Between the Lines

AutoCAD 2006 - 3D DWF

AutoCAD 2006 will include a technology preview of 3D DWF publishing as an option when you are installing AutoCAD 2006. 3D DWF files can be viewed in the free Autodesk DWF Viewer. 3D DWF publishing was included in Autodesk Inventor 9. Both Architectural Desktop 2005 and Autodesk Building Systems 2005 have an extension available to Autodesk subscription customers. There will be more announcements of 3D DWF publishing support in other products in the near future. A link to a quick... Read more →

Video Contest Winner Beau Turner

I held a fun contest for the best AutoCAD or Autodesk Viz video tutorials in January. Beau Turner has won hands down with his 4 submitted videos on Autodesk Viz 2005. Betsy Weber of Techsmith offered some prizes in this contest as their software Camasia was used. You must use the Windows Media Player and also enable your speakers for the audio. The videos are very creative and informative. Look out Hollywood! :-) http://myfeedback.autodesk.com/files/vid/DirectorsCut_BeginnerGuideToAutodeskViz_F.avi Description: Autodesk VIZ 2005 Beginner Guide... Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 Beta Customers

We have now released the many AutoCAD 2006 beta customers to publicly discuss the upcoming AutoCAD 2006. We would like to extend our sincere appreciation and congratulations to all who participated in the AutoCAD 2006 "Rio" Beta Program. Your efforts have contributed greatly to the quality and functionality of the product. Read more →

New Serbian language CAD blog

Slobodan emailed to tell me that he now has a CAD blog. This CAD Blog is in the Serbian language. More CAD blogs being born each day. Welcome Slobodan! http://slazic.blogspot.com/ Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 Drawing Recovery Manager

Mark Kiker has posted about the new AutoCAD 2006 recovery feature. "The new Drawing Recovery Manager enables you to retrieve backup files (BAK) or even your automatically saved versions of your DWG files without having to manually search through folders and rename file extensions." http://caddmanager.com/blog/2005/03/autocad-2006-and-recovering-drawings.html Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 - Coming soon to a desktop near you

It is really nice to see the amount of interest in what is being said by the blogging beta customers in their own words. Those released to blog were told they could post their opinions good or bad, but everything has been very positive so far. I got over 6000 hits and at times there were over 500 user visits an hour on this blog and that was all by noon yesterday alone. Obviously many are interested in what is... Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 Latest Blogging Links

My posts: AutoCAD 2006 is coming - you heard it first here AutoCAD 2006 Blogging & Be Heard What does Lynn Allen say about AutoCAD 2006? AutoCAD 2006 - Dynamic Blocks and Display Enhancements More AutoCAD 2006 info from blogs Richard Binning- AutoCAD 2006 Heads Up Design Robin Capper's 3 blog posts on AutoCAD 2006 Lee Ambrosius Its loose... AutoCAD 2006 is coming your way "If you couldn’t find a reason to upgrade to AutoCAD 2005, you will want to... Read more →

Robin Capper's 3 blog posts on AutoCAD 2006

AutoCAD 2006 Preview ~ What NO COMMAND LINE? ~ Dynamic input & Heads Up Design "For the vast majority of the time I have found no need to display it – Heads up, you win!" AutoCAD 2006 Preview ~ Customisation, Display and Selection Changes "There are some significant changes to the user interface in AutoCAD 2006." "There is a nice calculator built into AutoCAD 2006. " AutoCAD 2006 Preview ~ Dynamic Blocks "Dynamic Blocks are a major new feature in... Read more →

Signs of change

I drove down to my Autodesk San Rafael California office today on a nice warm Sunday afternoon and I saw something that was definitely new. A new logo on all of the building signs as well as the address signs on the road. I really like the change! Out with the old... And in with the new... New releases, new logos whats next. Shaan Read more →

