Automatic and Smart Features
Making your life easier
Many of the features included in EC Pro are designed around automating some tedious processes for Civil Engineering design or AutoCAD in general. Below is a short list of the major automation and smart features of EC Pro.
Automatically calculate the slope or elevation between two points.
The main function of EC Pro is to automate elevation calculations between two points! No longer do you need to endlessly punch numbers into your calculator, sometimes with typos thus invalidating your design. EC Pro strives to limit the amount of numbers you type, therefore limiting the possibility for errors.
This option is not configurable, you cannot turn it off (and why would you want to?).
Automatically calculate an elevation by subtracting or adding to a selected elevation.
Sometimes you want to label a point that is a fixed amount above or below another label. Example, at a step in a staircase you may want to label the bottom elevation and the top of the next riser, which happens to be 6". You can create a label style in the following manner to automatically add (or subtract) 6" from a selected elevation.
Change the Primary Label to Bottom, turn off the Value if you do not want to see the "selected" value;
Change the Secondary Label to Top, make sure Value is turned on;
If you want the Secondary Label to be added to the "selected" value, enter a positive Curb Height, enter a negative if you want it subtracted from the "selected" value;
Care must be taken though, all elevations will have Curb Height added or subtracted from them. This means each time you move to another location at a slope, a step will also be added equaling the Curb Height.
This option is configurable by changing the options as shown above.
Automatically import supporting styles such as multileader, dimension, and text styles.
This section only applies when you register EC Pro! Request a free 6-Week Trial License today!
If your EC Pro style uses specific multileader, dimension, or text styles and those styles do not exist in your current drawing, the program will attempt to find the definition in the EC Pro Styles Config (ec-styles.ini) file and load them. Any blocks used in multileader styles, if found, will also be automatically imported into the drawing.
To export your AutoCAD styles (text, dimension, and multileader), use the EC-STYLES command. Make sure you select the ec-styles.ini file located in an AutoCAD Support Path so EC Pro can find it automatically when it needs it. See Customization for more command line information.
This option is not configurable, you cannot turn it off (and why would you want to?).
Automatically create, thaw, and turn on layers associated with a style.
If your EC Pro style uses a specific layer, the program will make sure that layer is turned on and thawed. If it doesn't exist, EC Pro will also look for layer properties and load them from the EC Pro Styles Config (ec-styles.ini) file if the layer is missing from the drawing. If no definition is found, it will create the layer with the default properties. All you have to do is change the color!
To export your AutoCAD layers, use the EC-STYLES command. Make sure you select the ec-styles.ini file located in an AutoCAD Support Path so EC Pro can find it automatically when it needs it. See Customization for more command line information.
This option is not configurable, you cannot turn it off (and why would you want to?).
Automatically turn on OSNAP and turn off ORTHO and automatically restore your previous settings when done.
if you prefer the OSNAP to be turned on and the ORTHO to be turned off while using EC Pro, you can set these in the options. You can also set whether to restore your original settings after you exit from the program regardless of these previous settings.
See Customization for more information.
Automatically flip primary and secondary labels to the left and right, even up and down!
When placing a label to the left or to the right, the text is automatically flipped to align according to your settings. Prefer the label to remain to the left even if it should be to the right? Tap the TAB key on the keyboard to toggle left, right, up and down facing labels.
See Commandline for more information.
Smart flip and rotate slope/distance/bearing/arrow labels to above and below.
When placing a label you can control the location of the slope/distance/bearing/arrow label to appear above or below your design line.
See Commandline for more information.
Smart bump slope/distance/bearing/arrow labels away from design line.
When placing a label you can control the location of the slope/distance/bearing/arrow label to move away, or bump out, from your line of grade. Useful if you have a gutter line that conflicts with the slope label.
See Commandline for more information.
Automatically align slope/distance/arrow labels along an arc.
