Notebook GPS - Update

I spent a bit more time researching online and getting feedback from a few users who use(d) this product (thanks again). Armed with this information I decided to purchase the software I was considering and did come comparison on-line pricing. On the off chance I headed off to my local tech shop to make a purchase. After browsing the store for a bit I managed to find two in-store locations that had the same product (one in a showcase, the other on a shelf) with different prices. The base price was the same as I could find on-line, the other $10 cheaper.

Well I had a trip with my Grandfather to take over the weekend and this came in handy to learn the ins/outs of using the software. My first impression is the software interface could use a bit of updating but I do like the features and ease of use. Right now I have the USB connection verison, but may upgrade to the Bluetooth version to get rid of the wires.

Here is an outline "route" of a trip we took this morning to the oceanfront for some fun in the surf:
sa2004usa.jpg

Two other bits of information I learned from this;
1. I live 21.76 miles from my favorite spot at the Oceanfront.
2. The new suspension, lift and tires have thrown the odometer off by about 6 mph. =)

Notebook GPS

I have been doing quite a bit of traveling and consulting over the last few months and I am looking to add a Streets and Trips type of software to my mobile toolset. In looking at some of the options available; the affordability of GPS integration has caught my eye.

One product that I keep running across is the DeLORME Earthmate GPS Receiver. Before I purchase this I wanted to find someone (you) who may have one to share their experiences with me:

Are you happy with the product? Would you prefer a different GPS Receiver?

Are you satisified with the Street Atlas USA 2005 software?

Drop me an e-mail or use the comment option below. Thank you and I will keep you posted on which option I go with.

Presentation Assessement

Checking my inbox this morning I found an interesting link for Architects/Consultants and another for Clients to use as a checklist/review for presentations.

EVAUG Meeting

EVAUG meeting: August 19, 2004, 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 - Architectural Desktop 2004/2005 Project Browser/Navigator - Have you ever wondered how to get started with the Project Navigator for new or more importantly existing projects. We will walk through an example of converting an existing legacy project to use the feature and toolset available within the project navigator as well as understand what Constructs, Elements, Views and Sheets really are.

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 - Building Systems - Part 2 of a 3 part series - The MvPart Builder Unleashed - A presentation detailing the steps of creating and editing custom equipment and parts.

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

Shrek on CAD

You know cad is a lot like onions, they both have layers. OK so I am no Lynn Allen, but fresh from a cruise and not missing a beat she was at the Design Expo today and had numerous great tips to share with the attendees.

What a great event to learn some helpful tips and get to meet so many talented people.



Thanks to Pete for snapping this shot.

Lynn Allen

For those cad users in the Hampton Roads area, Lynn Allen will be here for the Autodesk Design Expo tomorrow. Myself and the rest of the EVAUG staff will be in attendance and hope you can join us as well:

Autodesk Design Expo - August 10, 2004.
This event will be hosted at the Virginia Beach Advanced Technology Center
1800 College Crescent, Virginia Beach (next to Virginia Beach-TCC Campus)
For directions, log ono: www.vbatc.com

8:00 - 8:30 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30 - 10:00 a.m. General Session featuring Lynn Allen
10:00 - 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 - 12:00 p.m. Breakout Sessions
Autodesk Solutions for Architects
Autodesk Solutions for Building Engineers
Civil, Mapping and Infrastructure Management

Currently we have a table setup courtesy of Inlet Technologies. If you plan to be there keep an eye out for us and come say hello.

Brain Dumps

If you are a user of ADT you have probably heard of the infamous brain dumps before. If not basically the goal of these can be summed up in the following words from Jim Awe:

"Given the wide range of opinions expressed on this newsgroup about ADT, I thought it might be useful for someone who was intimately involved in the project to give a "Philosophical Brain Dump" of what we have attempted to do with version 1 and why. Please don't view this as an "official" Autodesk statement or as any kind of effort to avoid the heat that is being leveled against ADT in its initial release. It is merely an effort to increase the understanding of where things are at the present and to help you make your evaluations with a little more information... that I'm sure wasn't included in the manuals :-)"

These are great collections of information and I highly recommend reading through them for a deeper understanding of ADT. In the past the brain dumps have been housed in a few different locations (Chris Yanchar, Rob Starz and myself) to ensure these items were available to the general public and not lost in the shuffle. Well now thanks to Chris (Between the Walls) the entire collection is now available here. It is nice to see these housed in one central location.

Funny side note: Before I met Chris personally at AU a few years back I knew his name from the Brain Dumps he hosted on his personal website. After our short introduction to each other my first comment was "Hey your the brain dumps guy...". ;) Ok well may be it is funnier to me, but many thanks to Chris for being so helpful to fellow ADT users and helping to make this a better product.

happy cadding...

Photoshop Brushes

Most people in the visualization industry tend to use some kind of graphics manipulation program (Photoshop, Painter, Gimp, etc...) for numerous tasks. Myself I tend to use Photoshop as my choice of software, if like me you find yourself wishing for a larger selection of brushes why not create your own? Lack of knowledge? experience? no more here is a good tutorial, from Rickard Johansson hosted by 3DTotal, explaining how to create custom brushes that should get you started.

happy photoshopping...

Frozen Cameras

Here is a good tip from Miker the Biker regarding disappearing cameras in VIZ.

It's always the little things...

Project Navigator and Existing Projects

For those of you learning to use the ADT Project Navigator (strongly encouraged) one of the first things you may notice is that upon installation of ADT you probably have older projects that still need work to be completed (often referred to as legacy projects). Well no need to give up on the ADT PN just yet, depending on how far along you are in the project you can still make use of the PN.

Before we go any further for any drawings created with ADT and the PN you will have a corresponding .xml file created (visible using windows explorer); do not delete any of the .xml files.

If you have a project that is 90% complete, converting this to use the PN would probably not be advantageous, but if your project is in the early to middle stage you stand a good chance of being able to convert the project in a usable one with the PN. The ADT team has done a great job of providing a few ways to help make this possible. Let's look at two options to turn existing base drawings into Constructs and Elements:

Create a new project using the Project Browser and set it current.

If you open each file individually, you have the option in the PN to right click the construct and/or element category and choose the "Save Current Dwg as _" option. This will save a copy of the drawing to the project location in either the Construct or Element folder, depending upon which was chosen.

The method above works well, but is time consuming. Let's look at one of my personal favorites and use Windows Explorer to help make this a more streamlined process.

Open Windows Explorer and place beside your ADT session. Using a drag and drop we can easily transfer information from one to the other and combining this with some useful key combinations will give us even more options. Here are a few examples of how to use this method successfully:

1. If you drag the file from WE into the PN and release this will move the file to this location.

2. If you use the Ctrl key and drag the file from WE into the PN and release this will create a copy of the file in this location as a construct or element depending upon where you release it.

3. If you use the Alt key and drag the file from WE into the PN and release this will create a link to the file in the original location but accessible from the PN (the graphic will show a small shortcut icon on it)

In all three methods above you have the option of changing the name and description for the file(s), if this is a construct you also get the option of choosing which Level and Division you wish for this to correspond with.

One additional tip; when using windows explorer you can drag an entire directory to the PN and it will create a new category with the files converted to either a Construct or Element depending upon which was selected. From experience make sure your files are not read-only.

For those who would like to use the PN but find legacy projects hindering that effort, this may help to get you started.

Happy cadding...

Rhino and Brazil

This looks interesting for Rhino users...

Seattle — July 30, 2004 — Robert McNeel & Associates and SplutterFish LLC announced today that they are collaborating to bring the Brazil Rendering System to Rhino users. The new Brazil 2.0 r/s will be integrated into Rhino using the latest technology from both McNeel and SplutterFish. Details...

Though I have not used Rhino for any production work, I do tend to use Brazil quite often.

happy rendering...

Programming Lite

For those of you out there who dabble with programming or would like to check out the Visual Studio 2005 Express Beta from the Microsoft Labs. This is a lightweight version of Visual Studio and includes a smaller limited toolset. Includes, Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual J#, Visual Web Dev and SQL Server examples.

