« December 2010 | Main | February 2011 »
The Autodesk Gallery at One Market Street in San Francisco is open free to the public. See the Gallery and the exhibits every Wednesday. http://www.autodesk.com/thegallery
Autodesk Gallery at One Market
One Market, Floor 2
San Francisco, CA 94105
You can follow the Autodesk Gallery on Twitter http://twitter.com/autodeskgallery
Cheers,
Shaan
Happy Birthday Autodesk!
It was 29 years ago today January 30th in 1982 a small group of people held an initial meeting to organize what became Autodesk. On April 26th 1982 Autodesk was incorporated in the State of California. Since that date 10,592 days ago there have been hundreds of products, thousands of employees, millions of customers, and billions of designs.
Here are television commercials that were airing back on January 30, 1982.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwICX9bA49w
Cheers,
Shaan
It is always amazing to see what Autodesk customers do with our software and technology. In this case, it is definitely an entertaining experience learning about a great design team and company by watching the video (link below) rockin’ the storyline and some great backing music to make it just that much more of an experience.
Chances are if you have seen a concert or touring entertainment show in the past 20 years, you have seen and experienced a design by Pennsylvania based Tait Towers. Tait Towers designs and manufactures entire stage sets for the top shows and talent in the entertainment industry using AutoCAD and 3ds Max Design like the massive Bon Jovi Circle Tour concert stage set.
Making sure everything designed and manufactured for the show not only provides a top notch entertainment experience but can be quickly shipped, easily setup, dissembled, and reloaded back on trucks to the next concert venue is critical for the show to hit all the tour dates to delight their fans. Tait Towers use AutoCAD and 3ds Max Design to accomplish their monumental challenge. The combined stage set and entertainment such as a rock band transport the show attendees out of reality for just a few hours and leaves them with a lifetime memory, and if not wearing ear protection that ringing in the ears feeling afterwards. Tait Towers uses 3ds Max Design to render out the 3D stage set designs for the clients to review and approve, which might be Jon Bon Jovi himself.
Tait Towers has designed several touring entertainment shows for all types of music concerts and events, including recognizable names like the Rolling Stones, Metallica, Aerosmith, U2, Prince, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, Kid Rock, Lady Gaga, Brittney Spears, Kiss, Carrie Underwood, Van Halen, Ozzfest, the Super Bowl, and the list goes on and on.
Check out the video on how Tait Towers designed and built the stage set for Bon Jovi’s The Circle Tour using AutoCAD and 3ds Max Design: http://bit.ly/e9zPWY
Cheers,
Shaan
Please join me for a live webinar presented by Novedge. I will be showing AutoCAD for Mac with an overview of the compatibility, features, interface, system requirements, and the 2D & 3D workflow.
The live webinar will be next Wednesday, January 19, 2011 from 11:00am - 12:00pm PST.
Virtual seats are filling up so signup soon to learn more about AutoCAD for Mac:
http://bit.ly/hw7dc6
Cheers,
Shaan
I received a question in the past hour on Twitter from @JenniRene82 “Jennifer” asking how to plot a 30 x 42 paper size PDF using AutoCAD for Mac. Here is a quick Tutorial.
I am starting with a drawing in AutoCAD for Mac of a Stage Light Layout Design by David R. Steinmetz of Set Works Inc. http://www.setworksinc.com/.
We have the drawing all ready to plot use the PRINT or PLOT command to bring up the print dialog. I then select the down arrow to expand the print dialog.
Select the Paper Size dropdown
From the available paper sizes select Manage Custom Sizes.
Now add a custom paper size for 30” tall x 42” wide
.
Name the new paper size and then select OK.
Name your PDF and set the location of the file to be created.
Now you have a 30 x 42 PDF and you are done!
Thanks for the question Jennifer!
Cheers,
Shaan @mrcadman on Twitter – Follow me!
Kean Walmsley & Scott Sheppard announced a free plugin that most AutoCAD users working with layers could really use and that is to DrawOrder By Layer.
To explain the plugin simply, it places the layers in their top to bottom order based on their layer and the order you select. This is perfect for easily setting what object to plot or display on top of other layers.
Brief install instructions
Download the plugin, install per readme on AutoCAD 2007 and later releases and based applications including 64 bit versions from:
http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/ADN_plugins/catalog/
Extract the downloaded Zip file. I use a Download directory and organize downloads there personally. After extracting read the text file for all the details on the plugin.
