Hip tip: Increasing view resolution with VIEWRES system variable
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Author | Orhan Toker |
| Profession | Architect M.Sc. | |
| Autodesk Authorized Consultant | ||
| Database Specialist | ||
All AutoCAD versions
Dear friends,
As you all know, Autocad is a vector based graphics software. That means, all objects are processed as vectors. During this process, curves are sometimes seen as fractured lines.
Fig.1 Fractured circle
This problem is usually solved by typing REGEN command. But it sometimes continues. We can utilize system variables to get rid of this situation. VIEWRES system varible is one of these. Viewing quality can be improved by means of this command.
Command: _viewres
Do you want fast zooms? [Yes/No] <Y>:
Enter circle zoom percent (1-20000) <7>: 8000
Regenerating model.
The default value for this variable is 2000. Yet, a value like 8000 is much better as stonger graphic cards are now in the market. As typing this command, AutoCAD automatically regenerates the drawing and you can see the curves are now smoother.
Hope this hip is useful,
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January 7th, 2008 21:57
Dear Mr. Toker,
The issue of VIEWRES is one of my my pet peeves. This relic of a command was necessary in the slow early days of computing… I remember these days well, as I started wuth AutoCAD 1.2. However, these days of much higher speed computers, and 128MB or 256MB video cards (or more), VIEWRES is quite useless a concept anymore. Take a large, dense, complicated site plan with tons of contours and curviture… set VIEWRES to 100 and do a time benchmark on a regen, then crank it all the way up to 20000 and time the regen, virtually no difference, if detectable at all.
AutoCAD, for the longest time, automatically defaulted to a low VIEWRES of 100 (way to low for most site and architectural work), then starting I believe with AutoCAD 2004 made the default value 1000, better but oftentimes still too low. Sadly, it’s also quirky being one of the few “system variables” that cannot be set using a (setvar [function]) in Autolisp upon drawing start-up, and requires the clunky execution of the command and stumble through a useless prompt.
Then, the most amazing part is, that Autodesk refused to update this command, to remove the non-functional “Do you want fast zooms” prompt, which AutoCAD help will tell you doesn’t do anything anymore, regardless of how you answer, they only keep that part in there for legacy scripts!!!!! This prompt hasn’t been useful for more than a decade, yet they keep this “unsuppressible” prompt in there for the chance that someone might have a 1K script file, which anyone can edit in a few seconds if the command behavior did change. They’ve changed the behavior and prompt sequence on hundreds of commands through the various releases, why do they have onto this useless relic is beyond me? The reasons are unfathonable to me.
Did you know, by the way, that a low VIEWRES setting can also suppress the appearance of a linetype… yes, it’s true. In supporting about 200 CAD users at my company, I’ve seen cases where the “match line” that had a “border” linetype, or other linetypes used, failed to display the linetype pattern because VIEWRES was set to 100. Cranking VIEWRES up resolved the linetype display problem.
Autodesk should make VIEWRES a standard SYSVAR, addressible directly from lisp, without the irrelevant fast zoom prompt, and default to a high setting. The usefulness of VIEWRES expired more than a decade ago, or more.
January 16th, 2008 17:56
Mark,
You are correct-amundo about Viewres. Drives you crazy, doesn’t it? I set mine for 20,000 and leave it.
Next on the pet peeve list: AutoCAD’s retar er, mentally challenged List command. For example, if a line’s color is bylayer, why doesn’t List tell you the color anyway? No, you have to play Sherlock Holmes and go to the Layer dialog and look up the layer. I certainly can’t tell the difference between colors 2 and 50. Same for linetypes. Also, when I list a polyline, I usually don’t care to step through all the vertices. I want layer, color, linetype, length and perhaps number of vertices.
I’ve written a fast command line lister, that also works with buried xref objects. The regular List returns “Xref….” Yes, but what if I want something within it? The nested lister in Express Tools exists, but it’s pretty skimpy.
Email me; I’ll give you the LISP lister if you want. Until then, happy CADing.
Skyler Mills
smills maguiregroup.com
February 10th, 2008 18:21
Dear Mr Toker,
Do you know any free dwg viewer programs that support VIEWRES ? I need to show dwg files without autocad but I can’t find any viewer that supports viewres.
/Ruben