AutoCAD crashing when cursor comes within vicinity of spline

[James.Head]

We have been experiencing several occurrences of both Autocad 2004 and Autocad 2004 LT crashing when the cursor is moved towards the vicinity of certain splines or objects which purport to require a “handler” in our drawings.

We have determined that the problem is not related to hardware or operating software since it is reproducible on all our seats, which use a variety of different versions of Windows and differing hardware: the Windows XP seats have been diligently sending off error reports to Autodesk whenever the problem occurs. Also, Autocad is patched up to the recent service pack on some of the machines, but not all.

Some of the drawings when opening say that an object handler is required for RTEXT and ATEXT, but none can be found on the Autodesk website. Can anybody point us in the direction where we can obtain these handlers?

Most of the drawings have been exported from a PDF file by loading the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator and saving as DWG or DXF format however some drawings have been newly created and only used with Autocad; but the majority have come from Illustrator. Using Illustrator, I’ve tried exploding compound lines and releasing clipping masks to see if that makes a difference but there is none.

Has anybody else experienced problems like this? Also, does anybody know what types or properties of splines might cause similar problems?

Many thanks,

Regards,

James

[Mike.Perry]

Hi James

Please note I've *moved* this Topic (Thread) from the CAD Management Software Forum to this one as I believe it would be better served here.

Thanks, Mike

Forum Moderator

[Mike.Perry]

Hi

Within AutoCAD 2004 are the Express Tools loaded (only ask as AText & RText both come from Express Tools)?

Is it feasible to convert the Splines to Polylines, just so you can see if that makes a difference.

Have you tried WBlocking out the drawings in an attempt to clean them up?

Have you run an Audit on the drawings?

Have a good one, Mike

[James.Head]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply, I used wblock to create an external block which I then opened, minus any RTEXT/ATEXT error messages, and which appears at present to be okay - thanks for the help.

You mentioned that the RTEXT and ATEXT are with the "express tools". I could not find any options within the Autocad 2004 LT installer for these tools so I'm guessing that these are Autocad 2004 full version only? Our setup is two full Autocad 2004 installations which are used for short-duration 3D work only, on free PCs whilst our individual PCs are Autocad 2004 LT (management decision to save money).

You mentioned converting splines to polylines; I checked the help file a little time ago to see if there was any way of doing this but could only find how to convert a spline-fit polyline into a true spline using the SPLINE command. How do you convert splines to polylines? I have exploded splines before but they've always remained as Splines as indicated in the properties attribute dialogue.

Sorry if some questions seem a bit like simple things: I have only been using Autocad for the past few months, without any "real" training except for a brief morning introduction by the previous engineer whose now left. I'm orginally from an Electronic/PCB CAD background and it's quite a challenge to start Autocad/mechanical drawings from scratch without any training!

Regards,

James

[Mike.Perry]

Hi

First things first, there is no need for the *sorry*, feel totally free to ask away here.

Yes you're correct that Express Tools are for AutoCAD (Full Version only) unless you buy some Third Party Software that enables ARX, LISP, VBA etc functions/routines to be run in AutoCAD LT.

Regarding converting a Spline to a Polyline check out the following thread -

offsetting a spline

Have a good one, Mike

[James.Head]

Thanks for the answers Mike - very helpful.

Regards,

James