Copy the file ADNPlugin-DrawOrderByLayer.dll to a directory support path for AutoCAD or just under the AutoCAD root directory. A nice organized yet optional be to create a directory under the AutoCAD folder named plugins. Now make sure in AutoCAD the path to plugins is now added so AutoCAD can find it easily.
Launch AutoCAD and run the NETSTAT command to load the .Net based plugin.
Now use the magic command DOBYLAY.
I have a drawing of circles each assigned to a separate layer for the purpose of a simple example of moving layers in the draw order.
Now I run the DOBYLAY command and get the DrawOrder by Layer dialog of the plugin.
Select by check box the layer/s you want to move up or down the draw order. In this example I want to move the layer named Red to the top. I check the layer named Red then using the button all the way to the left with an arrow icon up and select it and repeat until the layer is at the draw order I want.
I can repeat with the red layer to the top.
Or perhaps the green if I have a hard time making up my mind. I could also move other layers down as well or even by Ascending so they flow down in draw order by alphanumerical order.
When using this plugin you should thank longtime AutoCAD 3rd party developer Terry Dotson of Dotsoft for donating the plugin, and the source.
ADN plugins for Autodesk products are available each month, check them out! on Autodesk Labs http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/adn_plugins/. There is also a QR codes plugin from last month if you want to generate those techie QR code images. In November there was the long awaited ScriptPro 2.0 posted for batch processing commands.
As with all Autodesk Labs provided plugins, utilities, and applications please provide your feedback on them. Some may never make it into a final shipping product without your feedback.
Cheers,
Shaan
One of the not well known features in AutoCAD WS is to place your AutoCAD drawing on top of Google Maps. First for those not familiar with AutoCAD WS we need to bring you up to speed on this free collaboration tool used by hundreds of thousands of people since it's launch beginning of October 2010.
AutoCAD WS is available free and only requires a browser such as Safari, IE, Chrome, or Firefox with Flash installed. Now in addition being able to upload, edit, markup, and share in real-time with DWG files, you can also upload other file types like ZIP, Doc, and PDF files as a file storage solution. You can also control who can download or view the drawings.
There is also AutoCAD WS Mobile free from the Apple iTunes Store http://www.itunes.com/app/autocad-ws. With AutoCAD WS Mobile, you can use the native iOS based AutoCAD WS Mobile on your IPhone, IPod Touch or IPad to view, markup, and edit DWG files uploaded to your AutoCAD WS account. You can even view your drawing offline with the AutoCAD WS 1.1 mobile 1.1 update.
OK back to the Google Map part which only applies to the browser based AutoCAD WS, not the AutoCAD WS Mobile version.
So why would someone want a Google Map to be displayed under their drawing in AutoCAD WS? You could use it to show a building plan over an existing map or structure as I did for Autodesk University 2010. The ability to see a geographic map background can help visualize many things beyond just the location.
In AutoCAD WS under the View menu is the option to place your drawing over a Google Map. You can display the maps in the standard Google Map types Street, Satellite, Hybrid and Terrain.
I first found the location in satellite mode that I wanted to place my drawing over.
Then I lined up my drawing with the Google Map by drawing a line first on the Google Map underlay feature then drawing a line on the corresponding part of my drawing I wanted it to line up with.
Keep in mind Google Maps satellite, aerial, and map data is not exactly the same 64 bit precision as AutoCAD and that satellite or aerial images will have distortion to them due to their viewing angle/tilt, curvature of the Earth, and vertical topography, but you can match them up quite well.
Here are some images of the Autodesk University 2010 layout in the Mandalay Bay conference center. I typically use the View Mode > Grayscale mode to clearly see all the linework in black and white in my drawing.
Give AutoCAD WS a try, it’s free, and a great way to collaborate with others. There is also no need to install anything to view, mark up, or lightly edit a drawing.
Cheers,
Shaan
Have you ever wanted all the images you captured in Snagit to be saved elsewhere and in another format than the .SNAG format? This is one of those Snagit tricks that are not well known but are seriously powerful like adding the bacon callouts in Snagit or the custom export option to create an animated Gif from the other Techsmith must have application Camtasia.
Perhaps you are a designer, manager, or trainer working on standards, documentation, or presentation or perhaps an author capturing thousands of images like Donnie Gladfelter author of “AutoCAD 2011 and AutoCAD LT 2011: No Experience Required” and have left all those images managed by Snagit. But now you want to export all the captures to a directory for safe keeping or perhaps all your images for the entire year of 2010 named by capture dates.
