I find working on drawings on Projectwise so painful. Drawings take ages to open, they freeze when you do something just a little demanding (like changing viewport scale) and it can end up taking about 2 hours to do something that should take 30 mins.

Especially bad when using civil 3D, even if I restrict our surfaces/pipelines to 100m lengths.

Are there any tips to help PW and CAD work a bit faster together?

Hello,

I am relatively new to Autcad and am having difficulty with the trim tool in mline.

Trim is not working to trim intersecting lines and is instead removing the entire mline or is just showing the not allowed symbol and is not allowing me to do anything. I have tried changing edge mode, but it has not worked.

Does anyone have any advice? I have used the trim tool with mline before, so I am very confused.

Computer Specs

i7-1065G7
Intel Iris Plus Graphics G7
16GB RAM
1TB NVME SSD

In my college course in the UK, my course requires that I use AutoCAD for drawings and stuff. I haven't even drawn anything yet, and my laptop is at 90% RAM usage. Is this normal? How do I fix it?

(I am using AutoCAD 2027)

I was a software developer and product manager in IT for 35+ years before getting laid off earlier this year.

I have zero experience with AutoCAD but I have a friend in a small company who uses it for designing HVAC systems into industrial buildings and he is suggesting that I interview for an opening.

So, the question is, how hard would it be for a 50-something IT guy to learn AutoCAD for construction?

Wallstyles- cannot get interior lines to be consistent

The outside edge of my walls display as Linetype A (thick). Great. That’s what I want. For the layers within the wall assembly, I’d like my linetype to be “B” (thin line)

For some reason, only one side of my wall shows the inner layer as linetype B. The other side still displays and prints the interior line as the thicker line type A.

How do I get my wall styles to consistently show interior layers of the assembly as the thinner linetype, leaving only the outside edges to be the thicker linetype? This view might help.

I haven't run into this before...

I have some layers defined in an xref with a linetype of DASHED2. they are sprinkler zone boundaries on a floor plan. However, there are a few objects on those layers that I've manually set to linetype CONTINUOUS (e.g. leaders for the zone labels) but they are showing as DASHED2 (or by layer) in the main drawing and when I pring.

I have VISRETAIN set to 1 although I don't know that that has anything to do with it. I've had it set this way for years so I can for example use my floor plan as a key plan by manipulating layers in viewports and not having to make a separate drawing.

For now I've been working around this by making an additional layer with a linetype of CONTINUOUS for each such layer. This is a pain in the butt however and I've never had to do this before. I am running AutoCAD 2026.

Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for a mechanical engineer or experienced designer who can help design an integrated gearbox wheel for a mobile robot.

This is a paid project, and I'm looking for someone with experience in:

• Mechanical design and CAD modeling

• Gearbox design and gear mechanisms

• Robotics or mobile robot drive systems

• Design for manufacturing (DFM)

The goal is to develop a functional and manufacturable design that integrates the gearbox directly into the wheel assembly.

If you have relevant experience or know someone who might be a good fit, please feel free to comment or send me a DM.

Thanks!

I am working on building some blocks for work and I'm trying to get it setup so the attribute text inside the block flips to read right side up and left to right when rotated.

I can only seem to find tutorials on how to set the text to always stay horizontal but I cant seem to figure out how to just have the text be oriented correctly when the block is rotated. I want the text to stay contained inside the block so the automatic rotation to horizontal unfortunately doesn't work in this case. Any direction would be massively appreciated.

Screenshot of the block

how can i create a lisp or macro to fill in the chart to the right so i dont have to hit spacebar everytime? and click the 2 points everytime? will provide the cad file if someone wants to help me out
https://kommodo.ai/i/QyGDuK7sMyDqECwk7Wwx

What’s the best way to use line weight as a new starter and going forward after this .. which colours for what thickness etc .. - Many thanks 🤩

Looking for anything older version (2012 or so) that I can get standalone. The monthly fee is stupid, seemingly for any year made. Not a student, a retired educator, used it all the time, but my last version ate it and now I can't reload it. Im not looking for cracks. They dont work anyway. I see some places selling "fully licensed" older versions but who am I to trust?

