4K and Touch Screens, Part Two: is AutCAD/LT up to the task?

In our last post we discussed the new trend of 4K High-res displays and how they work in Windows 8.1. We continue with our review with hands-on use of AutoCAD/LT 215 and see if there have been any improvements with it and the use of Touchscreens.

Touchscreens

With the retirement of my last full Windows 7 touch screen tablet due to fading battery life, it was time to purchase a replacement. My criteria have not changed: modest screen size (no larger than 13") so I can use it in tight spots like airplane trays, job site shelving/sheet-rock stacks, overall light weight, long battery life, Windows 8.1, USB3 ports, built-in keyboard that can disappear when I don't need it (AutoCAD is still very keyboard-centric), and equipped with a high speed processor: light weight and small power brick if possible would be a bonus.

A 2-in-1 360-degree rotating keyboard laptop quickly became the ideal choice for me. A full laptop that could be converted easily to a tablet without the need to keep track of additional loose peripherals is going to be what I needed. After some effort reading reviews and trying out many units at computer stores and trade shows, I chose the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, equipped with the latest generation Intel mobile processor, a High Res display, 512GB SSD harddrive, thin, light weight, long battery life, and a great built-in keyboard that tucks away. Unlike the Surface Pro and other Tablet-only mobile PCs, the keyboard is solid, built-in, not a plastic cover "Bluetooth" that doesn't work in your lap or while standing with it in your hands. It flips away when I only need to use the device in Tablet/Touch mode.

The experience you’ll have is all about the size of the High Res/4K display and how your computer’s operating system can deal with it. For example, if you have a small High Res Display like that on the Microsoft Surface Pro or this Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, everything will be extremely tiny on it. You’ll fit a lot of content on the screen, but at the cost of barely being able to read any of it — only if you get up close and squint.
Windows OS and many applications offer a variety of tweaks to make life better on the higher-resolution displays popping up on High-Res laptops and tablets. These features help fix the problem of tiny interface elements, making them appear larger — but still sharper than they’d look on a lower-resolution display. Windows 8.1 Update has the best scaling features of any version of Windows yet, and even it isn’t perfect. Many applications — even Microsoft’s own applications included with Windows — look blurry when they’re blown up to appear larger on a high-resolution display.

AutoCAD/LT is one program that offers little to help fix this problem. Here is a screenshot of AutoCAD/LT2015 running on my Lenovo without any 3rd party fixes, click on it to enlarge so you can see the issues:

This TIP here helped fix AutoCAD/LT, click to this image to expand and compare with the one above:

Besides fixing the text and icon sizes, it also made everything in AutoCAD/LT a little 'bigger' and kind of robbed me of some screen real estate. AutoCAD/LT also complains on startup that the screen display settings are below it's minimum requirements when it's obviously not:

Since this is not a laptop/tablet used for production, these limitations do not bother me as much but it does illustrate the need for Microsoft, in conjunction with Autodesk, to address this display issue urgently and in more detail. Microsoft does offer tips to address these limitations for Surface Pro users, but based on reports and feedback posted online to date these also appear to be partial measures.

AutoCAD/LT Usage

So how does AutoCAD/LT 2015 work? As good as it did on my previous Windows 7 Tablet: average use time on battery is over 2.5 hours with a mix of AutoCAD, MSOffice and light Illustrator/Photoshop use while I'm on site, in a car or on a plane. AutoCAD still is not designed for touchscreens, even with the added "Touch Select Mode" button that appears only on touchscreen-equipped computers/laptops. Zooming, Panning and Moving objects is similar to my previous experiences with tablets, but this time being able to have a full time keyboard at the ready simply speeds up drafting immensely. Right-Clicking is a chore on touchscreens using your fingers, and precision drafting/moving/copying is all but impossible with a finger unless yours as the size of a child's. I use a stylus equipped with a small rubber tip to navigate and draft in AutoCAD: the Ribbon makes touch-use easier to do, but if you are an AutoCAD user still stuck on classic toolbars/buttons and pulldown menus your frustration level will escalate rapidly and may help turn your tablet into a free-flying frisbee sooner than you wish or can afford.

Here is how to simulate the use of a tablet PC on your desktop PC, so you can understand personally what the challenges I mentioned above are:

• Move your keyboard out of reach. Really, out of reach.
• tape up/do not use the mouse right-click button: if you have a scroll wheel you can use it, it will replace a touchscreen's easy zoom in/out and pan ability.
• Now use AutoCAD to draft your next half-dozen tasks in your file.
• Every time you need to use the keyboard, move the keyboard to type, and as soon as you hit move it back out of reach before you continue on screen.
• Repeat working like this for 15-30 minutes.
• Now raise your hand if you still want a Tablet without a built-on hardware keyboard.

Do you use a Windows OS Tablet like the Microsoft Surface Pro with AutoCAD? What's been your experience? Leave a comment. ◦

4K and Touch Screens, Part Two: is AutCAD/LT up to the task?

4K and Touch Screens: is AutoCAD/LT ready for both?

Three years ago I wrote about my experience with AutoCAD/LT with my first ever full Windows Tablet HERE. How have things changed with Windows 8.1, new touchscreens, high-res monitors and more?

4K displays

The allure of these, especially for CAD users, is strong: more pixels, content designed for 4K look almost impossibly crisp; games and CAD programs hardly need anti-aliasing because the “jaggies” between pixels become almost unnoticeable; and fonts are rendered as if they were printed on paper and then stuck behind the screen. A better experience overall, right?

