[OR] Civil AccuDraw - Looking for the Definitive Guide to Civil AccuDraw

Years ago, when I saw the first release of PowerDraft 95 with the initial release of AccuDraw, I was immediately hooked. Until I got my hands on it. Then, all I ended up was frustrated. Then along come Keith Little at a local users group. Bing, bang, boom - I 'm really hooked now. A few days later, frustration returns. Thankfully, about a year later, Keith returns and after the meeting, I pull him aside and relate my enthusiasm and frustration. I ask him for the secret to getting accustom to AccuDraw and he tells me to keep it open for a full month. And of course, his handouts consisting of key pages from his guides were a critical part of my ultimate success.

So now, here we are many years later and sadly, Keith has gone on to the great CAD room in the sky. So is there some extensive guide to Civil AccuDraw? I am recognizing my current frustration with it as a kind of blast from the past. I find myself trying to use regular shortcuts and end up with regular AccuDraw open along with Civil AccuDraw.

And I could use a tip sheet for working with some of the heads up tools. - Sometimes I manage to lock a setting and cannot seem to unlock it. And sometimes, even after locking it, the values seem to still change.

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  • Here are three tips that will help make you successful:
    1. Be very aware of which field has focus. Civil Accudraw does not manage this the same way as ms accudraw.
    2. The shortcut keys are same as ms accudraw but behave subtly different. Example: RE rotates compass to an element in both, but civil accudraw requires a pick instead of just hover.
    3. For offsets from alignment, CA actually tries to help too much. It tries to infer plus or minus by cursor position which fights against you sometimes. So, make sure your cursor is on correct side of road when entering offset value.

    Robert Garrett
    Senior Consultant

    www.envisioncad.com

  • I'm having real issues with Shortcuts. The ones I try all seem to reopen the regular AccuDraw and do not work with Civil AccuDraw.
    I have to use the toolbar that assigns shortcuts, which for some, requires an extra data point and often, the prompt does not accurately reflect that step in the workflow.
    I'm a big user of the O, N, I, Enter, RQ, T, V. And the really need to make focus work consistent across all tools.
    I might even prefer to turn off the heads-up display and use the tool settings dialog box.

    Charles (Chuck) Rheault
    CADD Manager

    MDOT State Highway Administration

    • MicroStation user since IGDS, InRoads user since TDP.
    • AutoCAD, Land Desktop and Civil 3D, off and on since 1996
  • Unknown said:
    I might even prefer to turn off the heads-up display and use the tool settings dialog box.

    I have my F6 assigned to execute "civilcoord switch mode" to switch between heads-up and the civil accudraw window. Fortunately, it switches between them without affecting whatever tool you're in the process of sending inputs to.

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