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Home of the software formerly known as the:

AutoCAD Bonus Pack

Including other interesting bits of IRIX software...

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Frequently Asked Questions about SGI and AutoCAD:

* You'll need the Web Installation tools (tardist) to install this software.

GL Driver and Bonus Pack:

The optimized GL display driver for AutoCAD R13_c4 is included on Autodesk's AutoCAD R13 for Unix CD. There is a slight error in the AutoCAD Installation Performance Guide description of the driver installation process. The driver installation image is actually in the directory /opt/acad13/support/gldriver rather than /opt/acad13/drv/gldriver as described. The optimized GL display driver provides several advantages:

Included with the GL display driver are a number of other subsystems that serve to integrate AutoCAD into the Indigo Magic Desktop:

Download and install the latest version (3.44) of the GL Driver and Bonus Pack here. (1.4 Mb) *

* You'll need the Web Installation tools (tardist) to install this software.
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AutoCAD on XFS File Systems:

While AutoCAD itself runs very well on the new XFS file system, you may run into some difficulty when trying to install AutoCAD on large file systems, especially ones over 2 GB in size. Since the installation program is a 32-bit executable, it sees numbers over 2 GB (2^31) as negative, and thus improperly determines that there is insufficient disk space to complete the installation. There is an easy work-around for this problem in the 'ainstall' program:

ainstall work-around:

Instead of using the selection:

use the selection:

and then de-select one option in the Custom Install dialog box. For example, if you don't require the External Database Access (ASE) feature, click on the option button to its left to remove it from the installation list and select OK.

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AutoCAD License Server:

Autodesk uses the Elan License Manager (ELM) for all Unix platforms. ELM is a network licensing system that provides floating AutoCAD licenses. It is based on a client-server architecture, in which one (or more) license servers (running the ELM license daemon; ad_elmd) respond to license requests from one (or more) clients via a list specified by the ACADSERVER environment variable. Even in the trivial case of a single workstation, a license server and client process (AutoCAD in this case) are needed. Also, you should note that the ELM licenses work transparently across all the supported Unix platforms.

Here is an installable package to simplify the process of installing and configuring the R13 license server*. With the click of the mouse button, you'll install the license daemon, create all needed directories, network startup scripts, and even run the license administration program to generate your server ID to send you your dealer. It even creates a chkconfig flag for ad_elmd to allow you to easily turn the license daemon on and off easily.

Did you know that the R13 license server can be used with AutoCAD R12? You'll need to do two things to get this to work.

* You'll need the Web Installation tools (tardist) to install this software.

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Collaborative Engineering:

One of the primary benefits of AutoCAD on SGI is the ability to integrate the efforts of multiple people on a project with a variety of collaborative tools. This collaboration is available in many forms and you may find you'll need more than one technique depending on your situation at hand. These collaboration techniques range from live multi-user shared application sessions (X/TeleScreen) to live audio/video teleconferencing (InPerson) to store-and-forward drawing markup (Annotator) to the latest Web-based paradigm (OutBox and VRML) and that old standby; facsimile.

Below I'll relate my experiences with each of these technologies:

National Information Systems has a product called X/TeleScreen that allows you to share any X Window application, including AutoCAD. This allows you to have a true multi-user shared AutoCAD session.

Here's how I set up xtls to work with AutoCAD:

Set up the XTLSDIR environment variable and run the xtls program;

Due to it lower bandwidth requirements I recommend that you use the X/Motif display driver with XTLS. The GL driver will work between two (or more) SGI workstations, but unless you have a good network connection, you may find it to be slower in interactive operations, such as dragging, etc. I would recommend at least a single B-channel ISDN network connection for XTLS.

I have even tried a shared session to a PC running Windows and the Hummingbird eXceed/W X Window server.

Be sure to set up the eXceed server to provide backing store when requested.

If you are working with 3D AutoCAD models, you may also want to look into SGI's Annotator and InPerson products. Both are available from the SGI_TOOLS menu in AutoCAD under the Collaboration sub-menu.

Finally, you could also look into using the Mind Share OutBox web server that comes on all SGI systems. By exporting a VRML model from AutoCAD and placing it in your ~/public_html directory, your model is available for review over the Web.

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Print To Fax:

The SGI Tools menu includes a FAX item under the Collaboration section. This feature requires a few separate software packages. First, you'll nee the PostScript Utilities and the HylaFAX telecommunications software (below). In addition, you'll need to have the Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL) installed. On IRIX 5.x, this is an optional package that should be included on your IRIX execution CD. In IRIX 6.x, PERL is installed by default.

Here's a screen shot of the Print-to-FAX feature in operation.

* You'll need the Web Installation tools (tardist) to install this software.
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Third Party Solutions:

A number of interesting third-party applications exist for AutoCAD on SGI. Here's some that I know about:

If you run across any other interesting apps, please let me know via e-mail.
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CAD Resources:

If you run across any other interesting resources, please let me know via e-mail.
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[Last updated: 08.July.2018]