The Challenge for computer monitors: when a 4K television is sent a source with a resolution below its native resolution, it will use a scaling algorithm to compensate for the difference. HDTV makers have spent a lot of time researching the best way to accomplish this, and televisions ship with respectably quick processors (usually based on ARM architecture) to deliver fast, high-quality scaling.
Computer monitors have no such hardware, and just do what they’re told by the video card and the operating system. If a program says its main menu should be 500 pixels tall, you’re getting a menu that’s 500 pixels tall. So, as pixel count increases, that menu becomes smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until it’s so small it can hardly be used.

Microsoft has responded to this issue with a variety of features, including built-in scaling and font calibration, but the pace of the company’s response has fallen behind the advance of technology. How?

PC Gamer offered the best explanation HERE.
Jamie and Adam went a little further at CES and posted this more detailed review HERE.

Think you are immune using an Apple MAC? Read THIS for an honest review.

What does this mean for AutoCAD/LT2015 users: tiny icons, oddly displayed text sizes at the commandline, and more. Click on this screenshot to see the problems in more detail.

While the real fix needs to come from Microsoft and Autodesk (and almost every other software manufacturer who's software you use), the tip HERE seems to work well for me for many software (including AutoCAD) on my 4K monitor.

4K isn’t even the latest new thing anymore. Some manufacturers are now pushing “5K” monitors with an even higher resolution: Apple sells an iMac with a 5K display designed to be a 4K monitor with screen space allocated for application toolbars and tools.

Touch Screens

With the market full of interesting full Windows OS capable and seriously portable devices such as Microsoft's Surface Pro Tablet, along with offering HP, Dell and Lenovo to name a few, the attraction to be fully mobile with AutoCAD is hard to resist.

Follow us in our next post as we review if AutoCAD/LT can be useful on these devices. ◦

4K and Touch Screens: is AutoCAD/LT ready for both?

AutoCAD/LT and Touchscreens

You've seen those large touch-screens on the high budget flashy news shows, where the host, using one or more fingers on one or more hands to delight and amaze us with this visual mastery. You may have also seen the demonstration from Autodesk on youtube for the very impressive Multitouch Computing Labs demonstration (http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/multitouch/).

So how about the current Windows 7's Slate touchscreen computers (or the newly announced Microsoft Surface Tablet)?

I use the Samsung Series 7 Slate: unlike the iPad (or insert-your-favorite-Android-slate-here), this is a full operating system (Windows 7 64-bit). The Series 7 sports a 400 nit, 11.6-inch capacitive panel (1366 x 768 resolution), Intel's 1.6GHz Core i5-2467M CPU with integrated graphics, a 128GB SSD and 4GB of RAM. Connectivity comes courtesy of 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, plus there's a USB 2.0 port and a micro HDMI socket (and cameras front and rear with light sensor). While not as smooth and universally responsive as what we've come to expect on the iPad, the iPad (and Droid-slate) can't launch a full copy of Excel or Work or Photoshop or CAD (for better or worse). Windows 8 promises to trim the fat and bulk from Windows 7 and offer better touch-screen experiences.

So how does AutoCAD/LT fair on the Tablet PC/Slate? I installed LT 2013 and took it to a job site for the last few weeks for some real world testing. Battery life was good: just under three hours jumping between MSOffice applications, AutoCAD, Evernote for Windows (the best multi-platform notes taker), and when Wifi was available (finding a power outlet to recharge is so much easier) I added web access to the mix from DropBox access to FTP site access and more (and access to my desktop remotely).

What Works

• Pinch zoom works whether you are in a command or have no command running: place two fingers on the screen simultaneously, bring together to zoom in, move apart to zoom out.
• Pan without activating that command: place two fingers on screen simultaneously then drag in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
• Deselect objects by reselecting one of them and holding for one second. Dropping an item from a selection set still requires a keyboard or menu selection.
• Take advantage of an AutoCAD feature: MOVE command does not need to be active in order to move objects. Simply make a selection, the click/hold and drag the object(s) to the new location.
• Floating commandline just gets in the way on a touchscreen: dock it.
• Right-clicking on my screen is triggered in two ways: touch the screen with one finger and hold for a second (does not work in AutoCAD/LT), or touch the screen with one finger and tap close by with a second finger (works well in AutoCAD/LT).

Observed Limitations

• Running Osnaps are critical. It takes too long to set any other way.
• Forget keyboard shortcuts.
• Ribbon shines over the "classic" interface of pulldown menus and toolbars.
• Customization of the Ribbon through CUI command is critical: you have to compensate for a lack of a keyboard if you are a power user.
• Keep that screen touch-pen that came with your device real close: sometimes precision selection require more finesse than an adult finger can offer.
• Don't avoid Zooming in and out more often than you would on a desktop.
• Use that USB keyboard (vs onscreen keyboard) every chance you get: AutoCAD is tethered to the command line more than you think.

Opinion

I prefer access to my DWG files in AutoCAD/LT over any viewer running on a lightweight status-symbol "pad" toy. Same with my other "office" work files. While great for collaboration, I find Cloud-based Cad tools like AutoCADWS limiting with their need for an Internet connection.

By the same token, touch-screen is not practical for production work: keyboard entry is still very critical to AutoCAD/LT even with the advent of the Ribbon. And I truly miss convenient right-clicking. So, hang on to that laptop (and mouse) for longer than you wished.

AutoCAD/LT (and Microstation for that matter) require a lot of information to be entered via the keyboard so that would restrict the use of a tablet PC. On screen keyboards are just too slow. The CAD software is just not there for true touchscreen keyboard-free use.

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AutoCAD/LT and Touchscreens