When you label the slope/distance/arrow along an arc, the labels are automatically aligned to the arc. When you flip or rotate the label it correctly locates the label on the inside or outside of the arc.
This option is not configurable, you cannot turn it off (and why would you want to?).
Automatically rotate text so it's readable.
Text is automatically rotated 180 degrees to make it readable in your current view. You can control the bias angle at which it is flipped in the options.
See Customization for more information.
Automatically align label to an angle increment and distance of your choice (POLARMODE). Also, you can automatically turn on POLARMODE if you like to use that feature all the time.
If you like uniformity in your plans and would prefer that each label were oriented in the same direction, then setting the POLARMODE option (F8) or (F10) and possibly the '2nd Angle' option will create labels that all line up along the same angle!
Additionally, you can set a distance increment so each label will 'snap' to a specified distance from the origin point. This distance is expressed in factors of the text height: 1.0 is equal to the current text style height. Set to 0 (zero) to allow any distance factor. Alternatively, you can use the AutoCAD dynamic length input where you can type in a length and it will use the angle of the cursor and that distance to set the label point. For instance, if you type '10' it will make the length of the leader 10 units in the direction you specify and each label can look exactly the same as if you copied the same label over and over and just changed the numbers.
Likewise, if you like all of your labels to have the same angle, POLARMODE can be set to always turn on when you start the program. You can of course turn it off whenever you want with (F8) or (F10) on the keyboard.
See Customization for more information.
Automatically restore previous styles upon next use.
This section only applies when you register EC Pro! Request a free 6-Week Trial License today!
Normally, EC Pro will revert to the 'Default' style each time you start the program in a new session of AutoCAD. If you find you would like to use the same style you previously used in the last session, you can change the setting to remember styles, saving just a few seconds of time each time you start your day. Or if you generally use a certain style, you can load that style, then save the style with a blank name (which will make it the default).
Note, EC Pro will not remember your unsaved customizations to a style, so if those changes are important, save them!
See Customization for more information.
Automatically remember dialog box positions.
If you use multiple monitors you can move the dialog boxes to different screens and they will always appear there each time a dialog is shown.
See Customization for more information.
Automatically convert label text to Uppercase.
Most engineering documents utilize capitalized letters for readability. EC Pro can automatically convert your label text to uppercase so you don't have to remember to always turn on Caps Lock when entering text.
See Customization for more information.
Automatically prompt you to save changes to a style before loading a new style.
This section only applies when you register EC Pro! Request a free 6-Week Trial License today!
If you make frequent changes to your styles and forget to save them before loading another style, EC Pro will prompt you to save before loading. You can then save as the same name to update the style, or give it a new name.
This option is not configurable, you cannot turn it off (and why would you want to?).
Smart download and update EC Pro when available (with one click confirmation first).
EC Pro will notify you of a new update once per day (or at the increment you choose). You can then instantly download the update with one click. If you choose to download the VLX version, the downloader will replace your old version with the downloaded version for you. All you need to do is run the program again and the updated version will be automatically loaded for you (no need to reload AutoCAD)!
See Customization for more information.
Automatically notify you about pending license expiration.
This section only applies when you register EC Pro! Request a free 6-Week Trial License today!
If you have an Annual license, the program will automatically notify you 10 days and 3 days before your EC Pro license is set to expire (assuming you use the program in those time frames). You can check your expiration date at any time by clicking the About button in the Settings dialog.
Notification time until expiration is not configurable, you cannot turn it off (and why would you want to?).
Automatically activate a corporate license with a license file saved on your network.
This section only applies when you register EC Pro! Request a free 6-Week Trial License today!
If you have a Corporate license (Annual or Lifetime), you can eliminate the process of entering activation information for each user by saving an EC-LIC file on your network with the necessary activation code. As long as all users have access to this folder, and it is listed in the AutoCAD Support File Search Paths EC Pro will read and import these settings automatically. This also works for personal licenses.
See Knowledgebase article for more information.