Between the Lines

Pumpkinizing Yourself

The Pumpkinizer from a Photo at GlassGiant.com

Here is my face pumpkin'ized.

Thank You Authors!

I am far from knowing everything especially in design and Autodesk software or CAD Management. While I may know enough to be dangerous and have several years of experience, I am also intelligent enough to know that books, references, and knowing your resources are the true golden part of your knowledge. Many times in my years I have been told it is not what you can remember but knowing where to find the answers that matters.

Occasionally a nice author sends me a book as a courtesy as many have participated in the Autodesk product betas and some have even thanked me in the books forward which has always been a real honor to me. Many of the authors I know personally as the design world is really a small world once you get to know it and you are bound to bump into most anyone involved if they attend conferences or local events. This month I received 2 excellent reference books for my bookshelf of knowledge of which I refer to very often. They have never asked me to mention their books on the blog but I feel personally compelled to as a thank you and to possible assist the many readers of this blog to find great reference books and build their bookshelf of knowledge. While online resources are excellent there is still a special feel and use for a physical book and the portability of being able to take it with you camping or hiking.

• 
  AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008 Bible by Ellen Finkelstein
  1296 pages and a DVD
  Available on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/AutoCAD-2008-LT-Bible/dp/0470120495

 

•  
  Mastering AutoCAD Civil 3D 2008 by Dana Probert, E.I.T., James Wedding P.E., Mark Scacco P.E., and Jason Hickey. 840 pages plus CD
  Available on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-AutoCAD-Civil-3D-2008/dp/0470167408/

Thank You

Authors Rock!

Shaan

How to Replace a 172' Foot 3 Million Pound Bridge in a Weekend

The Utah Department of Transportation "UDOT" did something this rarely seen this weekend that had people cheering and smiling, was on-time, made sense, and on budget. This new method is called Accelerated Bridge Construction.  They worked with contractors Ralph L. Wadsworth "WADSCO" and Michael Baker Corp. and the Dutch heavy lifting company Mammoet to replace a major freeway overpass bridge in a weekend. This ABC method was used instead of shutting the freeway down for many months like what is typically done. While this practice has been done in Europe it is new to the U.S. I stopped by the jobsite today to check it out for myself and take some pictures since I live in Salt Lake City. Low and behold it appears that we may have a new spectator sport that is more exiting that tennis or golf and that is bridge moving. There were literally hundreds or thousands of people watching the snail paced relocation of the new bridge span some with special areas like VIP boxes front row with a catered meal. Some had said they were missing a football game to see this. Perhaps in the future we could have head to head competitive bridge replacement competitions. There was even one photographer that had scaled a 20 foot pine tree to sit at the top of it for some good photos. It was truly surreal and perhaps we just don't get too much excitement here in Salt Lake City Utah except on the world famous ski slopes and awesome red rock desert.

The old bridge section was moved out and the new section drove in on the freeway using a large self propelled modular transporter "SPTF" by Mammoet and controlled remotely. The SPTF has many sets of wheels and controls to move large structures. I had actually used one of these about 12 years ago when constructing some California bridge sections and military watercraft in Oregon. Yes I used to work in the "real design world" with real large steel projects including large bridges. ;-)

I posted some photos to my Flickr gallery of this exciting new sport in which there is a kickoff and a touchdown and hopefully no fumbles.

Link to UDOT page

4500 South Rapid Bridge Replacement Project Animation

Quote "These activities have been designated by the Federal Highway Administration as a Showcase Event with national significance, and the public is invited to attend."
Wow, and no fireworks or marching bands in attendance? ;-)

Other articles:

• 4500 South Bridge Replacement Fact Sheet
• UDOT Moves New Bridge into Place
• Bridge Replacement to Impact Traffic Through Weekend
• New Technology Used To Move I-215 Bridge Seamlessly Into Place

Congratulations to all involved. Hopefully this limited closure and rapid replacement process is adopted by other highway departments to limit construction closing impacts and costs of other freeway bridge replacement projects.

Shaan

AutoCAD 2008 Certification - You have 2 hours to answer 35 questions...ready, set, go!

AutoCAD 2008 Certification is launching and the preparation guide should be available from the Autodesk eStore by the end of the week. I would recommend the 592 page preparation guide to brush up on best practices and new features and being prepared for the certification exam. The User test certification for AutoCAD 2008 is available now with the Expert certification being made available in December.

You can take the examination at any Autodesk Authorized Certification Center participating in the academic program. When you purchase your certification examination you have the option of scheduling your examination at the time of purchase, or any time in the future. you can also take the AutoCAD 2008 Certification during Autodesk University 2007 in Las Vegas at an offsite location Monday through Friday.

