ADT or ACAD object? How to tell...

For those just beginning with ADT who sometime draw using linework instead of AEC objects in a few "complex" areas or those who get drawings that are a mix of entities (AEC & Acad primitives) you may be looking for a way to visually isolate these. If you fall into one of these categories above then the ADT team has a solution for you:

The command you are looking for is called Visual Audit (AecVisualAudit), and can be found on the CAD Manager pulldown. What you do not have the CAD Manager pulldown? For that you may need to turn this on by going to Window>>Pulldown>>CAD Manager Pulldown.



Note: This command temporarily turns off the display of all AEC Objects as well as text (dtext, mtext), leaders and dimensions. Once started if you press ESC, ENTER or mouse-click you will end the command. For those with a wheel mouse you can zoom in/out and pan to view the non-aec entities on the screen.

happy cadding...

EVAUG Meeting - Jan. 2005

If you are in the Eastern Virginia area and looking for a great opportunity to network with fellow CAD users this will be of interest to you:

EVAUG Meeting: January 20, 2005, at Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company
(HEWV) Architectural Firm's "Knowledge Cafe", located at 120 Atlantic Street, in Norfolk, Va. between Waterside and MacArthur Mall.

Agenda
6:30-6:50pm - Meet & Greet - We will start the meeting off with some food and drinks. This is a great chance to see old friends and meet other CAD users from area companies.

6:50-7:00pm - Introduction to the Group

7:00-7:30pm - Topic #1 - Veredith Keller will demonstrate the Autodesk Viz 2005's Material Editor. One of the most useful Viz 2005 features is to build realistic materials. We'll develop a new material in this presentation.

7:30-7:40pm - Short Break - This is a chance to chat, eat, stretch and/or carry on a corner discussion.

7:45-8:30pm - Topic #2 - EVAUG Officer Nick Fuller will demonstrate forming and using schedules in Autodesk Building Systems. Schedules are very helpful for estimating costs, and engineering analysis. Nick uses schedules for listing ventilation ducts and diffusers.

8:30-8:35pm - Wrap Up, Prize Giveaways and Dismiss

Also mark your calendars for the February 17, 2005 meeting which should be a lot of fun (check the calendar section of the website for more details).

Looking forward to seeing you there!
happy cadding...

Remove Material Assignments - Part Deux

In the last post discussing the removal of material assignments from objects in your scene I received two e-mails asking how to remove the material assignments from the objects selected and not from everything in the scene.

Great question to accomplish this select the objects you would like to remove the materials from (using any method you like) then type the following into the maxscript listener:

$.material = undefined



Like the last maxscript example we looked at this will leave the materials that are defined in the material editor but what makes this different is that it will remove the material assignment(s) only from the selected geometry in your scene.

Portland Fun

Had a great time in Portland, Oregon last week.

As many of you know I am an avid reader and connoisseur of books. Before leaving for this trip I had coffee with Greg (who was there last month) and he recommended a great book store to visit called Powell's City Of Books. Greg mentioned it was large but not how large, try one city block x 4 stories. This was a dream and sadly I only had a few hours to spend at this location all while drinking a Peets coffee.

For those looking to spend some time browsing with beautiful furniture stop reading the catalog and visit Design Within Reach. I have ordered a few things by mail over the years, but mostly spend the time browsing the catalog but this occupied the remaining amount of my time before heading home.

I cannot wait to get back to the Portland area sometime soon.

Fun with Audio - Portland Musings

Remove Material Assignments

When working with your scenes in Viz/Max at some point you may need to remove the material assignments for the objects in your scene. To accomplish this type the following into the maxscript listener:

Geometry.material = undefined



This will leave the materials that are defined in your material editor but remove the material assignment(s) for all the objects in your scene.

happy rendering...

Optimizing vertex count

For those using plines to generate contour or other lines with a high vertex count; did you know there is an express tool that will reduce the number of segments/vertexes for you?

Check out the Express Tool "Overkill", available from the pulldown menu Express>>Modify>>Delete duplicate objects, from the command line by typing "Overkill" or from the command line only by typing "-Overkill".

Under the Lines, Arcs and Plines portion of the dialog box you will find several options such as:

PLINES - Optimize segments within plines

OVERLAP - Combine co-linear objects that partially overlap

END to END - Combine co-linear objects when aligned end to end

happy rendering...

Visualization Blogging Welcome

If you work with Viz/Max chances are you are familiar with the name Alexander Bicalho. For those who are not he is not only talented but also extremely helpful to the visualization industry by providing great solutions and also helping to make Viz/Max better with each release by working for Autodesk/Discreet. Well Alex has now also joined the blogging world.

From Alex's blog:
Life of an Origamy
Welcome to my Blog. This is just a tentative thing, and we'll see how it works out. I may come here once in a while to add new things to it, we'll see how it goes. Meanwhile, enjoy!

Alex Bicalho - www.origamy.com.br/blog

Wishing you a great blog welcome and looking forward to reading more from you Alex.

happy rendering...

New Year Audio Post

Robin's Autodesk University 2004 Summary

Good recap on AU 2004 and tips you should read for AU 2005 by Robin.