In the past I had exhausted extra creative energy by seeing how far I could take polylines and hatches within AutoCAD. In one extreme case I recreated the Mayan calendar using polylines and hatch fills.

The Aztec / Mayan Calendar in DWG 2012

I even placed the source DWG for your use in tracking time to the end of the world in about a year.

QR Codes are taking over the world!
QR Codes are a simple graphics like a bar code that are encoded with information such as text, URL, or more.

Check out my latest creation to be used at Autodesk University  and selfish promotion of this Between the Lines blog in a QR Code.

A pseudo city in the process of being textured.

But wait, look from the top and you see they are actually QR Codes that can be read by a QR Code app on your smartphone.

Here is a screenshot showing the multiple QR Codes I created using polylines, hatches and then also as 3D solids.

How did I do it?

I created a QR Code using the website http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/ and exported it as PDF.

In the past couple of releases of AutoCAD we have been able to use Osnap to snap to the points in a PDF underlay. So I simply snap the geometry of the QR code from the PDF underlay to create my base QR Code linework.

PDF Underlay of the QR Code PDF.

I would suggest sending the draw order of the PDF to back and fading it 50% so that you can clearly see your lines work drawn on top and have “Enable Snap” active..

Here you can see the PDF with the linework on to on the left as well as just the linework on the right.

Now you can use the linework and hatch it to fill in the QR Code and also use it to create a 3D QR Code but that’s a bit extreme and not too much value unless you too have energy to work off and enjoy drawing in AutoCAD. I hope you enjoyed this fun way to show practical use of the snap to PDF in AutoCAD.

I wonder if QR Codes will be the equivalent of ancient hieroglyphics when found in the distant future by archeologist and they try to interpret the meanings.

Make sure to have a QR Code reading app at Autodesk University as there will be many everywhere. I will have them on my slides in my classes where an URL is shown so that people can grab the url in a snap without having to write out the URL. I suggest the free AT&T QR Code reader from AT&T for both Android and iPhone versions as it seems to read more of the abstract QR Codes like someone knitting or shaving the small graphic into their hair. If anyone has other recommendations let me know but I have tried about five so far.

Update on my own Android experience so far after 3 weeks. Long story short my Android Samsung Galaxy S2 is now relegated to being only a glorified plastic phone and some email while my iPhone is for everything. I am trying to give the Android smartphone a fair try just as I did when I left my beloved Blackberry for my iPhone, but it has been difficult at best for battery life, user experience, security, stability, and poor app quality experiences. Love my iPhone but would give it up for the next better thing that comes along, but don’t think the wild wild west of the Android platform is ready to be pulled out of the oven just yet.

Cheers,
Shaan

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