Available Autodesk Product Certifications:

• AutoCAD® 2007
• AutoCAD ® 2008
• AutoCAD® Architecture 2008
• Revit® Architecture 2008
• Autodesk® Inventor ®2007
• Autodesk ®Inventor® 2008
• AutoCAD ®Civil 3D ® 2007
• AutoCAD® Civil 3D® 2008

Autodesk Certification meets several standards such as the following:

National Standards:

• ITEA standards for Technological Literacy
• NCTM standards for Mathematics
• NCTE standards for Language Arts
• NCSESA standards for Science

Please note this certification program is currently only for the U.S. although other countries are being considered.

Autodesk Certification Info: http://www.autodesk.com/certification

Autodesk Certification Test Site: http://autodesk.starttest.com

Autodesk Academic Certification Overview PDF

Autodesk Certification Q&A Fall 2007 PDF Document

Publicly available testing locations and session times are listed on http://autodeskcenters.starttest.com

Questions can be emailed to certification@autodesk.com

AutoCAD crashes when the File menu is accessed

I have been working with a customer that has AutoCAD 2007 crashing and I wanted to share the solution as it could be common. It is related to another product installing a bad version MFC80U.DLL to their machine. Some applications are incorrectly installing debug versions of this MFC80U.DLL in error causing problems for other applications including AutoCAD. We have published a knowledge base solution to this issue.

Program crashes when the File menu is accessed

Published date: 2007-04-04
ID: TS1069915

Applies to:
AutoCAD® 2008
AutoCAD® 2007
AutoCAD® 2006
AutoCAD® 2005
AutoCAD LT® 2008
AutoCAD LT® 2007
AutoCAD LT® 2006
AutoCAD LT® 2005

Autodesk Project Draw 0.5, Diagramming Online with SaaS/Web 2.0

SaaS stands for Software as a Service or perhaps you have heard the term Web 2.0. This is basically an application that needs no installation and runs on the web through your browser. Give this early preview example a run through of what can be done through your browser thus bypassing limitations of what operating system you are using. You can draw shapes ala basic Actrix or Visio with grips and snaps.

 

http://labs.autodesk.com/technologies/draw/

URL: http://draw.labs.autodesk.com

Feedback Email: Labs.Draw@autodesk.com

Supported Browsers

• Firefox 1.5 or higher
• IE 6 or higher

It's SaaSy!

 

Technorati Tags: SaaS, Autodesk SaaS, Web 2.0, Diagram, Autodesk Labs

Southern California Wildfires

Our hearts and offers of help goes out to those affected by the wildfires of Southern California. If there is anything I can do, please do not hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,
Shaan Hurley
Autodesk, Inc.

Another Autodesk Blog is Born - Inside the System

Revit MEP Product Manager Kyle Bernhardt has now launched a Revit MEP blog. Congratulations Kyle, welcome to the CADBlogging world.

http://inside-the-system.typepad.com/

RSS 2.0 Feed

 

Cheers,
Shaan

Technorati Tags: Revit, Revit MEP, Autodesk, Blog

Using LMAN to manage Layout layers as an unintentional by-product.

The change in AutoCAD 2008 to the way layer states restore in model space and paper space.

Thanks to Autodesk developer and former AutoCAD Express Tools team developer Tom Stoeckel. I have known Tom for years and before Autodesk he even had his own AutoCAD Layer tools he developed for people. Tom is one of the most knowledgeable people on AutoCAD and a trusted person to go to for the straight no bones about it answer. Tom is also very active on his own time reading and responding to customers in discussion forums and events like Autodesk University. It is always a great benefit to have people like Tom on your team that go the extra effort and care sincerely about what they do.

I think users can get the same behavior by restoring the layer state and then going to the necessary layout tab and restoring it again.  Model space and paper space (including layouts) are now treated independently of each other with respect to layer states.

The change to the way layer states restore in model space and paper space.

Here is Tom's  response posted to the newsgroup last March:

<snip>

Let me explain some changes that happened in 2008.

The on/off and freeze/thaw settings for a layer only really apply in model space. Layers in a viewport are really just visible or not visible - you see them or you don't - and whether or not a given layer is visible in a viewport is ultimately going to be handled by the vpfreeze settings in THAT viewport and the global visibility settings from model space.  When restoring a layer state in a viewport we don't manipulate the model space on/off and freeze/thaw layer settings UNLESS it is necessary to make a layer visible in the viewport.

So it works like this:

- If a layer is on and thawed in model space and should be visible in the viewport, we vpthaw it in the viewport.  No MS changes.