I am using AutoCAD LT 2026. I received a drawing from a surveyor who created the drawing of the building, steps, roadway, and other objects, that all scaled perfectly. ( I scaled the drawing by 12 to work in architectural scale). He created the spot elevations and the contours in another program.

The Spot elevations and the contours will scale with the document, but as soon as I close the drawing or start a command, the spot elevations go back to their original scale, which is in decimal.

He told me to download object enablers, which I did. I also closed out AutoCAD and restarted Autocad. Nothing happened; those objects remained at the original scale they were created.

Is there a fix for this? I need baby steps, as I have read the forums and the AutoCAD tutorial, and it is obvious I am missing something. I have been using AutoCAD since release 13, so I'm not a beginner but clearly not doing something right.

Thank you in advance.Question

I'm dipping my toes in the AI waters lately, something I've largely avoided. So far I've been using Autodesk Assistant inside Autocad and it's fairly impressive for what it can do as a built-in tool, but it pretty much only extracts data and can't really change geometry or change attribute values as far as I can tell. It's also persistently struggling with architectural dimensions (it admitted it was "error prone") which is wild.

I'm looking into a Claude Pro subscription and using an MCP to interface with Autocad, has anyone tried out the commonly available ones and landed on a good one? Autom8Labs seems the most promising, but it's paid and I haven't found a ton of reviews. Autocad-mcp is an open source one, but the security disclaimer about the http connection point makes me nervous. "This tool is more dangerous than most MCP servers..." from their github.

Right now my aim is a first round check on my shop drawings to make sure detail callouts, section callouts, elevations, etc are all correct. I can tell already that I've got some work ahead of me to make my drawings better structured, which is good whether I use AI or not. I've dabbled in C# plugins as well, so it'll be interesting to see what I can do with an assist from Claude.

As the title says, I am looking at buying the ThinkPad P14s Gen6 Intel laptop for my CAD work (Part Number: 21QT0023US) but before pulling the trigger, I just wanted to check here to see if anyone had had an experience with this laptop before dropping $3600 on it.

I currently use a ThinkPad X1 Carbon for CAD and it crashes any time I try to create a header or add images into my CAD files. I work primarily in 2D CAD creating race paddock layouts over satellite images for our truck parking, fan zone layout, etc. Our leadership has asked for the appearance of these to become more aesthetically pleasing which means more processing power. Will this laptop be up to the task? Is there a better fit for this kind of work?

Edit: I use two external monitors and an external mouse and keyboard. I do need it to be a laptop though because I travel a lot for work (never work in CAD on the road though.)

Hello everyone. We have a problem at the office that we haven't been able to solve, and I’m confident that someone here can provide the expert advice we need—a simple "do this"—to point us in the right direction. Here is the issue:

We have a site plan that we all access and work on; however, the .tif image (which is 7.6 GB in size) embedded within it only displays on one of the 10 PCs in our studio. On all the other machines, it appears as "Unreadable" in the XREF (external reference) section.

The file is correctly referenced as an XREF and is located in the right folder—we work with XREFs constantly, so we know the proper procedure. Besides, if we didn't know how to do it, the image wouldn't even load on the one PC where it *does* appear.

We all work from files stored on our NAS, so it’s not a case of the image loading because it’s saved on a local hard drive—our setup is identical across all machines.

We’ve tried detaching and re-attaching the file, restarting the software, creating new files, and setting up new folders, but nothing works.

For instance, the other day I needed to make some changes to the site plan, and to see the underlying image, I had to move to the only PC that displays it. This is quite frustrating, as I’d much rather work from my own AutoCAD setup on my own PC—where I have my own custom commands and established workflow, which makes me much more efficient.

I would be very grateful for any help in resolving this. Please be as clear and specific as possible when suggesting solutions!

\​

Recently updated to LT 2027, now background masks of mtexts are not showing as background color but instead as layer color in XREFs, same color as the text inside the mtext.

This behavior is new after update, and only in XREFs.

If I turn off xrefoverride, then the mtext background masks behave normally and show as background color.

I do need xtefoverrides to control colors of other layers so I cannot turn it off.

Also, when plotting, using Acroplot, the background masks shows as they should and blend into the background and not the color of the text.

Anyone experience this and know the cause?

