CMI Tools for AutoCAD

CMI Tools for AutoCAD (included as a free benefit for customers who purchase their Autodesk Subscription from CAD Masters) is a robust collection of custom utilities and productivity commands designed to extend the functionality of AutoCAD. With intuitive commands and a user-friendly interface, this powerful toolset will streamline your most tedious and repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus on design rather than process.

Key Features:

• Turbocharge Layer Management: Effortlessly create, filter, freeze, and transfer layers across layouts or drawings with a few simple clicks.
• Automate Routine Tasks: Stop wasting time on mundane processes like copying objects, creating multi-leaders, or updating title blocks. CMI Tools does it all with pinpoint accuracy.
• Drafting Helpers: Speed up annotations with dynamic multi-line leaders, create detail bubbles, automatically orient text, and more.
• Power Editing: Rapidly edit, stretch, trim, and extend geometry with enhanced grip tools. Quickly remove duplicate objects and purge unused data.
• Drawing Management: Easily insert or remove PDF underlays, bind external references, and publish drawings as PDFs with precision settings.

With CMI Tools, you’ll be able to breeze through projects faster than ever before while maintaining the highest standards of quality. Don’t let routine tasks slow you down – supercharge your AutoCAD productivity today with this game-changing, time-saving toolset.

Order CMI Tools for AutoCAD now and experience the true power of accelerated CAD design!

CMI Tools for AutoCAD Commands & Tools include:

View Full Documentation Here: CMI Tools for AutoCAD

PAVE-  Polyline Add Vertex. To run the command, you may type PAVE as a command or find the button highlighted in yellow below.
The PAVE command allows a user to add line and arc segments to either side of an existing polyline. It can also remove vertices from either side of an existing polyline.

L2P- Line to Polyline. L2P converts any number of selected lines—even just one–into polyline(s) in a single click. PEDIT is the built-in method that edits polylines (and can convert lines over), but it requires confirmation, takes one object at a time, and brings up a superfluous battery of editing tools. L2P is the faster, more streamlined option for the purpose of converting lines to polylines.

ERG- Elevation Range Gadget. The ERG command allows a user to select a group of polylines and analyze their elevations, calculating the average, median, and standard deviation (Circles may also be selected.)

X2P- Xplode to Polyline. X2P lets you explode polylines into polyline components instead of lines and arcs. This can be useful if you need to access the pieces individually, but you would like these pieces to maintain polyline properties such as width, thickness, or constant elevation. When grip editing regular lines, they snap to elevations of objects or to the drawing default elevation, potentially resulting in different elevations at different ends of the line. Thus, if we want to explode, grip edit, and snap, while maintaining a constant elevation, X2P is the answer.

IMIN- IMage INsert”. IMIN lets you insert an image, choosing the preferred insertion layer from a list or creating a new one as you insert the image. It also allows you to scale the image. The regular attach command restricts users to placing images on the current layer. This tool allows for more flexibility to categorize our image as we bring it into AutoCAD.

CLEAN is named for the tool’s ability to remove clutter from the drawing. CLEAN audits the drawing, then purges regapps, materials, and shapes. These unused or corrupted items can cause slowness or increase the chance of a crash, so having this all-in-one tool to clean the drawing can be a great way to improve performance. Consider using in conjunction with the PURGE command to remove extra styles and definitions

CIAO- Close Invoke All Others” This tool accesses a built-in tool that had no icon. If drawing file tabs are open, there is a right-click option for “close all others” that has the same function as the CIAO command. Some users find this difficult to track down. CIAO closes all open drawings besides the active one. If they contain unsaved changes, users are prompted to save those changes.

The VERSION CHECKER is named for its ability to report AutoCAD .dwg version information. The VERSION command opens a window that lets you browse for an AutoCAD drawing, then reports back important information about the drawing’s origins and save history.

BAM- Block Attribute Module. The BAM command prompts the user to select a block with attributes, then opens a window that lets you inspect all blocks in the drawing with that name. Each block reference in the drawing is given a Block ID number for the duration of BAM. BAM allows for systematic changes to the blocks’ attributes. Optional Tools include: Update, Change Similar, Auto Renumber, Export Excel, and Cancel.

BEARING is a way of describing a direction, noting a quadrant and angle. The four quadrants are 1) Northeast 2) Southeast 3) Southwest and 4) Northwest. Imagine a line drawn north-south. The bearing angle sweeps from that line into a quadrant. The BEARING command prompts the user to select a line, then labels the line’s bearing information (above the line) as well as length information (below the line).

APPEND is named for this tools ability to add a note before or after existing text. The APPEND command prompts users to write the note, to determine if the note is placed before or after existing text, and finally to select the text object to append to. Text objects can be run consecutively without running through the entire battery.

ALIBI- Area Label Inside Boundary Item. The ALIBI command prompts users to click inside a closed area, then to click again for an area label. The area label defaults to a font height of 2 and runs out 3 decimal places.

MTV- Match Through Viewport. The MTV command works if you are on a layout tab with viewports. If you are in the model tab, it will shunt you over to a layout tab with viewports (Or warn you that none exist). If the layout has exactly one viewport, it will become active; otherwise, you are prompted to activate a viewport (by clicking inside), then tap the enter key. At this point you click something in the model (to borrow its properties). Finally, you click something on paper (to specify the destination object for the properties).

VIEWTWIST- This button calls an existing AutoCAD function that is not located in the default AutoCAD ribbon. The “Viewtwist” command outputs the twist angle of the model (or a given viewport), which can be useful for noting the rotation from northing and different rotations amongst viewports.

The Set Crosshair Angle button allows the user to choose an angle for the crosshairs and orthomode. This button accesses a command pre-existing in AutoCAD that lacked a button in the ribbon. The most common values choses were 0 (which twists the crosshairs to align with the coordinate system) and 360 minus the view angle, which ends up being in the horizontal direction for the current view. These represent different crosshair angles if the view has been rotated.

Since setting the crosshair angle to zero was so common, I made a button for it. This button aligns the crosshairs to the coordinate system’s x-axis. If the view is rotated, this means the crosshairs are tilted.

Setting the crosshair angle aligned with horizontal was also common, so I created one last button for this. Here, the crosshairs will be horizontal, regardless of the view/coordinate system.