Now you need the fast and easy way to place all the images to one directory fast and painless? Well here is the method I have used for years to archive all my Snagit images in a folder in the JPG format.
First lets make sure you understand there are two parts to Snagit.
There is the Snagit Capture and the other the Snagit Editor.
In the Snagit Editor select images in the right side Search Pane by tag, date or folders. I use the date option to export all my recent Snagit captures. To see all images instead of the last one select the Library which is a folder with images looking icon in the lower right of the application.
Select all the images you want in the Canvas or by selecting individually using Ctrl+Left Mouse Button (LMB). The highlighted images will have a orange’ish highlight.
In the Snagit Editor Start Menu select Convert Images.
You will now see the Selecting Files dialog.
Selecting Next
You now see the Conversion Filters dialog.
You can change the resolution, rotation, add watermarks, captions, and more filters if you want.
In all most all cases I do not select any and select Next.
Now you should be staring at the Output Options dialog. In this dialog select the output directory and the image format you want to convert them to and I suggest to leave the file name as the original capture date.
Now select Next and it will process the files in a flash to the directory.
I do this to archive all the images for later use so I don’t accidently lose them moving from machine to machine or years down the road. One thing to note is that in the .SNAG format you retain and the vector objects like Snagit callouts but those are flattened to raster when you convert to a raster format like JPG.
Since you are backing up your Snagit images why not back up your computers at the beginning of this new year to be safe and also replace batteries in the smoke detectors.
This is not a commercial in any way just a tip for all those people that use Snagit. Snagit and Camtasia are two software tools I use daily, and have for over 12 years with Snagit and Camtasia since its release date. There is nothing out there on the market to buy or even free that comes even close. There are also Mac versions of both. I also love the people at Techsmith, they are awesome.
Cheers,
Shaan
You may have noticed in the 3D visualization world there has always been teapots used to test renders or textures. A teapot also made a cameo appearance in Pixar’s Toy Story movie in the tea party scene.
Grab a cup of tea and sit back and read up on the history of the Utah Teapot also known as the Newell Teapot. It occurred right here where I live in Utah at the University of Utah (U of U) back in the 70s. U of U had one of the top computer graphics visualization research departments in the world and was partnered with Evans & Sutherland back in the day. The co-founders of Ashlar, Adobe, & Pixar all came from the U of U. I would love to head up to the U and see what they are cooking up now in the various research labs.
”The Utah teapot or Newell teapot is a 3D computer model which has become a standard reference object (and something of an in-joke) in the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary teapot of fairly simple shape, which appears solid, cylindrical and partially convex. A teapot primitive is considered the equivalent of a "hello world" program, as a way to create the easiest 3D scene with a somewhat complex model acting as basic geometry reference for scene and light setup. The teapot model was created in 1975 by early computer graphics researcher Martin Newell, a member of the pioneering graphics program at the University of Utah.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot
”The teapot was made by Melitta in 1974 and originally belonged to Martin Newell and his wife, Sandra - who purchased it from ZCMI, (a department store in Salt Lake City). The teapot was eventually donated to the Boston Computer Museum but now resides in the Ephemera collection of the Computer History Museum. It's cataloged as "Teapot used for Computer Graphics rendering" and bears the catalog number X00398.1984.It turns out that the idea for modeling the teapot was brought up over concerns that Martin didn't have enough interesting computer models. Sandra suggested modelling the tea service (they were sitting down to tea at the time). He got some graph paper and a pencil, and he modeled the entire tea service by eye. Then, he went back to the lab and edited Bezier control points on a Tektronix storage tube, again by hand. Hence, he also digitized a spoon and a cup and saucer” http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_History_of_The_Teapot I am surprised Martin Newell did not model crumpets with the tea service. ”The original teapot, from Martin Newell's PhD thesis, consisted of 28 Bezier patches.” http://www.holmes3d.net/graphics/teapot/
It is now at the Computer history Museum and I hope to go see it someday. I hear the museum is amazing. http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/X398.84 
Pixar even gave out a walking teapot with 3D glasses for SIGGRAPH 2009. You can see endless variations of the teapot rendered in Autodesk 3ds Max. on a Google Image search http://bit.ly/fRdRoc .
Now you know,
Shaan