Over the last 2 months I have found myself programming less and less and have not had the chance to play with this in conjunction with any of the Autodesk products. If you have been using/testing them together (either successfully or not) drop me an e-mail, I would be curious about your experiences.

happy programming...

Bigger Beast

Another weekend gone...

Skirting around the rain this past one was great and a special thanks to the guys at Pro Trucks who added a 4" suspension lift, rims and tires to the Beast. Total height change 8"+.



The Beast was almost put out to pasture as we were checking out other vehicles due to a few minor items we were not happy with. The biggest issue was the way the vehicle rode, going over bumps was a roller coaster, thanks to the new suspension and additional work this has all been smoothed out.

happy driving...

Autodesk University 2004

As you may have heard from Autodesk, Shaan, Lee, Robin and a few others; AU 2004 is scheduled to take place from November 30 – December 03, 2004 and the ADN/ATC portion of the conference will be held on November 29, 2004.

For subscription members you should have received an e-mail from Autodesk last week for early sign-up. Why early sign-up? There are several labs that are offered (hands-on computer training) that fill up fast, so if you have not signed up yet be sure to do so soon.

AU is a great learning and networking event as you get some of the most knowledgeable speakers/presenters in the industry. I have attended the past two years and the level of knowledge and people you get to meet/interact with is incredible!

Lee has some great links including maps of the MGM Grand and more available here and here.

We will be there again this year and are looking forward seeing new and old friends. If you plan to be there or have any great stories from AU send me an e-mail.

happy cadding...

3DS Max 7

Well the boys and girls over at Maxunderground have a press release from Discreet that shares some information about the upcoming release of 3DS Max 7 (shipping this fall). There are a few interesting features that should be of benefit to quite a few users.

happy rendering...

Desktop Capture

The desktop screen capture in the sidebar is courtesy of a fun free utility I have been playing with called SCWebcam.  Think of this as a combination of Snag-it and a webcam but for your computer desktop. 

Here are a couple of the listed features that I find very useful:

• Automatic capture and FTP Upload with configurable timer
• Improved configuration interface, and far more human-readable error messages
• Saves image as JPG or PNG with variable quality, size, and thumbnail functionality. Choice of several image resize engines to balance quality with speed, and image can be sized by percentage or absolute pixel size
• Optionally minimizes to the system tray, with visible countdown
• Detects screen saver, locked workstation, and logoff/shutdown, and can upload an 'offline' image at those times
• Capture can run in several reduced priority modes to minimize the impact to your system - good for games!
• Autorun and Autostart available through configuration switches
• Text caption with selectable font, color and location
• Ability to capture the Desktop (including translucent windows), only the Active Window, and/or Still Video Frames from a Video-For-Windows compliant webcam or other capture device (such as TV card)
• Ability to run in local mode without FTP upload step
• Built-in WWW server - serve your desktop or even a small web page right from your own PC!
• Full scripting system allows complete flexibility over the image processing and upload steps. Several sample scripts are provided for those not interested in writing their own.
  
  I plan to keep the images updating a few times daily and the webcam will be coming back soon...
  
  

Mental

This is a quick tip for those who wish to use Mental Ray materials in VIZ 2005. 

In order to take advantage of using the Mental Ray materials from the browswer you must enable the mental ray extension (off by default). 

To enable this go to the Customize>>Preferences... menu, mental ray tab and check the following:



happy rendering...

Walking woes

Bad combination does this make:
1 pair new shoes (worn 3 days)
1 very rainy day
1 soccer match without substitutes

results = blisters with lacerations the size of silver dollars on both heels...

I will spare you the picture(s) but the skin got me thinking about the many different textures skin can take on.  Character modeling and rendering has so many additional items to worry about than straight architectural modeling and rendering...

And for your blister care try the following link.

AutoCAD Blocks

Do you use acad blocks? Do you use the same blocks in multiple drawings? Ever need to update the blocks?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then this posting is for you. I recently gave a refresher/updated materials course for a few AutoCAD users and part of this involved different methods of using blocks and redefining existing definitions in different drawings. If you need to accomplish this here are a few examples of ways to accomplish this:

1. The ability to have a block in a drawing and manipulate the block(s) by redefining/changing all instances can be done with the refedit command, or by recreating the block and using the same block name. This will update all the blocks in the current drawing of the same name.

2. If you are defining your linework for an object to become a block in an external file you can use the "insert" command with the browse option to choose the external file to override blocks in your drawing of the same name. If this is not working the most likely issue is that the file was wblocked out as a block to a file of the same name. If so explode the block in the external file to simple linework and purge the block from this drawing and save the file. The insert command>>browse option will now insert the file as desired.

3. If you are wblocking information out to an external file or block library as blocks and not linework you can use DesignCenter (Ctrl + 2) to redefine blocks in your drawing. To accomplish this open DesignCenter and browse using the folder tab to the file and expand the sub-files and select the blocks option. Nowright click the block you wish to redefine in your current file and choose "Redefine only" to update the block definition. You can use the "Ctrl + Tab" and/or "Ctrl + Shift + Tab" key combinations to cycle through open drawings and repeat as needed.

4. Of course for those of you who would rather type, script or use lisp you can still use the alternative -insert with the = option (-insert , ExistingBlockname=path of drawing and FileName, choose "yes" to redefine the existing blocks in the drawing).
Example -insert, MyBlock=C:\WorkingFiles\MyBlock.dwg which will replace all instances of the block "MyBlock" with the information from the drawing "MyBlock.dwg". This is very similar to Step 2 above and has the same limitations of requiring linework only in this file.

*5. Of course you could always use a small bit of lisp code to swap one block out for another, courtesy of David.

(defun c:SWAPBLK (/ SELECTIONSET COUNT NBLK BLOCK ELIST)
(princ "\n SWAPBLK")
(setvar "cmdecho" 0)
(setvar "osmode" 0)
(prompt "\nSelect blocks to be swapped to another:")
(setq SELECTIONSET (ssget) COUNT 0)
(setq NBLK (getstring "\nName of swapping block:"))
(repeat (sslength SELECTIONSET)
(setq BLOCK (ssname SELECTIONSET COUNT))
(setq ELIST (entget BLOCK))
(setq ELIST (subst (cons 2 NBLK)(assoc 2 ELIST) ELIST))
(entmod ELIST)
(entupd BLOCK)
(setq COUNT (+ COUNT 1))
)
(princ)
)
(princ "\nSWAPBLK loaded.")
(princ)

This should help you to understand a few of the many ways to use blocks more effectively in AutoCAD.

Happy cadding...

EVAUG - July Meeting

The Eastern Virginia AutoCAD Users Group next meeting will be July 14, 2004.

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 - AutoCAD 2004/2005 - Tool Palettes- You may have seen this at the demo's, or seen others using it but wondered how the tool palettes work and how you can customize and use them to their full potential. If so then this session is for you.

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 - Building Systems - Part 1 of a 3 part series. This first session is a presentation highlighting the major aspects of the Autodesk Building Systems program

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


Thanks to everyone who supports and attends these meetings, the EVAUG would not continue to grow in its current direction without your active participation.

Task Manager

I mentioned many months back a few products I use for time management. With most of the consulting and freelance work I do MS Project would be way overkill as a simple spread sheet would suffice.

Creating a task list is simple and in only minutes each day allows you to look back to see exactly where your time has gone. If you do rendering or animations, even part time, and are not tracking exactly how much time you are spending on each task you should really consider this step to accurately gauge how much time similar jobs will really take. More on this in a future post...

Behind the scenes I have been using a great product from Safari Software called Masterlist.

They are getting ready to release Masterlist Professional and it is in beta right now. If you are interested in testing this product, visit this section of the site.

Books and learning

As you have probably noticed by now I have have been updating the look of the blog, more to come over time like all great things. In doing this I have also added a link to the side called "reading" to track my choices and selections in reading material.

Speaking of books I received a brown wrapper package from Thomson Distribution Center that contained Illustrated AutoCAD 2005 Quick Reference, unfortunately the package only contained the book and nothing else.

I have an older illustrated guide from Ralph(R-12 Dos era) that was/is a great resource and after years of use is tattered and torn, this new one will make a great updated resource. To the individual(s) who sent this, thank you.

happy reading...

Animation School...

I mentioned it briefly before but here is a little more indepth information about Animation Mentor.

Coming soon...

Input this...

As you know I love testing, using and playing with a host of different technology devices as $$$ permits (hint to companies looking for someone to test/play with cool gadgets, e-mail me). =)

Well the floppy keyboard has been replaced by a standard keyboard and as far as input devices go I have used everything from tablets (3 button - 16 button pucks), numerous roller/track ball input devices, pen input, etc... Well a buddy recently brought me back an gift from the AIA show in Chicago, an "Autodesk Mini Optical Mouse", complete with a roller wheel and more...

The image below shows a few of the devices I use on a typical basis (Wacom tablet, Microsoft trackball). I threw my hand in there for a scale comparison to show the size of the mini-mouse (tiny device on the left).



Well at first I laughed when LC gave it to me, but after his persistance in trying to get me to use it for 2 hours I finally gave in. The first 30 minutes was strange as it is quite small, but after another hour of working I did not notice the size being an issue. Now a week + later I just realized that the only other input devices I have used is my tablet for sketching/graphic touch-up. The other cool item about this device is that it has a retractable cord (see the silver item at the top of the picture), this also detaches completely from the mouse for storage/travel too.

I checked the Autodesk Store, but cannot find these for sale anywhere. If you have a few and would like to get rid of them or know where I can get more for my LUG, drop me an e-mail.

happy inputting...

CAD Background Fun

Ran across this cool tip from CAD Forum. Not only gradients but also images...



Thanks to Dylan for being my cad background for this example... =)

ADT Named Views & Layers

As a quick note for those using ADT 2005 and named views. If you create your views early on in your project you may notice that if you edit a named views boundary later that some of the layers will be frozen.

To fix this use the "Update Layers" button in the views dialogue box as shown in the figure below.

ADT 2005 Installation Update

For those interested the agenda for the next two days is focusing on the following items:

1. Updating custom Design Center content. Really easy and straighforward. I particulary like the directory and content structure (introduced in 2004) from earlier versions as this makes much more sense. My custom stuff fits perfectly in these modules with only a few additional sub-directories.

2. Migrating existing property set definitions from an older release to work seamlessly with 2005. This is the bulk of the work to ensure that legacy projects migrate seamlessly into the new release.

With this of course are all the tags, schedules and more. One item I am looking forward to being able to finally take advantage of is the many improvements/additions to PSD's such as Formula properties, Location properties, Classification properties, Material properties and of course Project properties too…

Combining PSD’s with scheduling and classifications make this an incredible way to report/return needed data in many forms. If you are not sure what these are or how they work and would like to see some examples posted here let me know.

This is powerful stuff...

Computing Life

What a great weekend... Besides cleaning up the studio and rearranging the space layout, we managed to take an early morning walk with Dylan and our pup along the oceanfront. This afternoon/evening gave me a bit more time to take care of a few computing related needs.

All the items I have been working on this evening (web page development, documents, spreadsheets, newsgroups, web surfing, instant messaging, etc...) have all been possible through Linux. Finally got around to setting up my e-mail using Evolution too... Still have lots more to learn but Linux Online is a great resource as well as the Linux Documentation Project.

happy computing (whatever OS your using)... =)

Rendering and learning

As I am sure you are aware the internet has and continues to offer more information on a wide range of topics. On the rendering side of things a few sites that have caught my eye recently include:

Animation Meat! - a great site for understanding traditional animation with a large number of notes and more from professional animators and studios.

Animation World Network - This is a great resource to find out what is going on in the animation industry.

Pixel Corps - Great information, classes and more. This site covers a broad range of digital media.

Animation Mentor - while not fully released yet this looks like a promising site to stay tuned for. Sign up on the site to be notified when the mentoring goes live.

Pluginz - Digital tools for digital artists. This is a great resource if you are looking for third party plug-ins and more.

And of course if you are a Viz user be sure to check out Vizdepot for free tutorials, forums and more. Also be sure to check out the recent banners and links Steven posted too.

As you can tell by the range of items mentioned above I have been doing some video/animation work recently. I love working with digital media. One phase that I have not yet explored but hope to soon is how to shoot/work with a green screen. More to come on this soon...

Discreet Events...

Discreet is having several events happening in the next few months, among them an open house in New York and Santa Monica showing a full range of products (Max, Flint, Flame, Combustion, Smoke etc...). More information and dates can be found here.

happy rendering...

Look, up in the sky is that...

A question I have been getting asked quite a bit recently is "How do I get my work to look better?" Well there are numerous ways to make that happen.

One of the best is to be observant to the environment around you and keep a keen eye on the small details in your work.

The second is to look at inspiring work from other talented groups/individuals out there. CGNetworks has just released Expose 2, which is full of beautiful work from a large range of artists. The proofs for this look incredible too.

happy rendering...

Cleaning History...

With a short weekend break from rendering, teaching and consulting I decided this would be a great time to catch up on some digital cleaning from the studio harddrives.

Along the way I ran across "The Autodesk File" from John Walker (original founder of Autodesk, Inc.). If you have never read this document and are curious about the early days of Autodesk then this is for you. I stayed up way too late last night but I managed to read through the entire thing in one sitting.

There are a few new exciting things I am working on/with and hope to be able to share with you soon...

Dock this...

Ever use the macintosh docker? I ran across Aquadock recently for windows and it has been a welcome addition to my utility list. It says that additional docklets are available but I have not dived too deep into this section yet, but this is a nice free utility.

EVAUG Meeting

The Eastern Virginia AutoCAD Users Group is holding their next meeting on June 17, 2004, 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 -AutoCAD 2005 - New Features - Fields - If you have not sure how to use the new Fields feature in 2005 this session was made for you.

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 - ADT 2005 - Project Navigator - You may have seen this at the demo's, or seen others using it but wondered what the Project Navigator is exactly and how it can help to save you time?

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

Independant Animations

Ran across this from Digital Producer http://www.animationshow.com/.

Looks like an interesting DVD. For those who are creating their own short animation films you can submit them here.

happy animating...

Busy break

The break in posting this past week has been brought to you by the letter's A-D-T. Consulting, teaching, customization and more... be back this weekend to update. =)

happy cadding...

You cannot keep them down

I spend quite a bit of time online, there I admitted it. But I was just catching up on some information from 3DTotal and was sorry to hear they were the victim of malicious intent. Not an electronic virus, but a living breathing one (or more). To read about the rest check here and the current follow-up here.

Tom, Ben, Chris, good luck finding the bloke(s) who did this... and congratulations on your ingenuity in getting the site back-up (love the paperclips). Your content and community is a great resource to many users...

Easter Eggs

Well the Autocad 2005 (and vertical products) easter egg has been revealed and more information here.

happy cadding...

Dual Booting

Well the time came for me to add a full Linux distro to my new notebook after using Knoppix while I got the windows side of the machine ready to work with. As luck would have it around the time I was ready a new release from Mandrake came available and off I went to install it (courtesy of Linux Journal).

Having read about dual booting for sometime and having a windows system in the past that had a similar setup I decided this would be relatively easy. Mandrake 9.2 and above offered a feature to partition your windows drive for a ntfs system and no matter what I tried I could not get it to work. I ended up purchasing a new copy of partition magic. After installing this to do my partition set-up it kept bombing out. The long story is that if you are planning to run a dual boot set-up, first run a chkdsk on the harddrive before attempting to partition. After I performed the chkdsk /f trick the Linux installion went pretty easy.

Well now I have the best of both worlds as I continue learning about Linux/UNIX, though my most important tools are not written for this platform yet it is nice to see some of the features available in other operating systems.

Media Player 10 Beta

For those who use the Windows Media Player from Microsoft, there is a new beta just posted and available for you to test (provided you have windows xp). Looks to be some good features and support for new devices too.

Cleaning Machine

Wow, after getting back from a heavy production week of modeling geometry it was time to do something about the mess. Having spent a small bit of time moving everything into one large pile and clearing the surfaces for a good cleaning, everything is now clean and organized.

Which brings about another brilliant idea, if you are feeling overwhelmed or frusturated in your rendering life (and can afford 30-45 minutes of not working) take some time to clean up your area. For a few good tips on ways to reduce your clutter try this.

happy cleaning...

Rendering Comparison

Steve pointed this link out comparing the results of several different programs on the same base scene.

The results are interesting among the users and programs but no matter what software is used it is only as good as the artist using the program. I replied back to a gentleman sometime back who asked which person he should hire to perform some visualization work. At that time he was hoping to base his decision on the software they planned to use and not their final result.

"From experience I can tell you that the software package/combination used will not automatically equal great results. Generally in my proposals I do not list the software I intend to use as that only confuses those who are making the final decision to proceed or not. For new clients I tend to share a few images showing different levels of quality and how that equates to terms they understand, namely "time" and "money". =) Then they make the choice of which level of detail they can afford with an understanding of the
time implications for each.

For repeat customers they understand what they are getting for their time and money and we can adjust to get most any look/style they wish to achieve. It takes a few projects with clients to get to this level of understanding but it is possible. If you have used any of these people in the past then you should have a good idea of what they are capable of.

There are exceptions to every rule, but unless they are giving you their working files when they are done so you can tweak, adjust, use, etc... then I would not let the software be the deciding factor. In the hands of the right people even the most rudimentary of tools can produce superb results." -bbt

happy rendering...

Conferences

For the CAD and Visualization industry there are several large conferences that you can choose from.

One that I especially enjoy is Autodesk University. If you use any Autodesk product (AutoCAD, Architectural Desktop, VIZ, Inventor, Land Development Desktop, GIS, etc...) you should mark the date of November 30 - December 03, 2004 as the next AU is scheduled to be held in Las Vegas.

Why do I mention this to you so early? If you would like to attend and have your companies authorization you should get started planning now. This does not need to be all the final details yet, but just an outline for getting approval. What is the process your company requires before they will allow you to attend any type of conference or training event? Information such as this will help you to plan ahead and fill in the details later and get approved to go.

Having attended the past few AU's and learned a great deal I can say the cost vs. benefits ratio is one of the best out there. Not to mention having the opportunity to meet many people from all over the world and talk about things you love and enjoy as a profession. With so many classes to choose from it offers value in returning year after year to increase your skills and value to the company that you work for.

For those who may not understand how to get approval from your bosses we are working on a document for you to use as a template that will be posted later this week. Look for more soon.

So mark the date and start planning to attend now... I hope to see you there.

Hello Wi-Fi

After spending a week with my new notebook I have been using the wi-fi features and understanding how the whole system works. The nice thing about this is that you can usually get a great signal most anywhere you are (except where I was in Nebraska last week). :)

On my home network I do not have a wi-fi router and after 45 minutes of moving my router and modem to another location so I could snake a network cable to another room to work for a bit, I realized the network cable was about 2 feet short of working. On the off chance I fired up the wi-fi and got a signal (though it says low) and have been using it for the past 4 hours. Cable issue resolved...

Now as for who owns the wi-fi router I am borrowing access from I will have to find out later.

No power cables, no network cables, I love it...

Mobile Power

The search for a new notebook has ended and the final winner was a HP Compaq nx9110.



Of course this was enhanced by purchasing a few extra bits and pieces (ram, peripherals, etc...) and this thing rocks!!!

A note to anyone purchasing from Crucial:
I needed additional ram to take with me on a recent trip and with the free 2-day shipping offered I should have had plenty of time, with a week to spare from ordering before I had to leave it did not arrive.

Why you ask? If your shipping address does not match the credit card billing address it can take an additional week or more. This would have been nice to have known ahead of time as a large bulk of my time is spent at work and I get all my package deliveries sent there. What I recently found out is that you can have your credit card company add a secondary address to your account that will prevent this "security verification" from holding up the process.

While I have never had an issue with any other companies I purchase from regularly via the web, a Crucial rep said this was their standard practice. Getting the second address added to your credit card account is as simple as a phone call and if more companies are starting to use this method then it will certainly help your packages arrive when expected.

Passing away...

Upon returning from our Outer Banks adventure we came home late Sunday evening to find a horrible odor in the house. Unfortunately we found the source to be from one of our family pets (Ezra) having passed away while we were gone.

Ezra was fully grown and found/resuced by my wife many years ago in the woods behind her dorm and has been with her since that time. We never were able to find out the age of Ezra, but they typically tend to live 20-30 years in captivity.

Her roommate Vendella seems to be missing her very much...

Wedding Bliss

As you may have noticed this past week I have been absent from my usual web haunts and blog musings...

To start this break off we had the opportunity to go to Emerald Isle, NC to attend Chico's wedding and visit with several old friends along the way.

The wedding was beautiful and held right on the beach with water almost to your toes... I even had a speaking part in the ceremony.

May I present and wish a wonderful congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Brian Roberts!


We wish you both the best...

Concept Art

For those that checked out the Blur Studios short (mentioned in this post), the concept art work was done by the amazingly talented Chuck Wojtkiewicz. More of his concept artwork for Rockfish can be found here.

I have always loved the work of those who are great at concept art and this is amazing work indeed. If you enjoy this style of work check out the rest of ConceptArt.

happy rendering...

Work flow - Modeling

What a great subject, this one always gets people talking. There are many methods of modeling geometry for Architectural Visualization. If asked how many people started in this industry with modeling in AutoCAD I am sure we would see many nods, and of those how many remember the fond days of solid modeling? Modeling your geometry is the first of 3 important steps in rendering and I too started out with solid modeling. No really, I hated the changes that would occur as much as you because solid modeling with AutoCAD was very unforgiving in a project work flow. The focus of this article is what works for me as I get asked this question in numerous e-mails from many users.

For the architectural industry it makes sense to use a set of tools geared with architecture in mind. I have modeled with AutoCAD, Form Z, and several other products over the years, but found a tool that not only can do production drawings (construction documents) but also with the power to do object based modeling with architecture in mind. My perfect match was a program called Architectural Desktop. ADT completely changed the way I viewed production drawings and changed my work flow. Simply put ADT uses 2d & 3d "objects", for those not familiar consider the real world example of how a door and/or window fit into a wall system. For more information on this please visit the link above and also your local users group.

ADT is an amazing program and I will not sugar coat the fact that it can be complex and at times overwhelming when you start using the advanced features and designing with the Z coordinate in mind, but with persistence, some reading and a few great resources you can get it to do most anything.

Let's talk about the basic modeling workflow itself:

1. For architectural exterior models I typically start with the building components that are known, typically this involves ADT walls, doors, windows, curtain wall and assemblies, roofs, slabs etc... The "building structure" tends to have numerous design iterations during the early design phase. With the use of a composite building model (each floor stacked on top of each other at their respective height) numerous people can work in and on specific areas of the building design.

Design Note - With the release of ADT 2004 and up you should learn to use the project navigator as this keeps track of the building elements for you.


2. Because of the planned changes that occur and my software choice of VIZ/MAX, I tend to use file linking quite a bit. This works out quite well as numerous people can work on the individual sections of the composite model and I tend to just need to reload the geometry to use the changes. Even with all the powerful features of ADT, there are still areas and times that I prefer the tools from VIZ/MAX. Generally this is to add additional features or details that would be either difficult or time consuming to create in ADT. A few of the toolsets that are very useful include; lofting, scatter, shape merge.

3. At a certain point when the building has reached a “design stop” phase to continue with rendering I tend to break the link and bind the drawings into one or more .max files. From here the building design and construction documents can continue to change and update and I can just focus on the scene at this moment.

While the many various versions and types of software available present different advantages to modeling and rendering I would encourage you to try as many as you can until you find the one that works for you. The ultimate goal is to get a great looking image that represents your building and invokes a feel of the proposed space, and of course it needs to be done in a timely fashion. =)

From here we head towards the most critical part of rendering, these being materials and lighting.

happy rendering...

Viz Max Comparison

Steven Papke has put together a great comparison list of the feature sets of VIZ Render, VIZ and Max available here.

If you do not yet have a free membership to the Vizdepot you will need it in order to see this article.

happy rendering...

Blogger Update

Well Blogger has updated and relaunched their services and are now offering more for everyone. If you are looking to start blogging, why not try out their free service.

happy blogging...

Cad Roadshow - review

The Avatech Roadshow yesterday was fantastic and informative. With so much information to present it is no small wonder that the presentations ran over in time, but the information was well worth it. Topics included AutoCAD, ADT, Revit, ABS, Mechanical Desktop, Inventor and more...

IMO one of the most knowledgable people in the architectural industry presented at the two sessions I attended (general and architectural). Being not only a good friend but also one of the most multi-talented guys that I know of, who am i talking about?


Lonnie Cumpton

Thanks again to the Avatech crew for putting together a great roadshow. If you get the chance to see one of their 12 city road shows be sure to attend.

Site Tracking - Good ones?

I am currently working on some html updates to the blog and looking for advice. With the thousands of hits each month (thanks again for stopping by), I have one continuous gripe about blogger and their bstats site tracker, namely it rarely works when I want to look into the logs (site visitor numbers, by hour, day, week, month, etc... and a few other site statistics).

With the many competing services out there, have you used any that are worthwhile? Or any to stay away from? E-mail me with any feedback.

thanks and happy web surfing...

CAD Roadshow

The Avatech Solutions AutoCAD 2005 roadshow has started. I will be at the * "Virginia Beach" show on Tuesday May 04 from 9-12am. This should be a good meeting as AutoCAD 2005 and the verticals will be covered in the breakout sessions. This is a free event with good material, I plan to be there and I hope you will be too.

*incorrectly labeled as the meeting will be at the Chesapeake Conference Center in Chesapeake, Va.

Limping Back To Life

No not me, but AUGI (Autodesk User Group International).

After being hit by the Witty Worm it looks like services are slowly being restored.

For those still looking for cad help via e-mail (with the closing of the guilds and the AUGI forums still down) you may want to sign-up for the cleverly named "oSNAP" mailing lists put together with help from Robert Aiken at SAUG and hosted by Frank Zander of Corbimite.

happy cadding...

Software Upgrade

Ahhhh the age old question with software, when to upgrade.

IMO software upgrades should be done when they offer a compelling reason to do so. Two of the typically larger reasons being financially and/or competitively for your respective market(s). With these in mind, my upgrade path has been waiting for two recent releases of software; Architectural Desktop 2005 and VIZ 2005. These two products compliment each other in the architectural and visualization field, together they offer many reasons to consider upgrading and the ADT and VIZ development teams have done an outstanding job in their work on these products.

So far the ADT 2005 set-up and customization is going quite well and the first phase will be complete in the next few days. While this has taken the bulk of my time this past week, in order to get a turn key customized system set-up and ready to distribute, the second phase is the most exciting, for me, as it includes some new features that I have been anxious to get into the hands of our users to increase productivity, reduce redundancy and at the same time ensuring office cad standards are followed by users of all skill levels.

If you are working on either software package upgrade listed above drop me an e-mail and let me know your progress, as I would love to hear your stories and experiences (both positive and negative).

More updates to come soon...

A week in the life

Business proposals, business planning, spreadsheets, polygon face counts, video compositing, teaching and more...

What a great and busy week this has been! Polishing off a few articles that will be ready to share soon, but in the meantime I wanted to share a top notch video short film from the talented folks at Blur Studios, called Rockfish. To view the short film go the the Animation>>Shorts section.

happy rendering...

Brain Teasers...

John Kador has some good brain teasers on his site. For those who may have to take a brain teaser interview his book will help to get you more comfortable with this process.

As a fun teaser I saw used some time back try this one out:
Three switches outside a windowless room are connected to three light bulbs inside the room. How can you determine which switch is connected to which bulb if you may enter the room only once?

For one possible solution click here.

Audio Post - New

Click the icon below for the first "Will render for food" audio post...

audio post powered by audblog

Programming the day away

For those who program using any of the .net goodies and those who are just interested in technology from the Redmond giant, here is a cool resource:

http://channel9.msdn.com/

Spend a little bit of time browsing the site as there are tons of things going on....

CG Filmmaking

There is a new book out from McGrawHill called 3ds max 6 Animation : CG Filmmaking from Concept to Completion by Barrett Fox. As the title says it goes from concept to completion in a real cg film workflow.

Rendernode magazine has a good book review here and a sample chapter available for download here. I have been casually flipping through this book at my local Barnes and Nobles and it is well written, with everything as the title states. Now I just need to purchase the book, if you are interested in CG Filmmaking you may want to do the same.

happy rendering...

VIZ 2005 - shipping?

It looks semi-official from Ralph Grabowski that VIZ 2005 will be available and shipping this week. Though nothing official from the Autodesk website yet.

Hopefully more to come soon...

Blogging Links

For those of you who are familiar with the Blogrolling work from Jason you probably saw that this was sold to Tucows. More information about that can be found here, of course thanks Kurt for pointing this service out.

I have now added blogrolling to my list of utilities as you can see from the links on the side. Rather than manually updating your links with html, this service allows you to do so much more than a static list. For those that I link too, you can see when they make new posts by the double astericks (**link name**) around their link name (another of the many options you can use). From choosing the way you would like to display your names, add sites and more give this utility a chance to enhance your own blog.

To see how simple this service is sign-up for a free account and click the "Blogroll Me!" link to add me to your list. Instantly updated and added to your site links.

happy websurfing...

Flexible Goodies

Do you spend long hours at the computer? Countless times clicking keys?

Ok, getting to the point I have watched with interest the changing styles of keyboards and typing pads over the past few years. Two types of keyboards have always stuck in the back of my head; flexible and infrared. Well today I picked up a clearance bin special from CompUSA for a great deal that I could not pass up, the mini VIK usb keyboard or "The Virtually Indestructible Keyboard".



There have been a few different opinions about this product, both positive and negative. After playing with this for a bit, I have unplugged my standard keyboard for a month test to see how well it handles the daily work. So far it is nice not to hear the clicking of the keys as these are much softer.

Micah Alpern discusses a few different keyboard models that you may find interesting here. If you have used any flexible keyboards and/or IR/Projection keyboards, drop me an e-mail to let me know your likes/dislikes.

more to come later...

Work flow - First Steps

My specialty in renderings is with Architectural Visualization. I started out using AutoCAD many years ago so I come into the game with a deep knowledge of production drafting and the inner workings and customization of AutoCAD. Then along the way came Architectural Desktop which changed how I worked and viewed production drawings forever. We will get to that soon enough…

Let’s cover a quick overview of a “typical” project life cycle in the Visualization realm.
1. Receive a job with a need/reason for visualization services
a. Establish the needs and outline specifications for the completion of said job.
b. Modeling
c. Materials
d. Lighting
e. Output

So the first step is proper planning to accomplish your goal. Without this step you may be overworking yourself, always identify upfront what the scope of services and final deliverable will be then plan your work flow accordingly. This step helps to identify where a majority of your time and work should be spent. Items that will not be seen in your output may not need to be included which reduces your face count and will also keep your rendering times fast.

David Wright has some articles for you to read that share some great ideas and insight into the business and planning aspect of visualization services.

Next up modeling....

EVAUG meeting

The April EVAUG meeting is this Thursday.

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 - A Beginners Guide to Customization - Part II - This session will be a great chance for you to get introduced to Lisp/Visual Lisp and how to get started creating commands you wished AutoCAD had. This is an introductory level exposure to lisp. If you have not a programming guru then this session was made to get you started.

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 - CAD Standards and How to Get There Part III - Now that we have an understanding of what type of items CAD Standards encompass and some tools to help us get started lets look at the best method of all, "CAD Standardization Through Customization".

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

For more information check the EVAUG website.

hope to see you there...

Happy Bunny Day

Very shortly it will be Easter. Just wanted to take a moment to wish each of you friends who visit this site a happy easter.

happy holidays...

Time for Updating

Had a small break of time last night thanks to being under the weather and insomnia. =)

With the freelance work picking up I took an opportunity to update the Triple D site. Noted improvements include; a new layout, content simplification to show our market focus, css integration to control the look across multiple pages for consistency and a few other goodies. There are still a few more items to complete in this phase that will be finished up in the next week. Of course the next phase is shaping up to be released in a few months (thanks to Miker the Biker for the discussion on this)!

Speaking of Miker the Biker, he has just launched his own freelance work site. If you are looking to have any "rendered" site plans, stop by his site to see what he has to offer. Best of luck on this new endeavor.

happy coding...

Rendering Project Work Flow's

Funny how much this topic keeps coming up in conversations recently. I started a small post about this topic earlier this evening, but it has turned into 10 pages so far and could easily fill a book. So I need to cut back some information or break it up into several posts (the third alternative is to have any interested publishers contact me for a book deal). =)

For now I think I will break this topic up and cover a few key areas in detail.

As a start here are the programs I use for my "typical" workflow:
1. Architectual Desktop - A piece of software that can change the way you view production drawings/work forever (I will expand more on this later). In the meantime check out the new release of 2005, the AutoCAD and ADT team(s) have put out another amazing release of software that I cannot say enough good things about.

2. Autodesk VIZ/MAX - Need I say more? No really.

3. Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter - For 2d compositing, tweaking, textures etc.. both programs have their strengths and weaknesses. Together they are a great match.

I will be expanding on these items in regards to workflow for Architectural Visualization services soon.

happy rendering...

Autodesk VIZ Users

Wow, I cannot believe I missed this post from Shaan sometime back. If you are an Autodesk VIZ user and interested in possibly beta testing a future release this is the link for you.

There are plenty of good reasons to want to get involved with beta testing. Think about your's and then be sure to fill out both the Motivation and the Beta site profile.

happy rendering...

McTartan

Happy Tartan day!



Nice skirt heh.... =)

RSS History and Tools

Dave posted a nice link to a history of RSS and a history/overview of RSS from Microsoft for those interested.

Why do I mention RSS? As you may have read when I first started this blog I love the flexibility that RSS and syndicated feeds offer. My current newsreader of choice is still Newzcrawler. From newsgroup access, blogging directly, to getting the latest news from various sources this is one tool in my kit that I find useful daily and would not want to be without. If you visit a few web sites/pages each day to catch up on news, what better tool than to have something that does the work for you in one convenient wrapper.

Charity

Just noticed on Shaan's blog that Shawn Gilmour (Autodesk personnel and great guy) will be performing a Charity Ride on May 29th at the Bike For Breath, Two Rock Ride and is looking for sponsors.

Not only does this support a great charity but it also helps to sponsor someone who helps to make the great products we all use. Please take a moment to check out Shaan's blog for more information and please give what you can to support Shawn on this trek. Any amount you can offer will help Shawn to meet his goal, donation is easy. How easy you ask? I just donated in under 3 minutes, it is that easy so come on and donate.

Good luck Shawn and ride hard...

Films and Cinema

If you are in the Eastern Virginia area you may have noticed that Architecture week has kicked off and is in full bloom. This evening we had the pleasure of watching "My Architect" at the Architecture and Film program held at the eclectic Naro theatre.

This was a wonderful film by Nathaniel Kahn in his search for an understanding of his father. Good cinematic moments and visuals in this documentary, I highly enjoyed watching it. If you get the opportunity see it in a theatre with plenty of others, in our case try a few hundred architects. ;)

happy designing...

Galleries

Got the chance to upload some images to the gallery. Currently there is a gallery of Dylan pics, for those asking to see some updates, and I finally got a chance to go through some of my AU 2003 photos. From the parties, learning, good friends and more here are some random shots.

In the past I have used a few different "automatic" web gallery creation tools but never found "The Dream Utility" until now. I am hooked on JAlbum. What makes this different from other utilites? How about CSS integration (and customization) to control the look/layout of your pages. Simplicity, and did I mention free?

If you are looking to post a gallery of images I would highly recommend you to check this product out. I will be working on a new gallery of events around town that I find interesting, so stay tuned for more.

happy web wrangling...

Documentation update

In looking over the discreet site today I noticed that the updated tutorials, documentation and sample files have been posted. For those interested check here.

Why I noticed this was due to the updated MAXScript reference (a must get for those coding out there). There is also some new courseware for MAXScripting too.

Signatures

Ran across the funniest signature from Björn Nilsson in the MAX forums:

"It´s time to kick a$$ and chew bubblegum, and I´m all out of gum"

Somedays it feels this way, today is one of them...

Tutorials

In the last post regarding skies and how they can improve the "feel" of your rendering, I got inspired to finally finished up a tutorial I was working on sometime back called "How to Create a Gradient Sky using ADT and VIZ Render". This has been posted to the Vizdepot (free membership is required to view the tutorials).

Speaking of VIZ Render you may have heard that Paul Aubin and James D. Smell have a VIZ Render book in the works that will be published soon. A free sample chapter is available for download here.

This should be a great resource as Paul's other books have been very helpful for those who use ADT and I am sure this upcoming publication will be no different.

Sorry BS, we need to pick another topic... ;)

happy rendering...

Skies

The sky has been extremely nice to look at recently with so much activity, from jets, storms and sunrises/sunsets to everything in between. One issue that seems to occur quite a bit in renderings is the lack of detail in the sky. This can be an important item to the composition of your work and make it actually "*leap off the page" it is printed on (*ok not actually leap, but you know what I mean if you have ever been in awe over a piece of art and/or artwork).

There are a few sky backgrounds that ship with VIZ/MAX, but you should also consider creating your own, photographing and/or purchasing a few nice images of backgrounds and skies to add to your library of materials. Some interesting sites to take note of for skies include:

http://www.1000skies.com/
http://got3d.com/ - Great site and a great cause I highly recommend it.
http://www.stormvision.com

I have been both creating skies from scratch using Photoshop and now Painter and also using a digital camera to catch those amazing moments when the sky transforms itself to something you can barely believe. If there is enough interest I may post a few up to the Vizdepot downloads section. If you have not been by the site, you should as it is growing bigger and better each week with the hard work of Steven, the staff and people like yourself.

Miker the Biker also posted a nice link to a 360 panorama of Mount Everest. This may take a moment to load as it is a QTVR, but it is worth the wait.

happy rendering...

Magazine

Ran across the link to RenderNode Magazine the other day. It appears this is not a printed volume, but instead a downloadable .pdf.

The March volume is 115 pages and is available for purchase ($4 US) via electronic payment and then you have access, of course if you want you can do a subscription too. In what I have been reading through so far the material looks pretty good. There is a nice Max tutorial for creating a landrover discovery too.

happy rendering...

Update

Just got back from my local user group meeting and it was a great time. The topic was on the 2005 series of products and with 140+ in attendance it was a great show and a fantastic venue courtesy of TCC. I always love staying late at the meeting and getting the opportunity to discuss the many uses of cad and cad related products with others who love this software as much as I do.

This has been a long week back at work, after being out for two weeks and helping out on a deadline that is pushing my software implementation dates slightly further out I am beat. I will be back to writing fully tomorrow evening. The focus on next weeks writings and musings will include web development and photo montages, as these are 2 things that I will be working on pretty intensely over the next week as another side project unfolds. More to come on this soon.....

Maxscripting

You may remember last week I mentioned I was working on a modifier removal script. I received an e-mail from Neil about the old "RemoveModifier.ms" that was mentioned. This has been replaced by an updated version called "ModifierManager.ms" which is available in "bspack r42".

This among many other tools presented in this package for your use are great additions to any visualization artists range of tools.

Saving time = More profit $$$

happy rendering...

Fields and Titleblocks

As you know by now I love the fields feature of the 2005 series of products from Autodesk.

For those just learning how to use these features in their titleblocks, Chris Yanchar has a great example just posted to his ADT blog, titled "Create Your Own Titleblocks in ADT 2005 using fields". Don't let the name fool you these same features work for straight AutoCAD too.

Keep up the great work Chris!

happy cadding...

March EVAUG Meeting

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EVAUG e-news Eastern Virginia AutoCAD Users Group

http://www.evaug.com/

March 2004 Newsletter

[]----------------------<>----------------------[]

Content
1. EVAUG Update
2. Upcoming CAD Related Events
3. Wrap up

--------------------------------------
1. EVAUG Update
--------------------------------------

Next meeting: March 25th 2004, the 4th Thursday this month, not the usual 3rd Thursday.

The EVAUG, Avatech Solutions and TCC are pleased to announce the first look at AutoCAD 2005, the latest release from Autodesk. Join us on March 25th, 2004 at 6:30 pm for pizza and a presentation highlighting all the great new features in the new TCC Va. Beach ATC Auditorium!

The New Standard in Productivity
Productivity is a mission-critical component for any industry that creates, consumes or manages design data. AutoCAD 2005 builds on the dramatic power and speed of AutoCAD 2004 with new tools that eliminate tedious drafting tasks and ensure maximum efficiency throughout your process.

* Coordinating Sets of Drawings
* Drawing and Creating Tables
* Annotating Drawings
* Publishing Sheet Sets
* Integrated Design Review

Date/Time: March 25th 2004, 6:30 pm (Note, this month will be a rare exception to the "third Thursday" general schedule)

Location: The Virginia Beach Campus of Tidewater Community College in the new ATC (Advanced Technology Center) auditorium

Address: 1700 College Crescent, Virginia Beach, VA 23453-1999

Directions: Map and detailed driving Instructions can be found at: http://www.tcc.edu/welcome/locations/vabeach/auto.htm

Itinerary: The meeting this evening will include an in-depth look at the Autodesk 2005 series of products that will be shipping shortly the meeting. Be among the first to see what these new releases can do and how they can make you quicker, accurate and more profitable.

* 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

* 7:00-8:10pm - Topic #1 - Autodesk 2005 Series of Products

* 8:15-8:30pm - Wrap Up, Prize Giveaways and Dismiss

You'll be able to meet and mingle with your fellow CAD users and exchange ideas and tips. We look forward to seeing you there!

Eastern Virginia AutoCAD Users Group - http://www.evaug.com


--------------------------------------
2. Upcoming CAD Related Events
--------------------------------------

Looking for gradual paced non-credit AutoCAD class? Check them out at Thomas Nelson Community College, taught by the EVAUG's own Rich Stow. Register for Level 1 CAD, 5 Fridays evenings, 6:00pm-9:00pm. Cost - $160 plus textbook, Ellen Finkelstein's AutoCAD Bible. For additional information, call 825-2937 or www.tncc.vccs.edu/wtce

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3. Wrap Up
--------------------------------------

Mark your calendar! After this coming meeting, the next one will be on Thursday, April 15, 2004, at 6:30 pm! As always, free food and prizes.

Last but not least, thanks to everyone who supports and attends our meetings. The EVAUG would not continue to grow in its current direction without your active participation.

Beau Turner - President
Paul Burgener - Vice-President/Editor
Shannon Turner - Treasurer
Nick Fuller - Membership Coordinator
Stephen Collier - Web Master

Eastern Virginia AutoCAD Users Group - http://www.evaug.com

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If you enjoyed this newsletter pass it on to a friend or better yet tell them to sign up for the newsletter from the EVAUG website.
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St. Patty's day and Family Life

Happy Saint Patrick's day.

We have been getting used to being parents over the past week and are getting adjusted pretty well. There are so many special moments that you treasure each day when you least expect them, and we have also been surprised at how many clothes he goes through per day.

Here are a few updated pictures from today for those interested:





We would also like to thank those who sent flowers, e-mails, kind words and more.

Now get out this evening and enjoy a good pint of Guinness.

Education and Getting Schooled part II

The title of this post got me thinking about how the education of cad and cad related products have changed.

When I first started out using AutoCAD (10 years ago on R-12 Dos) I was hired by a freelance drafting firm who took the chance on a young kid with construction experience, board drafting skills and a thirst for learning. The first day I learned 4 commands from my boss at the time they were; Change, Erase, Line and Text. With these 4 commands and a half-hour training session I was all set to start working. ;)

There was no one else in the area who knew all the ins/outs I soon realized as I studied AutoCAD and wanted to know the philosophy behind it and how to use it effectively. Ahhhhh the good old days, when learning a new command and showing it to people from different companies got cheers from everyone!!!!

Fast forward to the present time and now I have the opportunity to not only use AutoCAD, ADT and VIZ/MAX but also to teach them, customize them and more. As many of you know I teach a few evenings a week at my local college. The students I have surprise me each week with how much knowledge they soak up and also their level of questions and how they wish to apply their new found knowledge to their respective fields. I have also seen the learning level become easier for users with the release of the 2004 suite of products.

When you combine the many avenues of support available to users now, from Help File and Tutorials that ship with the product, newsgroups, books, websites for free and paid learning and of course training courses on CD/DVD it seems even easier to pick-up and hone your knowledge and skills. I cannot wait to see and be a part of what happens over the next 5-10 years for development of this software that we have come to know and love.

Education and Getting Schooled

Plenty of sunshine and somewhat warm weather made for a great weekend combination. This of course meant a trip to my local motorcycle shop for a few new goodies. Most notably a new battery that the Magna ended up needing. Took a good break and got some riding done too.

The script that I was working on Friday and this weekend, was to remove a modifier from a selection set anywhere in the modifier stack for VIZ/MAX. This presented itself to be more difficult than initially planned. ;) After more reading, testing and working I have a snippet that works. Now to add a few other clean-up items to it and add a UI and it will be complete. While I was working on how to do this Daniel Pero suggested an example from Neil Blevins called Remove Modifier. This is, or rather was part of the BSPack and after much searching I found an older version of BSPack available. This presents itself in a much cleaner way than my current method was, I tweaked it a bit for my needs to see how it all worked but I want mine to behave a bit differently. When I finally finish this up I will post a link for those interested.

Speaking of Neil, for those not familiar with his work, it is top notch in the sci-fi and fantasty arena.

happy scripting...

E-mail issue

For those of you who were trying to send an e-mail to the address link on the side, the group that hosts the Triple D site and the e-mail for it, is having problems with the e-mail server and should be back up and running later today.

My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. There is also a possibility that any e-mail sent in the past 48 hours may not have been received.

Today seems to be a rendering and MaxScripting day so look for more tips and thoughts this evening...

That's Visual Lisp Baby

Wow, when they say you do not get any sleep when you have a baby they are not kidding one bit, but boy is it worth it. ;)

I finally got the chance to hop on the computer earlier to work for a bit and had a request from a friend for a snippet of lisp code to copy files from a network location to a users local drive if/when the file is updated. This allows AutoCAD/ADT to control the copying of the files and not rely on DOS, VBScript or other scripting method and a startup/login script. Since this is a simple but useful item for CAD Managers and Power Users, feel free to use it.

I can honestly say I finally coded with one hand behind my back (I had Dylan beside me and he wanted to hold my finger while napping).

==========================================
; start of code here
; copy outdated file to users folder location
; created by Beau Turner 3/10/2004
; copy this code between the ==== and place in your acad*doc.lsp file
; * this may be either 2000, 2004 or 2005 depending on the verison you have installed
;
; in this example the f:/AutoCAD/mytestfile.txt is the "good" file
; the c:/mytestfile.txt is the users folder and location to copy the file to
; it will only copy if the file save time is different

(vl-load-com)
(setq origfile (vl-file-systime "c:/mytestfile.txt")
newfile (vl-file-systime "f:/AutoCAD/mytestfile.txt")
);close of setq

(if (/= origfile newfile)
(vl-file-copy "f:/AutoCAD/mytestfile.txt" "c:/mytestfile.txt"
(vl-file-delete "c:/mytestfile.txt"))
);close of if statement
; end of code here
==========================================

==========================================
; start of code here
; copy outdated file to users folder location
; created by Beau Turner 3/10/2004
; copy and paste code between the ==== and place in a new file
; name it CopyFile.lsp (or whatever you want to call it)
;
; in this example the f:/AutoCAD/mytestfile.txt is my "good" file
; the c:/mytestfile.txt is the users folder and location to copy the file to
; it will only copy if the file save time is different

(vl-load-com)
(defun c:CopyFile (/ origfile newfile)
(setq origfile (vl-file-systime "c:/mytestfile.txt"))
(setq newfile (vl-file-systime "f:/AutoCAD/mytestfile.txt"))

(if (/= origfile newfile)
(vl-file-copy "f:/AutoCAD/mytestfile.txt" "c:/mytestfile.txt"
(vl-file-delete "c:/mytestfile.txt"))
);close of if statement
);close of defun

; end of code here
==========================================

Want to get started coding with Lisp/Visual Lisp? Check out "The Visual Lisp Developers Bible", a free download from my buddy Dave Stein. Though there are currently no plans to continue development of this great resource you will still find this .pdf a great resource and reference and hey its free, so what are you waiting for.

happy coding...

Welcome to the blogging world

Lee Ambrosius (CAD Programmer and HyperPics fame) now has joined the blogging world at Beyond the UI.

Lee is a great person and I cannot say enough positive things about him and the value he has to the cad community. We should all look forward to what Lee has to share through this additional resource. Keep up the great work!!!

happy blogging...

Fatherhood and life

As you may have read recently Shannon and I were waiting for our first little bundle of joy to come join us in our life together. Well that day has now come and we would like to take a moment to share with you:

Dylan Vaughan Cole Turner
Born - March 07, 2004 4:43am
Weight - 8 pounds 4 ounces
Length - 20.5 inches







We hope everything is well with each of you and we appreciate your kind generous words, thoughts and more.

happy parenting...

Favorite AutoCAD 2005 Feature #2

AutoCAD Sheet Set Manager.... For those who have been using ADT 2004 this feature is similar to the Project Navigator. For those who have not had the exposure to this yet, once you start using this feature you will wonder how you ever worked without it.

What exactly are Sheet Sets? Great question, this is a way for your multiple drawing project sheet files to be managed and organized in one location for all users on a "project" to see and use. No need to worry about xrefs, directories/sub-directories, what files go where, etc... To get started with Sheet Sets you can turn this feature on using either Ctrl + 4 or going under Tools>>Sheet Set Manager.

At this point you can either import your existing layout(s) from any drawing into a sheet set as a numbered sheet or use the Create Sheet Set wizard to start generating your Sheet Set from any of several pre-defined templates (Architectural, Civil and Manufacturing both imperial and metric for each) or use your own custom set-ups.

5 things interesting about the Sheet Set Manager:

1. Integration with Fields (in case you have not noticed I love what fields have to offer!!!).

2. Drag and drop your model space views from your resource drawings directly to your sheets without worrying about xref's.

3. Sheet subsets for organization by discipline or other method you choose.

4. Sheet list table. Probably one of the coolest/quickest methods for generating an index listing of all the sheets in your drawing set.

5. The ability to publish your entire drawing set, or subset category, eTransmit and/or archive by right clicking (wait until you use background plotting).

6. Ok, I lied one more item, numbering and sheet naming along with the ability to change these on the fly at any time. Again you can reference information using fields (think about the sheet title, input it once when you create your sheet and have it fill in your titleblock via fields).

I could go on and on about how useful the Sheet Set Manager is but as I was outlining the list of items I wanted to share and discuss, both in this blog and at my lug, it was pretty hard to narrow down the list to just these few items listed above. With so many uses and possibilities for Sheet Sets everyone from the inexperienced to the guru of your office will find this a great feature that will change the way you work.

happy cadding...

Net Rendering blues....

My AutoCAD/ADT 2005 update for this week was interrupted with getting distributed net rendering for VIZ set-up and getting a Brazil distributed bucket rendering for sending out one large single frame image to render on mulitple machines and done on a deadline. Glad that's 90% done, so bear with me tonight/this morning and I will be back-up writing about the 2005 releases soon....

I have to give the Splutterfish guys/gals a thanks as the bucket rendering went smooth once I got the manager/server issue worked out. Only one gripe that I will pass on to tech support for consideration for the duplication of effort in the file naming from common properties to the Brazil file naming. Now as long as everything finishes by morning I will be happy. :)

Now to wind down and get some rest, oh and Kong Phooey have a great time in Japan and try to get out and take plenty of pictures and eat some good sushi. ;)

happy rendering...

Favorite AutoCAD 2005 Feature #1

Fields... though you may not know what this is yet, you will soon enough and you will wonder how you ever worked without them.

It took me a short period of time to understand exactly how fields were going to work for AutoCAD. 10 minutes later I was a superstar. OK, well maybe not a superstar, but if you have ever used RTEXT and wished for more power such as justification and more than plain diesel can give you then you will love this. Fields can be used to show data such as current date, title block information, sheet numbers, sheet names, labels, system variables and of course diesel expressions. If the information changes, regenerate the drawing to automatically update the fields.

5 things interesting about Fields:

1. Fields can be inserted into any string of text (except tolerances) and used in conjunction with text that is manually input. When the referenced field value is changed/modified the value of the field is updated and displayed.

2. Fields allow you to use any justification available for text.

3. Fields offer a few new variables (fielddisplay, fieldeval). These control the background visibility of the fields (similar to Microsoft Word) and when the referenced field information is updated. The Fieldeval is controlled by a bitcode variable (o, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16).

4. Fields can be associated with hyperlinks and views.

5. When used in conjunction with ADT you have access to AEC Project Information and AEC Keynotes.

Okay, well that's enough for now. When you get your copy of ACAD/ADT 2005 be sure to look at the fields and see just how powerful they can be.

happy cadding...

Software and Art

I was chatting with my buddy Miker the Biker regarding graphic software packages and art the other week. Recently he purchased Corel Painter and was showing me what it can do. I was very impressed with what I saw. While Photoshop is an overwhelming choice of the visualization industry there are many things that it lacks in terms of digital art. So far with my experience of both pieces of software I find that they can compliment each other very well for production work.

For those of you that have a Wacom tablet, make sure you check out the Wacom privileges section as I found a special pricing upgrade for this and other products available as a registered owner. One other piece of software that peeks my interest is Toon Boom Studio, and for those wondering.... I broke down and purchased this product to add to my arsenal of tools.

Set Rantmode = On
I have to give a big thumbs down to/for the Corel Website and lack of response from staff. I had a project that this would have been perfect for this weekend so I ordered Painter 8.1 on Thursday morning (bright and early), paid an extra $15 bucks to have it next day overnighted via the web to be delivered by Friday 10:00am. No follow-up e-mail and no package on Friday. The website is/was difficult to navigate and even harder to find an e-mail address for a live person or group. Finally I called their 1-800 number and got a nice young lady to look into my issue. Somehow my name and information were in the computer, but my order was not. Having never bought a product from Corel before I found this odd. The girl mentioned that the site sometimes has ordering issues and I should try again via the web or place my order by phone. I chose to try via phone this time with a live person, after asking for a FTP option to download to meet my weekend deadline she mentioned this is available for other software but not Painter, with no other options but to wait for mail. She mentioned the shipping options and there were 2 choices 2-3 days or 4-5 days and no overnight. For the 2-3 day service they charge $20. $5 more to order by phone and it is not overnighted. I mentioned that the website option was $15 and overnighted but to no avail.

I also decided to document my experience and see if there was anyway to get a FTP or authcode for my purchase to activate the demo. After trying to login to the website and it not accepting my login name and password I started to give up. An hour later my login name and password worked successfully for once to log in, managed to get an e-mail out to them and documented the experience up to this point (including the login issue). After logging out, I could not log back in since. So far I have not received a response back from their support staff either. Now that's customer service! Give me an Autodesk or Adobe product any day, they understand customer service and the value of a client.
Set Rantmode = Off

I know my post above sounds negative, but what a great weekend otherwise. Beautiful weather, manual labor (heavy yardwork, exterior house cleaning), little rendering, coding and not to mention the upcoming birth of our son. The due date +/- this week.

This week I will be posting my favorite things about AutoCAD 2005 and ADT 2005 for some writing material, if I miss a day or two it means we are in the delivery room.

Cheers and I wish you a great week too...