Richard Binning- AutoCAD 2006 Heads Up Design

http://www.integr-8.com/besidethecursor/Richard Binning of Autodesk Users Group International "AUGI" is one of over a thousand AutoCAD 2006 beta customers. Richard has some nice things to say in his own words about portions of the new Heads Up Design features in AutoCAD 2006. "I've just been given the go-ahead to share some of the cool new features of the soon to be released AutoCAD 2006. Privately known as "Rio", AutoCAD 2006 has some of the best and most productive features ever to... Read more →

More AutoCAD 2006 info from blogs

Matt Dillon: http://modocrmadt.blogspot.com/2005/03/autocad-2006-yes-2006-couple-of-my_05.html "With the new "Dynamic" mode of input, you can literally do away with the command line!" "With the new block editor you can take an existing block definition and supercharge it, or create new more flexible blocks. " Scott Durkee: http://scottdurkee.blogspot.com/2005/03/cad-mgmt-autocad-2006-coming-soon.html "Hmm... What will CAD Managers want to know about most? Installation/Migration Improvements? Mtext and Table Improvements? Oh yeah, how about Dynamic Blocks - those are really cool. They definitely need to know about the new Custom... Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 - Dynamic Blocks and Display Enhancements

There are so many nice new features and enhancements in AutoCAD 2006. I wanted to mention the Dynamic Blocks as that feature has generated allot of great feedback as well as "oohs and ahhhs" when shown and tested by customers. While they do not do everything and are only 2D currently, this is the first incarnation of the Dynamic Blocks and based on customer feedback we will determine the next steps. Here is a link to a quick video showing... Read more →

What does Lynn Allen say about AutoCAD 2006?

AutoCAD 2006 is beginning to be discussed by Lynn Allen in her blog. http://lynn.blogs.com/lynn_allens_blog/2005/03/a_sneak_peak_at.html Now for another AutoCAD 2006 sneak peek. In Lynn's blog she mentions how to find the area of a Hatch object. http://lynn.blogs.com/lynn_allens_blog/2005/03/quick_tip_get_t.html It was never really easy to do this. It took multiple steps to get the updated area after changing boundary polyline as you had to list the Hatch each time or use a custom routine. What customers told us they wanted was a way... Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 Blogging & Be Heard

A couple of new blog posts are starting to show up now from the AutoCAD beta customer bloggers. The best thing is it is customers in their own words and many have been using the product since last fall in production. Lee Ambrosius http://hyperpics.blogs.com/beyond_the_ui/2005/03/its_loose_autoc.html Lee's summary: "If you couldn’t find a reason to upgrade to AutoCAD 2005, you will want to take a close look at AutoCAD 2006. There are just so many enhancements across the board they every user... Read more →

AutoCAD 2006 is coming - you heard it first here

Autodesk has more new products coming soon including the next release of AutoCAD named AutoCAD 2006 and code named AutoCAD Rio. Now before you go jumping to conclusions, I have not violated a non disclosure agreement or gone completely crazy. I have been given limited permission to discuss a few upcoming features of the next release. We are also giving limited permission to some CAD blogging customers so they can tell you about the new upcoming release in their own... Read more →

Stay Tuned....

Some exciting news is coming, so check back often for the details. Shaan Read more →

Great real-world 3D DWF example

Cameron Scott of Timber Design in England has been using the 3D DWF for collaboration and loves it. Cameron does some really nice 3D work with timber framing and houses. Check out Cameron's real world example 3D DWF http://www.timberdesign.com/contemporary/northmoor/northmoorframe.htm The 3D DWF is far more flexible than some of the other 3D document publishing options from CAD and contains much of the object data if you choose publish with it. It can also change the way the object is displayed... Read more →

A look inside a DWF

Are you aware you can look at the inside of a DWF file? All you need to do is rename the .dwf file extension to .zip and then open it in a Zip archive tool like WinZip. For example I used the Publish command in AutoCAD 2005 to publish to DWF the sample drawing 8th Floor Plan. I then renamed the resulting .dwf to .zip. Inside the file I see the following: manifest.xml (XML -definition of what the DWF contains)... Read more →