TESTCARD draws a test card — the drafting equivalent of the old broadcast test pattern — and times how long AutoCAD takes to build, regenerate and redraw it. Use it to compare machines, graphics cards, display drivers and hardware acceleration settings, or to check that a colour scheme is legible before committing a whole office to it.
What TestCard does
What is on the card:
Colour wheel one wedge per colour, so you can see which colours are
distinguishable on this screen and which two look identical
Convergence nested right angles at eight spacings, 0.200 down to 0.025
Diagonal fan 37 lines converging at ever shallower angles
Arc nest 19 concentric semicircles, for the same test on curves
Registration corner brackets
Timings build, regen and redraw, in seconds
The colour wheel is the part worth having. On the convergence grid, the spacing at which the arms stop resolving into separate lines is the useful number.
Size: 11 × 8.5 drawing units, so it fits a landscape letter sheet at 1:1. It is drawn from a point you pick, so it can go in an empty corner of a real drawing without disturbing anything.
How to use it
- Load the routine with
APPLOAD, or put it on your support file search path. - Type
TESTCARD. - Pick a clear spot.
- Read the timings, then erase the card — it is all on one layer.
How it works
Everything goes on a single layer called TestCard with the colour set on each object. That tests exactly the same thing as one layer per colour, and purges in one step rather than leaving twenty-odd layers named “1” to “N” behind.
The current text style is used, so no style is created and left behind either.
Nothing is saved, and nothing is left set. EXPERT goes back to what it was, LIMITS and the view are restored, and there is no SAVE at the end — a benchmark that overwrites the drawing you had open is not a benchmark you can run twice.
Angles are computed from pi rather than typed in as decimals. A right angle written as 1.5707963 is close enough; half of one written as 0.7853984 is wrong in the seventh place, and on a fan of thirty-seven converging lines that is visible.
Notes and limits
- One layer, one command to purge.
- 11 × 8.5 units — a landscape letter sheet at 1:1.
- Timings are relative. They compare machines, not absolute performance.
- One undo group covers the card.
Download and details
| Name | TestCard — draw a display test card and time the machine |
| Download | TestCard.lsp — 12.3 KB, plain AutoLISP source. Downloads directly; no zip to unpack. |
| Type | AutoCAD AutoLISP routine |
| Command | TESTCARD |
| Requires | nothing beyond a CAD platform with AutoLISP. |
| Source size | 12.3 KB, 294 lines |
| Error handling | Yes — a *error* handler restores every system variable it changed, on cancel as well as on error. |
| Undo | The whole operation is wrapped in a single undo group, so one U reverses all of it. |
| Compatibility | AutoCAD (any release with AutoLISP), BricsCAD, ZWCAD, GstarCAD, ProgeCAD and other IntelliCAD-based platforms. AutoCAD LT needs a LISP enabler. No .NET, no ObjectARX, no installer. |
| Author | YZ, August 2026 |
| Licence | Free to use, supplied “as is” with no warranty. |
References
- STOPWATCH LISP — timing a command rather than a redraw
- CROSSHAIR LISP — another display setting worth checking
- 5 crazy things to do with AutoLISP — more of this sort of thing
- More free AutoLISP routines on this site
- Wisey’s Steel Shapes — free structural steel section drawing program