AutoCAD 2012: GIS/Pipeline People to Breathe a Sigh of Relief with Enhanced Raster File Support

If you have ever worked with heavy raster images in AutoCAD, you know very well how painful the experience is. Especially for those people working with huge aerial / satellite imagery, it is nearly impossible to use TIF image format to represent a large area due to huge image file size. This is why compressed image formats like ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet), MrSID (Multiresolution Seamless Image Database) etc. are highly popular among these people.

The compressed images files are comparatively very small in size and are easy to handle inside AutoCAD drawings. These images required additional installation of plug-ins/object enablers prior to AutoCAD release 2012. The good news is that from 2012 onwards, these file formats are natively supported in AutoCAD, thereby requiring no additional installations. Here is a complete list of newly supported raster files.

A Simple Macro for Switching Between Rectangular and Isometric Snaps

Have you had the habit of working on isometric drawings frequently? I do a lot of isometric drawings during my work. While doing these drawings, you may need to switch between rectangular and isometric snaps several times. Here is a simple macro to easily switch between these snap modes.

^C^C_setvar;SNAPSTYL;$M=$(if,$(=,$(getvar,SNAPSTYL),0),1,0)

I found a similar macro commented by Kate Morrical in her own blog LT Unlimited. Here goes Kate's version.

$M=$(if,$(=,$(getvar,SNAPSTYL),1),SNAPSTYL;0;;,SNAPSTYL;1;;)

Thanks Kate, for the handy macro.