Between the Lines

Autodesk University Class Handouts - Now on AUGI.com

There are now class handouts from some of the previous Autodesk Universities "AU" available for download on the web. Autodesk has given AUGI permission to post the AU class handouts from 2000, 2001, and 2002 with more coming. AUGI will also get the AU 2004 class handouts posted once the downloads are removed from http://www.autodesk.com/au. AUGI Hot News Announcement There is a vast amount of great training content from fellow Autodesk product users, so make use of it. All you... Read more →

Austin Texas AutoCAD Users Group

I had an absolutely great time in Austin Texas today after no sleep from last nights loud thunder storms in San Antonio which shook my hotel room windows all night. I had lunch at Rudy's BBQ and what a place it was with great food. I presented about 90 minutes on the future of AutoCAD and then followed with Q&A. There was about 100 members of the Austin AutoCAD Users Group tonight at the University of Texas at Austin "Go... Read more →

3ds max 7.5 soon to be releleased to subscription customers

3ds max release 7.5 provides new features in the following 3 areas: • Hair and Fur—Based on Joe Alter's highly regarded "Shave and a Haircut" solution, Hair and Fur will offer numerous styling and dynamics tools for creating amazingly realistic hair and other strand-derivative effects. • mental ray 3.4—Delivering numerous optimizations, mental ray 3.4 will include faster final gathering performance, double precision computation for ray tracing and fast rasterization for first-generation rays. • Autodesk VIZ—With the very latest technologies from... Read more →

San Antonio Texas AutoCAD Users Group

I had a great time tonight presenting the future of AutoCAD to the San Antonio AutoCAD Users Group. There were about 141 people in attendance. I presented for a little over an hour and then followed by Q&A and raffles. I also gave a not for resale full copy of AutoCAD 2005 to a local student that attended the presentation. After the meeting I headed with Doug and Mark of D.C. CADD down to the famous San Antonio Riverwalk and... Read more →

I am in San Antonio Texas now

Wouldn't you know it, I come here and the rain follows me. On the flight from Denver to San Antonio we hit some lightning storms that exceeded 30,000 feet and were constantly firing lighting at our plane. It was a neat view but a little nerve racking. I spoke with the pilots after the flight as they stayed in the same hotel as me. The pilots told me "you should have seen our view as the static electricity was all... Read more →

Headed to Texas in the morning

I am headed to San Antonio Texas tomorrow morning after some emergency dental work tonight. I will presenting Wednesday night in San Antonio and Thursday night in Austin on the future of AutoCAD. I will provide sneak peeks at what may be coming in the future for AutoCAD and then followed by question and answers. I will also be explaining how you can get more involved in shaping the future of AutoCAD. Join the thousands of other customers involved in... Read more →

Maps and directions from the web

Google.com is beta testing a pretty nice mapping and direction website http://maps.google.com currently for the United States. It allows you to enter an address and to get directions. What is unique is that it places pseudo 3D markers of the location with a shadow. You can also scroll in different directions with your mouse to update the map in the direction of your mouse panning as well as magnify or zoom out. It looks like this is Google's answer to... Read more →

DWF Security

In this age of digital design information, many participants in the design process have asked questions regarding DWF and security. This article addresses some of those frequently asked questions. For comments, questions, or suggestions regarding this FAQ please email [email protected]. Is DWF a secure format? Yes, DWF files are secure, helping to protect the integrity of the original design. DWF files are similar to paper plots—by default they include only what the designer intends to share. Layer information can be... Read more →

The New Autodesk Viz Gallery

The new Autodesk VIZ gallery is now live on autodesk.com. http://www.autodesk.com/viz-gallery Read more →

Refman to the Rescue!

