Tech Call - PDF vs. DWF

Ran across this tech support call over at Lee's site, pretty funny. User having an issue with PDF vs. DWF. Source unknown.

Note: Flash player needs to be installed on your machine to use.

EVAUG Extravaganza - Thursday, July 21, 2005

The Eastern Virginia AutoCAD Users Group is hosting the yearly "EVAUG Extravaganza" on Thursday, July 21, 2005.

This meeting is a great chance to network with other AutoCAD professionals in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area, and I hope you’ll be able to join us.
Our keynote speaker on Thursday is H. Edward Goldberg, AIA. He is a practicing licensed architect, industrial designer, technical writer, and educator, and you may have seen his articles in Cadalyst. He’s a wonderful speaker and we’re honored to welcome him. You don’t want to miss meeting him!

Agenda: 2006 Autodesk Products and Workflow Building Information Modeling explained Food, Fun, and Prizes!
Date: Thursday, July 21, 2005
Time: 6:30pm-9:00pm
Location: Advanced Technology Center (ATC) Theatre / Auditorium
Find directions and more information about this location here: http://www.vbatc.com/a-directions.html
You can RSVP via email to info@avat.com.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I hope to see you there!

ADT - Mass Tool Palette Generation

In past releases of ADT (2004/5) the creation of tool palettes containing ADT styles was always one of the most time consuming tasks. Fortunately in ADT 2006 this process has become much easier, unfortunately little has been mentioned about this useful topic.

Brief Overview:

To create a new tool catalog from styles located in one or more drawings try using the Tool Catalog Generator found in the Cad Manager pulldown (if the Cad Manager pulldown is not visible in the menu bar, click the Window pulldown and choose the Pulldowns>>Cad Manager pulldown).

The Tool Catalog Generator has numerous options which are subdivided into three main categories: Catalog, Content Source, Tool Organization and then finally a listing of 22 object types within ADT. The following will help to clarify what each section/option does.

Catalog:

In this location you have two radio buttons; the first allows you to create a new catalog by first providing a Catalog name then browsing to define the location of this catalog (with the opportunity to provide the Catalog name) the second to add to an existing catalog with the option to append an existing catalog (optional choice to ignore duplicate style) or overwrite the existing catalog.

Content Source:

In this location you have two radio buttons which allow you to specify whether you want the new catalog to be created from multiple drawings located in a folder or from a single drawing and enter a path to the respective folder or file location. When choosing the Create from drawings in folder option, any sub-folders are included in the new catalog.

Tool Organization:

In this location you have 2 check boxes and 2 radio buttons that allow you to organize your soon to be created tools. If the "Group tools by source drawing" is selected your tools will be organized by the source drawing (quite useful when used in combination with the drawings in folder option of the Content Source section). If the "Group tools by object type" is selected your tools will be organized by the object type (ex. useful for organizing your content from among multiple drawings to keep them grouped similar to the following: Doors, Windows, Walls, etc...).

From the help file:
1. If both options above are enabled, the catalog is first grouped by the drawings and then by the object type, generating categories from the drawings, and palettes from the object types. This is implemented because palettes cannot be nested. In this case the radio buttons for categories and palettes are disabled, and the Create tools in palettes option is selected for the catalog.

2. If neither of the two options is enabled, all new tools will be generated in the top category of the catalog.

3. To organize the new tools in categories, select Create Tools in Categories. If you selected Group tools by source drawing, a category will be created for each source drawing. If you selected Group tools by object type, a category will be created for each object type.

4. To organize the new tools in palettes, select Create Tools in Palettes. If you selected Group tools by source drawing, a palette will be created for each source drawing. If you selected Group tools by object type, a palette will be created for each object type.

The next step is to specify the object styles you would like to appear as tools in the new catalog. Using a combination of the Select All/Clear All, one at a time selection or windowing across multiple objects and selecting the check boxes to get the right mix of object styles as needed.

Finally choose the OK button and a progress bar in the status bar area informs you of the progress of the catalog generation. NOTE: For large catalogs this may take time to generate.

This process is much easier than dragging your styles one at a time and provides a quick way for you to generate standard palettes for use in your office.

happy cadding...

RB - Door Insertion

When working on a project it is quite often the little tips/tricks that make us even faster in production:

When placing a door in Revit Building you can easily choose the side of the wall you wish to place a door either before or after insertion. If you find yourself changing the door swing using the arrow indicators after insertion; you may find it a bit easier to use the space bar while placing the door. Doing this will allow you to flip the instance of this door swing left/right for single door families before placement.

For those looking for a video example the following clip shows 3 doors being placed:
Door 1 is placed and flipped after placement
Door 3 is flipped before placement using the *space bar

*This is also a tip shown in the status bar (bottom left of screen), if you have been ignoring this section pay attention as it gives valuable information depending on the object/family.

happy BIM'ing...

Independance

Happy Independance Day!

Please keep those in the military stationed around the world in your thoughts.

For those that have their own fireworks and children, a cool tip just learned (courtesy of Jim) is to draw a circle using chalk and have the kids stay within it to watch.