- If a layer should not be visible in the viewport, we vpfreeze it in that viewport.  No MS changes.

- If a layer is off and/or frozen in model space and should be visible in the viewport, we make whatever MS changes are necessary so it will be visible and then vpthaw it in the viewport.

While in PS, the MS on/off & freeze/thaw controls in the dialog are disabled because we aren't manipulating those settings unless necessary to give the expected results in a viewport.  Whether or not a layer state restores the visibility of the layer in a viewport is now controlled by the "Visibility in Current VP" option.

Basically, we've made a distinction between restoring in PS and restoring in MS and we treat them like the two different environments they are.  This change was necessary to fix a legacy problem with restoring layer states in PS. Prior to AutoCAD 2008 you could not restore multiple layer states to multiple viewports without potentially jacking up the visibility of previous viewports to which you had just restored.  So if you have a layout with 4 viewports and you needed to restore a different layer state in each viewport, you ran a very high risk that every subsequent layer state restore, after the first one, would affect the look of the viewports prior to it.  This happened because we were restoring the MS on/off & freeze/thaw settings while in PS viewports and since those settings are global visibility changes, you would have layers that were visible in viewport 1 being globally turned off by the restore to viewport 3.  Very frustrating. We avoid that now by NOT restoring the model space visibility settings while in paper space UNLESS it is necessary to make a layer visible in a viewport.  The truth is these ARE two different work environments (MS vs PS) and the layer changes you make in one have always potentially affected how it looks in the other. 

<snip>

The bottom line is that some users have become accustomed to having LMAN manage their layout layers as an unintentional by-product.  Now that we have drawn a clear line between Paperspace (layout) and Modelspace layer management, this isn’t just accidentally happening anymore.  If this is a huge issue, we can probably fix it somehow but I would have to investigate a fix that works for them and doesn’t totally muck up the new AutoCAD 2008 changes we made.

Technorati Tags: AutoCAD 2008, Layer, LMAN, AutoCAD Layers

Autodesk Visual Search and Content Search available on Autodesk Labs

The text based Content Search Alpha and geometry searching Autodesk Visual Search are two technologies in the Autodesk Labs now available to use and get customer feedback to help shape their directions.

Autodesk Visual Search allows you to simply sketch and search based on the sketch geometry, 2D or 3D drawing or even based on a raster image for some pre-indexed content results that are the closest geometry match. This is a pretty interesting web based app.

 

Content Search is a engine that aggregates content like standard blocks and details from major suppliers and Autodesk products.

 

Go give them a try then provide some feedback to the team email listed on the Autodesk Labs page.

Autodesk Visual Search

Content Search Alpha

 

Happy Searching!

-Shaan

 

Technorati Tags: Autodesk Labs, Autodesk Visual Search, Autodesk Content Search, Autodesk, geometry, search, content

It Hurts When I Type...

On Saturday I had a newly scheduled exercise class starting at my gym titled "Body Combat".  Body Combat sounded like a cool and manly type of exercise class to me, as a guy. When I arrived for class, I was one of four guys in a class of about 50 ladies. I said to myself what the heck and proceeded to try and follow along with all the mixed martial arts, boxing, and fast moves in an advanced aerobics type of class for a little over an hour. It was a fast paced class with allot of moves to try to remember and also act like I had some dance rhythm, although I apparently don't. It turned out to be a really good workout and I am still hurting today 2 days later. The only downside of this class was the instructors  yelling to the beat of the music "come on girlfriends" and "kick it, like your ex-boyfriend". 

 

I am at the gym about 5 times a week and go through a cardio session of over an hour running or stair steppers and then weights for about another hour. I am also a regular canyoneering and advanced hiking fanatic any chance I can get, so I consider myself getting in fairly good condition. I have been on this health kick with exercise and a new diet since January when my best friend got me into it while we were visiting in Costa Rica for 2 weeks of R&R. I even stopped drinking soda and most sugar. But although I exercise regularly, don't smoke (thanks Chantix), and eat healthy now, I have technically not lost any weight.  According to a scale I am the same weight although I have dropped many clothes sizes . This is apparently due to replacing fat with muscle and muscle weighs more than fat. People that have seen me recently are shocked and say I look like I lost at least 25-40 pounds.  I look and feel better and soon will be able to dance with rhythm WooHoo!