Whether you are just looking for a quick and easy way to manage Xrefs and re-path them in a snap or if you have used the AutoCAD Express Tool XPATH in AutoCAD 2002 or earlier, Refman is the answer. In AutoCAD 2004 the Reference Manager “Refman” was added to AutoCAD. The Reference Manager has more features than the past XPATH Express Tool but many are not aware of this hidden gem. The Reference Manager can be run outside of AutoCAD... Read more →

New CAD Manager Blog by Mark Kiker

AUGI Board member Mark Kiker sent an email about his new CAD Manager related blog: http://www.caddmanager.com/blog "The CADDManager Blog will allow users, managers, companies, and organizations to effectively express comments and share information that may be beneficial to the online community at large." "CADDManager.com is focused on providing the needed support and vision that is required by CAD Managers today. The site provides topics on Leadership, Training, Comments, Reviews, Workarounds, Tips and Tricks and more. There is an associated monthly... Read more →

Lansing Michigan CAD Camp

More photos from AUGI CAD Camp in the Daily Grind Photo Gallery. I got back from the Lansing Michigan AUGI CAD Camp Friday. I had a great time and the event was a success. I have to say Lansing Michigan has some of the nicest people I have ever met. There were many that attended classes as well as my keynote on the future of AutoCAD. Many that attended my keynote were excited by what they saw demonstrated in a... Read more →

Lansing Michigan for AUGI CAD Camp - Brrrr

I arrived in Lansing Michigan tonight for tomorrows AUGI CAD Camp at the Lansing Community College. It is a little cold with some wind and light snow and I only brought a light jacket. If you attend CAD Camp tomorrow chase me down and introduce yourself. Make sure to bring your suggestions and feedback for AutoCAD as I will be giving an AutoCAD Futures presentation after the dinner. Part of my presentation also explains how you can get involved and... Read more →

The Houston Texas AUGI CAD Camp

More photos from AUGI CAD Camp in the Daily Grind Photo Gallery. I attended and presented at yesterday's AUGI CAD Camp in Houston Texas. It was a good turnout of almost 200 people. It was a long day that ended around 9pm last night. I gave a presentation on AutoCAD's future directions and how to get involved in getting feedback to Autodesk and help shape the future of Autodesk products. I was so nervous during my presentation but it went... Read more →

VBA for AutoCAD Book

Lee Ambrosius (http://hyperpics.blogs.com/beyond_the_ui/) has a VBA book in progress and it is now at a staggering 26 chapters and 450 pages. It appears to be very thorough judging from his outline of chapters posted to his blog. Knowing Lee it will be very detailed with many examples for those learning VBA or already VBA programmers for AutoCAD. Lee states he plans to release it within the next few months. Link to Lee's VBA Book post http://hyperpics.blogs.com/beyond_the_ui/2005/02/vba_book_projec.html Read more →

Non-Autodesk DWG Conversion Tools

AutoCAD 2005 already offers all of the functionality to convert DWG files. Anyone using the latest AutoCAD can share files with users of any AutoCAD or other CAD program. This functionality was designed and developed by Autodesk specifically for customers to easily share designs, while ensuring the complete integrity and accuracy of their data. It is a safe, highly reliable choice. There is an option in AutoCAD 2005 to export to the Drawing Interchange Format DXF which is a publicly... Read more →

New AutoCAD & Autodesk Inventor Blog

A new CAD related blog has been started by Jim Dowthwaite of Ontario Canada. The blogs name is "Area 31" and it is focused on VB and VBA for AutoCAD and Autodesk Inventor as well as other CAD subject matter. Welcome to CAD blogging Jim. http://area31.blogspot.com/ Perhaps there needs to be a hip new term for the ever growing list of CAD related blogs like "CADlogs" or "Cabogs". :-) Shaan Read more →

Great Example of Using DWF

The above images are from a web based application using DWF. This application was designed for PetroCom LLC, who constructed and operates a GSM cellular network in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Their interactive map is accessed via http://www.petrocom.com, and is frequently used by PetroCom subscribers to gain perspective on their offshore location in relation to the PetroCom service area. The Petrocom site is a scaled down version of the Interactive map, and does not have all of the functionality... Read more →

New Blog on Learning ObjectARX

Fernando Malard from Brazil has created a new blog with free ObjectARX training. The new blogs name is "ObjectARX for Dummies". He has now posted class 1 for those learning how to program AutoCAD using the powerful ObjectARX programming SDK. Fernando has had about 10 years ObjectARX experience since AutoCAD R13 as well as experience in teaching AutoCAD. He feels the time is right to share his knowledge with others. He is willing to provide limited support to solve common... Read more →