Thank you

Recently updated to LT 2027, now background masks of mtexts are not showing as background color but instead as layer color in XREFs, same color as the text inside the mtext.

This behavior is new after update, and only in XREFs.

If I turn off xrefoverride, then the mtext background masks behave normally and show as background color.

I do need xtefoverrides to control colors of other layers so I cannot turn it off.

Also, when plotting, using Acroplot, the background masks shows as they should and blend into the background and not the color of the text.

Anyone experience this and know the cause?

Thank you

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Really, guys? In the year of our lord, 2026, this is the best MFA you can come up with?

I work as a Blaster (or Shot Firer) and am looking to move laterally from my career path into something else.

I use AutoCAD LT at my job and have good experience with it. I predominantly design blast patterns and export points to put into a GPS so that it can be marked in the field for drillers. I mostly only use the basic tools and have about 5 years of experience.

I've always enjoyed using AutoCAD and doing our designs for the blast patterns. I'm looking to slide away from the trades life.

Would moving laterally into Drafting make sense with my experience level? Looking for some guidance as going back to school isnt doable for me.

Anyone running AutoCAD (LT) 2027 on mac OS 27 without any problems?

I need to upgrade to Mac OS 27 for other software, but I simply can’t afford AutoCAD not working.

I got a degree and certificate in CAD but it was 15 years ago so I've been diving into tutorials and projects to get my skills back. HOWEVER, the software is quite expensive (as y'all know). Is there a way to get either a long term trial or (dare I say) an affordable and safe version of AutoCAD.

Is there a fix to this bug?

Drawn in model space, I have a table created to be viewed in a paper space viewport at 1:20. There are blocks with attributes inserted into cells and set with a scale of 20. File saved and closed.

I'll open the file later and randomly some of those blocks will now have their scale set to 1.

Other than redoing the table so that it's supposed to be viewed at the scale of 1:1^1, is there something that can prevent this?

¹ The reason we don't create the table at 1:1 scale is "tradition," and that is a very hard battle to fight. I'm working on it, but that final decision is the Lead's, not mine.

I am using a Lenovo legion 5 16IRX9 on windows 11.

Intel core i7-14700HX (2.10 GHz) CPU

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU

32 GB RAM

When it reboots it shows the error tdr failure 0x116 and sometimes error video memory management internal 0x10E.

The event viewer shows it as critical error kernel-power event ID 41.

I tried reinstalling the latest Nvidia drivers from the website. I've disabled hardware acceleration. Nothing seems to work. I have a similar problem on revit where it crashes but no reboot.

Any help is appreciated!

Hi All!

I am trying to assist someone who is creating a presentation that includes the Autocad dwgs I've created for them. But when I saw the final presentation ( Google docs ) the dwg's resolution is very bad. Very fuzzy and overall looks like crap!

I plot the dwg ( D size sheet ) to pdf ( file size = 2MB ) , then save as png ( in Acrobat Pro ) and give this to them to insert in their Google doc presentation. I think this is where things go off, as my png is crystal clear. The Google doc slides are 11 x 17 size.

I've tried to fix this by inserting them myself ( as a test ) and I get the same results.

What can I do on my side to eliminate the image resolution becoming bad? Or is this an issue with how GD processes them? I'm at a loss and would really like the dwgs to read well.

Thanks!

I'm a new first year mechanical engineering student. I was told that own laptops aren't absolutely necessary as theres shared computers for students at the uni but a laptop suitable for autodesk inventor and autocad in particular would be very helpful. Unfortunately Al isnt particularly helpful and contradicts itself. I have 2 options:

Asus tuf f16 core 5210h rtx 4050 16gb from cex in grade a condition with 5 year warranty for 520gbp/688usd

Lenovo LOQ ryzen 7 250 rtx 5060 16gb from retail store with 2 year warranty for 703gbp/930usd

Would like to get a tablet later on aswell for class, and i am unsure which one to choose: the cheaper asus hoping it'll be enough and worst case scenario, use the uni computers for more demanding projects in a couple years; or invest in something with more confidence?

Is the asus enough to run autocad/autodesk inventor during a 3.5year mech eng course or is it worth spending more on the lenovo?