Yes, I most certainly plan on attending this Body Combat class weekly.  :-)

Cheers
Shaan

Technorati Tags: Exercise, gym, weightloss

 

del.icio.us Tags: Exercise, gym, weightloss

Shaan and Autodesk Founder John Walker

Now the answer to who was the mystery person in the photo with me in my post on 10/13/07 "Who is the masked person with me?". Jimmy Bergmark in the comments wins as it was indeed the legendary Mr. John Walker the founder of Autodesk and now the owner of popular website http://www.fourmilab.ch/.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet the founder of Autodesk this summer while I was traveling in Switzerland this summer. He was so very friendly and has a memory like no other person I have met before. It was a CAD Geeks dream come true. I made sure to tell John how much of an impact he made on many of us who started on AutoCAD. I will reveal more details on this exciting visit in the future in this 25th anniversary of Autodesk.

 

Shaan Hurley & John Walker

Cheers,
Shaan

 

Technorati Tags: Autodesk, Founder, Autodesk Founder, AutoCAD, Autodesk History, AutoCAD History, Switzerland, John Walker

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Google Earth Extension for AutoCAD Updated on Autodesk Labs

We have updated the Autodesk Labs hosted tool "Google Earth Extension for AutoCAD" which included fixes for reported issues and support of other products like AutoCAD Map. The credit and kudos goes to the developer Thomas Inzinga. With this updated tool you can import images or a mesh from Google Earth, assign time span, and also publish your models to Google Earth.

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/google_earth_extension_beta/ 
(not really a beta but a Autodesk Labs Technology Preview)

Changes:

Added support for AutoCAD® Map 3D 2008.

Added support for map projections when using the extension with AutoCAD® Civil 3D 2008 or AutoCAD® Map 3D 2008.

Added tool tips for displaying time span data attached to AutoCAD entities.

AutoCAD® block references are now published without the need to explode them.

Included a number of minor defect corrections.

Email feedback to: labs.acad-google@autodesk.com

Thomas will also have a class on this tool at Autodesk University "Publishing DWG Data to Google Earth (GD405-1)".

Come join us at Autodesk University while this year we are celebrating 25 years of proven industry excellence by Autodesk.

Costumes for Pets?

I got a kick out of the top ten pet costume photos on this blog posting. LINK

 

Help Shape the Future of AutoCAD Mechanical at AU 2007

The AutoCAD Mechanical Team is looking for users of AutoCAD Mechanical that would be interested in potential future releases. If you will be attending Autodesk University this year and are a AutoCAD Mechanical user and would be interested in test driving some potential future features and providing feedback on them please send Jul-Vie.Siew@autodesk.com an email containing your contact details and she’ll be in touch with details of the session times.

from Drawing the Machine

Who is the masked person with me?

Any guesses who this person might be?
Post a comment to this post.

Next week I will reveal who I got to meet not too long ago.

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

 

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So many lives are affected by breast cancer around the world and chances are you probably know someone. Hopefully there is a cure in the near future as one person lost to breast cancer is one too many. http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/ -Shaan

RAW RAW RAW Images

When shooting digital photos, please save your RAW versions of your favorite photos if possible otherwise you may regret not doing so in the future. The RAW is a capture of more setting and usually 12-16 bit as opposed to a JPEG images that is processed by the camera and usually a lossy compression 8 bit. Having the RAW of your favorite photos will allow you in the future at a later point edit and process the photos differently. I have many photos that I am stuck with the camera processing in a JPEG and really wish I had RAW images for them. Having the RAW file for the future is especially valuable as RAW image processing technology is improved you can make your photos look better by enhancing what you shot in the RAW. Think of the RAW image as a digital negative and everything the camera sensor captured in the shot. It is true most save to JPEG as they can share and view it easily, is uncomplicated, and mostly due to a JPEG being much smaller. It is similar to having a can of soup or the detailed recipe for the soup that you can adjust to your liking.

Having the RAW image later will be worth gold to you at some point for those special photo memories.

Regards,
Shaan

AutoCAD Drawing Cleanup Utility "DCU" on Autodesk Labs

We just posted a new preview of a utility named the Drawing Cleanup Utility "DCU" to the Autodesk Labs. This Drawing Cleanup Utility will assist you in cleaning up a drawing to meet your specification or standards by organizing, re-mapping, or manipulate entities to a target standard. You can move layers, blocks, geometry, linetypes, color, explode blocks and attributes all while selecting in a visual selection method. It can also record and play macros to automate tasks. It is for AutoCAD 2007 and AutoCAD 2008 and based vertical products like AutoCAD for Architecture 2008.

Check DCU out HERE

From the documentation:

What is the DCU?
The Drawing Cleanup Center (DCU) is a productivity tool that provides users the ability to
quickly clean-up and structure DWG files to meet a specific standard. DCU can be used
with all Autodesk products that run on AutoCAD 2007 or 2008 – e.g. Map 3D, ADT, Civil
3D, etc.
It is a user interactive tool that provides visual feedback of user actions and assists users
in selecting the right tools with visual cues such as tool tips. It is designed for individuals
who are familiar with CAD but who aren’t CAD experts.

