 2009: 3 – Action Recorder


‘Action Recoder’ is one of the most attractive features of Autocad 2009. Macro recording function of Office programmes is brought to Autocad. This option did not mentioned earlier since the customization and improvement functions of Autocad is very strong and useful. Yet, software developers can not resist to user requests anymore and finally design the Action Recorder.

You can access the new feature from the first part of the Tools tab (Figure 1). Command:_ACTRECORD
Figure 1

You can record your repeating processes and use them again later. Let us now draw a square and record the process. Simply press the ‘Record’ button to start recording. Upon pressing the button, a small window comes up and a small red ball appears near the marker (Figure 2).
Figure 2

From now on everything done is being recorded. When a square with 300×300 units is drawn, the recording window should be the same with the one on Figure 3.
Figure 3

To stop recording press the ‘Stop’ button in the window and a menu window appears for naming and saving the recorded macro (Figure 4).
Figure 4

To discuss the details in the lower part , the most important point here is naming the macro in a way that it can be remembered easily later. Now, we have a recording ready to use however, it is nothing but a useless macro drawing squares again and again at the same point. Autodesk programmers surely be aware of this issue and improved a user-accessible mechanism. Let us take a closer look at the recording window (Figure 5).
Figure 5

As it can be seen, the start point of the square is recorded as absolute and the others are relatively. Thus, if the first point is set as a value given by the user, the rest will be run samely. It is very easy to do this. Simply right-click the first coordinate and select ‘Request user input’. The coordinate symbol changes immediately (Figure 6).
Figure 6

The only thing left to do is just running the macro. To do this, just press the ‘Play’ button located in the same window. The start point of the square is requested and the rest is done automatically. You can add messages to the list by right-clicking on the window and selecting ‘Insert user message…’. An annoying message appears like an error or something is occured J (Figure 7).
Figure 7

Messages can be responded as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. These can be very useful when you are using macros that draws multiple ojects.

0 comments:

  © Blogger template 'Perfection' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP