Between the Lines

AutoCAD 2013 Service Pack 2 has been Released

In a continuing effort to improve customer experience and product quality, we released a Service Pack 2 for AutoCAD 2013. For detailed information on issues addressed in this service pack, installation, and notes on changes please make sure to review the ReadMe before installing.

AutoCAD 2013 Service Pack 2
AutoCAD 2013 SP2 (32-bit) (exe - 32429Kb) AutoCAD 2013 SP2 (64-bit) (exe - 41353Kb)

Readme

This Service Pack can be applied to AutoCAD 2013 installed as a standalone application as well as AutoCAD 2013 installed for the following Autodesk Design Suites.

• AutoCAD Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Building Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Factory Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Plant Design Suite 2013
• Autodesk Product Design Suite 2013

Every time you experience an “unplanned exit” from AutoCAD, please make sure to send in a CER report. The CER is where we get a great deal of clues on the problems details and possible methods to fix it in a hotfix or service pack.

Download the Service Pack: http://autode.sk/18ZsXk9

Cheers,
Shaan

 

Big Hearty Autodesk Welcome to Tinkercad

Autodesk announced yesterday at Maker Faire which is essentially the center of the universe event for DIY & Makers our intent to acquire Tinkercad. Tinkercad is an easy-to-use browser-based 3D design tool and will become part of the popular Autodesk 123D family of apps and supports Autodesk’s vision to help anybody imagine, design and create anything..  The addition of Tinkercad to Autodesk will help broaden the  The acquisition will also revive the Tinkercad service and community, despite a previously announced shutdown by its founders and creators.

Tinkercad has been one of the favorite tools of many Makers just wanting a simple web based 3D design tool to create 3D models for 3D printing. With Autodesk as a new parent and placed into 123D Family it is not only not going away as was the case before Autodesk, but it will be improved and given much love and attention.

Tinkercad Blog Post:
Tinkercad has found a new home at Autodesk

Go give Tinkercad a try, its super simple and a fun way to create 3D geometry for 3D printing or just for fun.

http://www.tinkercad.com

 

Autodesk Press Release:
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May. 18, 2013-- Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK)

"We are excited to have reached an agreement with Autodesk that will provide a solid home and bright future for Tinkercad," said Kai Backman, founder of Tinkercad. "We found in Autodesk a shared vision for empowering students, makers and designers with accessible and easy to use software, and with their global reach and expertise in democratizing design, we're confident in their ability to introduce Tinkercad to new audiences around the world."

Autodesk intends for the Tinkercad service to remain available as part of its consumer portfolio. The company also intends to incorporate elements of the Tinkercad technology and user experience into the Autodesk 123D family of products as part of its ongoing effort to make 3D design easier and more accessible to everyone. The transaction is expected to close within the next 30 days.

"Tinkercad is a natural extension of the Autodesk 123D family as well as our other apps and services for consumers, as it is already used alongside Autodesk products," said Samir Hanna, Autodesk vice president, consumer products. "We look forward to welcoming the Tinkercad community to Autodesk and to continuing their mission of accessible 3D design for all."

Related articles

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Tinkercad is Back! Autodesk is Buying It

Autodesk Saves Tinkercad from Extinction

Autodesk buys Tinkercad, saving the easy to use Web-based 3D modeling tool from closure

Tinkercad Acquired by Autodesk

Met with @AutodeskHelp This Week

Jessica Thrasher ^JES,Philip Schmelzer ^PHL and Amanda Kinley ^AK, and me (Shaan Hurley) ^PitA

If there was ever a reason to jump on Twitter, @AutodeskHelp is one of them. Autodesk has a team that assists people in social media. They do not avoid a challenge and just take the easy ones but also actively engage those with highly charged tweets as those usually only take some personal assistance and attention to solve their problems, or just point them in the right direction.

I was in San Francisco this Monday and Tuesday and finally met in person with the @AutodeskHelp team’s US members. This team is doing amazing things that more companies should be doing and that is use the power of social media to engage and assist  customers. Simply put they are in the right place, doing the right thing.

I know and have used Delta Airlines Twitter account @DeltaAssist to solve my travel problems before and I know personally the power of that connection. The simple personal attention and assistance certainly improves my perception of those companies that do this type of proactive assistance in social media.

It can be difficult to quantify the value of social media support to a bean counter type, but one can easily make the argument not doing it results in lost opportunities to make people happy and keep customers. It is far cheaper to retain a customer than acquire a new one. Dropping a social media support and engagement connection can be a real negative PR event as well. Just ask Comcast about when they dropped the person behind @ComcastCares Frank Eliason, and how years later they still feel the heat and have resurrected the social media account.

If I get back to visit the Autodesk Singapore office again, I will certainly give the same in-person kudos to the Singapore based members of the @AutodeskHelp team ^JB, ^APB & ^MA (chili crabs mmmm omnomnom.)

Check out the Autodesk Assistance Team’s blog
http://blog.autodeskhelp.com/

Keep up the great work @AutodeskHelp Team!

Cheers,
Shaan

Autodesk Beta Programs - What is it, and How Does it Work

Last week Autodesk hosted some of the Autodesk Expert Elite group members in our sunny San Francisco office. This  group of customers are top nominated participants (Expert Elite Nomination Form) in their product assistance to their peers in the Autodesk discussion forums. Scott Sheppard presented to the group on Autodesk Labs and Autodesk Beta and promised to follow up on the topics in blog posts.  Scott is posting a blog post on Autodesk Labs (Autodesk Labs versus Beta: Experts Elite Presentation), and I am posting on Autodesk Beta. Beta has long been a passion and responsibility of mine, and is once again a responsibility of mine along with my other Office of the CTO role responsibilities. I was even a Autodesk beta participant for several years as a customer before joining Autodesk.

Autodesk Beta or the Autodesk Feedback Community is pre-release testing community for most every Autodesk product from desktop to mobile and cloud applications. Autodesk Feedback Community is where people can get involved in testing the pre-release products and provide feedback and help us identify the defects before final release. The more people test pre-release betas on different hardware and software configurations as well as test unique workflows to expose issues and feedback, the better the product will be when we ship it.

The Autodesk Feedback Community is also home to some of the future research projects where the product teams can speak confidentially under a non-disclosure with a group of users on possible concepts and ideas to solve user needs and work flows. The members of the community are even used by some teams to recruit for customer visits and in person gunslingers of early versions of software.

Autodesk is rare among large software companies in respect to beta testing engagement and involving it as a vital process across all our products. We could use beta for pre-release marketing activities, but instead we use it to better understand how our products are used, where defects are, and our developers, QA and management personally engage our customers as extended members of our product teams. We want to be as close to the customer as possible to fully understand their needs. After all we are not designing and developing the products for ourselves, but you our customers.

If you want to make a difference in the Autodesk software you use, the Autodesk Feedback Community is the place to be heard & have the potential to affect the software before it is released.

First Climb of the Year

The weather where I live in Utah is finally very warm, and the snow meting enough that I could make the first big hike/climb of the year just yesterday. I joined a meetup.com group “Ultimate Thrillseekers” to summit Mount Olympus which is one of the prominent peaks you see in the backdrop of Salt Lake City. It is not Mount Everest and actually 20,000 feet lower in elevation, but at just over 9000 feet it is no small hill either to break in the legs this year.

The hike is about 3.5 miles each direction and about 4500 feet elevation gain with a mix of dirt, mud, snow, scree, and a good rock scramble in the final stretch to the snow capped summit. The only mistake I may have made was racing a group of young US Marines down the mountain, and for that my legs hurt today. I am in the San Francisco office today and tomorrow, and honestly having a hard time hiding the discomfort of my legs from the first good hike/climb of the year. But all the discomfort in my legs from the good workout was well worth it. I look forward to many more this Summer. I am still down 40 pounds from a year ago and plan to keep active, and not waste a single minute.

 

 

It was an amazing day, view of the city, and new friends. I can’t stress enough how awesome meetup.com is and how many groups I have been active in like photography, social groups, and  several outdoors meetup groups. It is amazing how many new friends you can meet and the activities you can do on the free website.

Live, play, and work hard. Get off the computer and go enjoy the outdoors, live life to the fullest, you won't regret it.

What do you have planned this Summer?
-Shaan

AutoCAD Tip: My Delete Key, Double Click & Layer Control are Not Working

 

The Autodesk product teams receive several emails from the Autodesk Product Feedback Form. Your feedback goes to the products teams and they read them. In many cases team members respond if there is enough detail and time permitting but they can’t respond to every feedback submission, but do try to help when they can.

This solution on the AutoCAD PICKFIRST System Variable is by AutoCAD Test Development’s Misha Belilovskiy.

Oh Pick Me, Pick Me, Pick Me” like a little kid being wanting to be chosen for the dodgeball game in gym class.

 

This has to be one of the most common of all AutoCAD questions and issues encountered by AutoCAD users. They become puzzled when this system variable is set to 0 by accident, errant Lisp or script or perhaps evil coworkers messing with them. The most common clue is their Delete key and double click and Layer control are not working.

The solution while not obvious is an easy fix.

Set your PICKFIRST system variable to 1. You do this by entering PICKFIRST at the command line.

The other most common is AutoCAD dialogs not working and that is due to FILEDIA variable set to 0 to instead of 1.

Events in June

I will be presenting at the following fine Autodesk partner events in June. I am pretty much heads down working on the presentation along with normal work. I will be covering Autodesk technology and innovation from the 15-20,000 foot level. I will be talking about and showing things you may have not seen publicly as well a personal invitation and challenge to help shape the future products and technologies.

•  PowerLaunch by ProSoft on June 6th, 2013
  Salt Lake City Utah.
• Design Vision and Innovation Conference by CAD-1 June 14th, 2013
  Denver Colorado

I hope to see you at one of the events.
-Shaan

Autodesk IDEA Studio Research Proposals Due May 15

We're looking for the best, the brightest, and the most innovative and creative faculty, students, and researchers that you know, and we need your assistance in encouraging them to apply to the IDEA Studio - Autodesk's unique scholar-in-residence program.  The IDEA Studio is now accepting proposals for residencies that will take place in November 2013 through January 2014, and proposals are due May 15.

Located in San Francisco in the Autodesk Gallery at One Market, the IDEA Studio supports faculty and students from around the world who use Autodesk software in advanced, imaginative ways to solve real-life problems. In addition to grants of up to $30,000 USD, residents are given an inspirational workspace and are connected with a tailored network of Autodesk advisors to help them reach their research goals. 

Applicants can submit a brief proposal directly via the online Proposal Submission Form.

Autodesk 2014 Products Available to Students & Faculty 3 Years Free

Hey students and faculty, are you aware Autodesk pretty much gives all Autodesk products for free to you? Autodesk is is not only committed to our amazing current professional customers, but we are equally committed to helping build the future architects, engineers, and 3D vfx and visualization professionals. All you need to have is a valid educational email, register at the link to the Autodesk Student Community,  and you can download most any Autodesk product for free right now. There are also extra benefits such as some increased Autodesk 360 storage and some Autodesk product curriculum to assist you in learning the products.

So students, go get your free Autodesk software at the Student Community now and start using the best professional design and 3D software out there for 3 years. This will help you be the top skilled when you graduate and begin looking for that job. You will be able to demonstrate your mastering of the software in addition to your degree as a distinct advantage to that dream employer.

http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center

AutoCAD Stacked and Baseline Dimensions

The Autodesk product teams receive several emails from the Autodesk Product Feedback Form. The Product Feedback form is the one that I had mentioned in the a recent post: Send Your Feedback or BBQ Recipe to an Autodesk Product Team. Your feedback goes to the products teams and they read them. In many cases team members respond if there is enough detail and time permitting as they can’t respond to every feedback submission and are not product support but do try to help.

The AutoCAD QA Team wanted to address a couple of the common feedback form reported issues they have received in a few blog posts. This post on Stacked and Baseline Dimensions is by AutoCAD Test Development extraordinaire Chris Miller.

How do I create Stacked Dimensions?

There are a number of do this, depending on what you mean by “stacked dimensions.”

If you create a dimension, double-click it (or enter DDEDIT then select it) to edit the text, you can add a 2nd line of text below the dimension value by entering \X and then the string you want to add, or just move the cursor to the end of the text and hit Enter on the keyboard to enter a 2nd line of text.

Or...you can stack alternate units below the value so the dimension shows values in two different units (say Inches and mm). This is done in the DIMSTYLE dialog > Modify > Alternate units tab.

If what you're looking for is Baseline Dimensions:

In that case you want to use the DIMBASELINE command (Annotate Ribbon tab > Dimensions panel > 4th button is Continued and Baseline) and you can adjust the spacing between the dimensions using DIMSTYLE > Modify > Lines tab > Baseline setting.

Thank you Chris!

Don’t forget if you have feedback, to offer up a family BBQ recipe or even a good beer or wine suggestion. http://autode.sk/feedback

-Shaan

Introducing Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite 2014: BIM Workflow for Roads and Highways

This is a guest post by Michelle Rasmussen of ASCENT, who also happens to in Utah just a few minutes South of me. ASCENT is responsible for the official Autodesk Official Training Guides for Autodesk products.

I am extremely excited to bring to you the first ever Autodesk Official Training Guide (AOTG) addressing an Autodesk Design Suite. This book introduces a seamless workflow for designing roads and highways, as described in the flow chart below. It uses multiple products found in Autodesk Infrastructure Design Suite Ultimate 2014 to design a new transportation corridor for a growing city.

Upon completing the course, you should be able do the following:

• Establish existing conditions using the Autodesk InfraWorks software.
• Sketch multiple layouts of the proposed roadway using the Autodesk InfraWorks software.
• Identify the optimal corridor location and create proposals to communicate the selected option using the Autodesk InfraWorks software.
• Create Engineered Road Designs in the Autodesk InfraWorks software.
• Exchange Autodesk® InfraWorks design information with the AutoCAD Civil 3D software.
• Create typical cross-sections of the road using Assemblies in the AutoCAD Civil 3D software.
• Create a complex corridor model of the roadway in the AutoCAD Civil 3D software using Autodesk InfraWorks design data.
• Create and edit intersection designs.
• Calculate quantities using cut/fill and material quantity calculators.
• Combine the AutoCAD Civil 3D software, Autodesk Revit Structure software, and other data sources in the Autodesk Navisworks Manage software.
• Perform clash detection in the Autodesk Navisworks Manage software.
• Create visual presentations to communicate design intent using storyboards, scenarios, and renderings using the Autodesk InfraWorks software.

Visit the ASCENT website for more information about the Introducing Autodesk® Infrastructure Design Suite 2014: BIM Workflow for Roads and Highways training guide. Click here to register to join Michelle on Thursday, May 16, 2014,for an ASCENT webcast to present an overview of this new training guide

Autodesk Flashback Friday - Spur Gear Building Design

I proudly present to you my spur gear building designed in AutoCAD Architectural Desktop (ADT) r1 circa 1998 and codenamed Portsmouth. I tried to convince the Autodesk AEC team then located in Henniker New Hampshire I was a mechanical designer and had little architectural design skills. It was the warped humor of mine, but as I recall the architecture professionals were not thinking it was as funny as did I.

The office space in my spur gear building was really quite nice with each gear tooth having an office with a window and then in the center a central conference room. Frank Lloyd Wright would have been proud, ok maybe that’s a stretch. Still it was amazing that the first beta of what later became AutoCAD Architecture was able to solve the gear roof.

Happy Friday!
-Shaan NAA (Not an Architect)