« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »
A question in a private myfeedback.autodesk.com discussion forum (we have over 90 projects ongoing during this busiest of season for betas, sign up) I had a question that reminded me about a great resource I helped start but had not looked at in a awhile. It is the Command and System Variable Map for AutoCAD. Impress fellow CAD geeks with the knowledge and if you can try to memorize all the commands...no no no! I can remember coming up with... Read more →
Membership in the Autodesk Impression Community is free and has plenty to offer including galleries, discussions, tips and tricks, styles, entourage, and now free e-Learning content. Read more →
In the past many had custom routines and blocks to create multiple point leader but the objects were normally not associative to the objects or a single AutoCAD object so that they could be easily updated or edited. In AutoCAD 2008 a new object the Multileader was added to solve this request and need. You can create, update associate and even edit with grips the new Multileader. The command to create a Multileader is MLEADER. For example you may want... Read more →
I have been researching some reported items showing on Google and found what I believe to be a concern for people with private data, files, or private pages viewed. Read more →
The new smart image resizing, retargeting, and cropping technology for images and photos called seam carving is amazing and downright brilliant. This was an algorithm developed invented by Dr. Ariel Shamir and Dr. Shai Avidan. This is really cool and helpful to do instead of resizing an image with a focal area that gets distorted this method starts by letting you mark the important target to keep then in simple terms starts by removing parts of the photo or adding... Read more →
Autodesk also has many other top notch products that I get to work with and have the luxury in my position to work with all Autodesk product teams. It always amazes me at the level of expertise of people around the Autodesk family and the products they produce. I received an email recently by someone that was told by someone that Autodesk was planning to stop AutoCAD development. This pops up from time to time and is usually the result... Read more →
I just looked at my company calendar and low and behold tomorrow is my 10th year anniversary working at Autodesk. I thought it was actually Monday but was wrong. I started 19-Jan-1998. I moved from Portland Oregon where I was a mechanical designer down to the San Francisco Bay area until about 2 years ago when I moved to Northern Utah. Time flies fast, too fast. Shaan Read more →
You know you have seen them before, a series of baseline dimensions with differing spaces or adjusted manually until they look fine. You can use the DIMSPACE command to adjust the space to a set distance between them or use the default automatic. So I put together a quick example of using DIMSPACE. From the Menu Dimension> Dimension Space From the Dimension toolbar From the AutoCAD Command Line: DIMSPACE Before using DIMSPACE Baseline dimensions selected Completed with a consistent spacing... Read more →
It is always pretty cool to watch the evolution of a idea or software. The Autodesk Labs Team has now released an updated Project Draw which allows the web based application to run in the offline mode and synch files later when you re-connect. It is like having a web 2.0 and a desktop application rolled into one. That has always been my concern is getting used to an application that is web based then not being able to use... Read more →
FeedDemon is an excellent and powerful full featured RSS Feed reading product and I was a paying customer but a few months ago got hooked on Google Reader. Now Nick Bradbury mentions they have gone free. I am switching back to FeedDemon due to it being a more powerful RSS Feed reader and managing your feeds not just because it is free. They also released a few other tools as free. FREE Demon? Yes, FeedDemon is Now Free! Technorati Tags:... Read more →
Here is a quick video clip recorded behind the scenes of the general session where 7600 attendees (room limit) were to attend the following day. I grabbed two of the main people for quick comments on what was driving the general session as they were in final countdown mode and had thousands of feet of cable, many developers, high end machines and technology to drive the HD Projectors to 20 - 20 foot tall HD screens for an immersive presentation.... Read more →
You cant say you were not warned first. ;-) This will be my 3rd year presenting at the Seattle AUGI CAD Camp. Seattle CAD Camp will be February 21st, 2008. I am planning something special (not Irish riverdancing) since this is also the week of my birthday and I also want to be invited again in 2009. What can I say, I love Seattle, good coffee, good seafood, AUGI, and of course the local Autodesk user group PSAUG. The bonus... Read more →
I want to thank everyone for all the emails and visiting this blog. It has really grown from a geekish hobby to a full blown blog and started many other blogs in the process. I still feel the same passion for the blog and read about 300 feeds a day in my RSS feed reader which is something you could not do just browsing updated pages as the feed reader allows me to read the feeds a few times a... Read more →
If you are like me and been a designer or you have a passion for design you will love this web site http://www.oobject.com/ full of photos of vintage objects, current gadgets, DIY items, or designs. For me seeing old designs or objects is like a child in a candy shop. From futuristic items, Frankenstein like pieces, blimps, televisions, skyscrapers, to vintage children toys it has enough objects to keep you entertained or reminiscing for awhile. The objects are ranked each... Read more →
Lynn Allen announced on her blog that she has a new weekly video series in the Cadalyst CAD Video Gallery titled Lynn Allen's Tips And Tricks starting as a video channel on the Cadalyst magazine website. There are currently 2 videos posted (but 3 in the RSS feed although 1 is broken) in the Cadalyst -- CAD Video Gallery: Lynn Allen's Tips And Tricks http://video.cadalyst.com/ RSS Feed Lynn Allen's Tips and Tricks Use the F1 Key to Escape - Don't... Read more →
A new version of this tool to clean up drawings has been updated for the timeout and is now available. I would post screen shots but unfortunately it only works on Windows XP and I am happily on Windows Vista with most of my machines. http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/drawingcleanup/ Regards, Shaan Read more →
I hope every had a safe and great holidays and Happy New Years. The infamous Matt Murphy Clay Head Sculpture from Autodesk University 2007 is still safe and ready for action in 2008. The past two days I have spent up in Little Cottonwood and Big Cottonwood canyons here in Utah in the 5 feet of powder snow sledding and snowshoeing with my children. Tonight after sledding in the Jordan Pines area we ended up at the Silver Fork Lodge... Read more →