CAD

[Forrest Phillips]

Hello,

I wanted to ask CAD users, do you have any tips/advice? Does anyone use AutoCAD? Maybe you have a configuration file you could recommend to me.

I'm planning on practicing some CAD work with the quadstick. Already done some, and I've made a configuration file with a couple changes to my usual. I'm planning on trying out using AutoCAD with the quadstick and Talon. With Talon I can just say "Sun quench" to type in "sq" if I wanted to draw a square or something using the command line or even just "say square" and it would type in "square". I feel like Talon would work really well with the AutoCAD command line to a point I wouldn't even really need to do much with my quadstick current configuration file. It would just be point-and-click. But I wonder if there are quadstick settings that help with that as well. Right now I'm trying to tweak settings to ride the line between going too slow and going too fast with my sensitivity. I really don't like having to move the joystick around too much.

Let me know what you all think.

[brober86]

I bought a student version of SolidWorks to design a set of Speaker shelves for my TV stand & had them fabricated locally.

Because I use a SmartNav I just used my mouse to perform most functions and used an On Screen Keyboard (OSK) when I needed to use Shift or CTRL etc.

I know this isn't the most efficient way to use the software (if I was using it on a daily basis I would definitely create a custom script with shortcuts).

As far as sensitivity goes I'm not sure if I have any solutions (as it's very subjective).

I think the use of voice recognition & a custom script is a good starting point though.

I've made a custom mouse profile that I have set as default, I'm sure you could do something similar with separate Tabs for different versions of CAD.

[Fred Davison]

Talon looks pretty neat:  https://talonvoice.com/

If I was starting a config for a PC program, I'd start with a Mouse2 Reference Card:

and start planning what commands the program uses the most frequently and place those around the center of the card.

AutoHotKey can be used to expand Ctrl/Alt/Key outputs issued from the Quadstick into more text for the ACAD command line.  A lot of ACAD commands are single letters anyway.

Looking at an ACAD keyboard commands list:

https://www.autodesk.com/shortcuts/autocad

You could map a lot of those commands into a quadstick spreadsheet.

With a three hole mouthpiece, there are six hole combinations, single hole, or pair of holes, or all three holes, times sip vs puff times hard vs soft, for four basic signals per hole, gives 24 discrete signals.  If you combine that with short vs long (tap/delay_on), that goes up to 48, theoretically,

That ACAD keyboard card has 34 (I think) commands.

The problem I would have is to remember all that.  Probably it would be best to pick the most frequently used dozen or so commands to map to the mouthpiece, then use voice for the rest, or special mode sheets for specific situations.

Regarding the mouse sensitivity, play around with the three response curves (0=linear, 1=mixed, 2=parabolic).  Parabolic can allow you to slow down the response with small deflections and speed it up for larger ones.  Windows and ACAD also have their own mouse pointer controls, and they are probably assuming a linear response for the raw mouse input.

[Forrest Phillips]

Wow, you are awesome Fred. That is some really good advice. To be honest, for some reason, even though I use the tap/delay on the center mouthpiece for increment notice/right-click, the thought never occurred to me that I could just do that on like basically every switch input and double the different signals.

I think you are right though, it will be best to just focus on the stuff that I use the most. I'm thinking I might try something weird like having the basic stuff (click, escape, enter, etc.) like the standard mouse 2 on the 1st mode, and then make mode 2 common commands. That way I have the usual controls in my 1st mode, and I don't really have to think much about it until I switch modes and prompt my mind to reference those commands that I can learn.

And I honestly didn't know about the response curves for the mouse. That's really cool. I need to try the parabolic. Thank you so much!

[Forrest Phillips]

Hey Fred, by the way, is there a way I could set it up so different modes on the same configuration file have different sensitivities to the joystick so that I can switch modes and slow down the cursor a bit?

[Fred Davison]

You can do that.  Mouse speed is one on the preference settings that can be set on a mode sheet.

http://quadstick.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/user_manual/um/preferences.htm

Add a row like this:

mouse_speed, normal, 50

Play around with the number to get a speed you like.

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[Forrest Phillips]

Awesome. Thanks, I will have to try that.

[Forrest Phillips]

 Oh, and thanks brober86, I didn't see your message until now for some reason.