Who needs DCU?
DCU is valuable tool for CAD drafters and designers in several important, and often time
consuming, business scenarios that require modifying drawings to conform to a standard
as follows:

• Cleanup CAD Drawings to a standard driven format which makes it easier to migrate to any AutoCAD application.
• Automating the migration of drawings into a database-based system (e.g. migrating maps into a GIS, migrating floor plans into a facilities management system, etc.)
• Ensuring that drawings from subcontractors conform to a company standard
• Decluttering (removing data) drawings to make them more usable for different business users (e.g., taking architectural floor plan drawings and simplifying them to fit the needs of first responders, etc.)
  

What are the high-level DCU features and functions?

Several key features that DCU provides are:

• Increasing productivity over standard AutoCAD-based tools (e.g. Map 3D, ACA, Civil 3D, etc.)
• Simplifying AutoCAD for non expert AutoCAD users
• Graphic interaction (select by example)
• Immediate graphic feedback
• Managing and distributing the DCU CAD standards throughout an organization
• Automating work through macros which record and playback repeatable
  operations

Hotfix Available for AutoCAD 2008 Linetype Display Issue

Service Packs are supposed to fix things, not break them. Anytime you change something you are risking breaking something else. We have created a hotfix update to solve this reported issue.

"Hotfix - Linetype display

ID: DL10188849

This hotfix repairs a problem in which linetypes unexpectedly display as continuous in AutoCAD® products after the installation of a Service Pack

Applies to:
AutoCAD® 2008
AutoCAD® Architecture 2008
AutoCAD® Electrical 2008
AutoCAD® Land Desktop 2008
AutoCAD LT® 2008
AutoCAD® Map 3D 2008
AutoCAD® Mechanical 2008
AutoCAD® MEP 2008
AutoCAD® P&ID 2008
AutoCAD Revit Architecture Suite 2008
AutoCAD Revit MEP Suite 2008
AutoCAD Revit Structure Suite 2008
Autodesk® Inventor™ Professional 2008
Autodesk® Inventor™ Suite 2008

Readme "

Regards,
Shaan

New Autodesk Impression Preview 6 Available and to More Countries

From Lisa's blog posting on Inside Hues: New Technology Preview Posted!
Now many other countries can download the Autodesk Impression preview and also the build has the latest hot fixes included.

 

• Australia
• Belgium
• Canada
• Denmark
• Finland
• Ireland
• Luxembourg
• Malaysia
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Singapore
• Sweden
• United Kingdom
• United States

Check out the Autodesk Impression Community and Resource : Autodesk Manufacturing Community

AutoCAD 25 Year Timeline Image

I just released a new updated 25 Year AutoCAD Timeline image in celebration that this is the 25th Anniversary of Autodesk and AutoCAD. http://lp.adskhost.com/index.php/1391.html

Cheers,
Shaan

The Popular Haunted and Historic Haystack Landing House

This rumored to be haunted Victorian house is still a extremely popular search hit especially around Halloween even after all these years and having even burned down since. I first experienced the place in July 2004 after hearing about it and seeing a website. Since then this subject has been one of the top read items on this blog as well as hundreds of emails about it to me from around the world.

My photos of Haystack Landing in Petaluma prior to it burning down.

Past blog posts on Haystack Landing

Creepy Haunted Place...Haystack Landing

Haunted Haystack Landing House Destroyed by Fire

Haunted Haystack Landing, Still a Hot Halloween Item 2 Years Later

Happy Halloween!

geo:tool=blockrocker.com geotagged geo:lat=38.2209703 geo:lon=-122.6059413

Autodesk Design Review 2009 Beta 1

Volker has just announced that the future release of Autodesk Design Review code named "Colorado Project" is now open for beta testing. They are looking for your active participation and feedback on this pre-release product and features hosted on the Autodesk MyFeedback Community. See Volker's blog post for all the specific details.

Autodesk Design Review 2009 Beta 1 Live Now

 

Please Get Involved and Help Shape the Future of Autodesk Products

AUGI ATP Classes Start Today (Free Autodesk Product Training)

Heads up from Mike Perry over at BLAUGI ATP Courses for October 2007 start Monday the 8th

ATP205 Autodesk Design Review 2008 – Advanced.

ATP208 Stairs and Railings in Revit Architecture.

ATP209 AutoCAD Tables.

ATP210 Introduction to Autodesk Revit MEP.

To Register: Current ATP Courses