Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Its not too Late to make it to a CAD Camp near you!

I've heard some say that there is never a "good" time for training. Everyone gets so caught up in "production" that they can't find the time to learn something new. What if I told you that the "best" training was coming to a city near you? You know you need training, so check the calendar and make some room for a AUGI Cad Camp coming to a city near you!

At AUGI CAD Camp, you’ll get:



  • A full day of training: Five different sessions, with three classes each session, designed to provide targeted training. Not demos and showcasing, but real world application! Get a weeks worth of knowledge in a single day.
  • Expert advice. Industry leading instructors and celebrities as well as local experts providing unique and targeted classes. Lynn Allen will also be sure to educate and entertain you after a day full of classes.
  • Networking opportunities. At AUGI CAD Camp, you'll have the opportunity to bend the ear of many of your peers. Who says all the learning takes place in the classes? AUGI CAD Camp gives you ample time to socialize and learn with your fellow CAD Camp attendees.
  • Technology updates. Past CAD Camps have been graced with a NEW Technology showcase featuring Shaan Hurley of Autodesk Beta Programs. Some of Autodesk’s top developer partners are usually on hand in the expo area to keep you abreast of new products and updates.

    Select an event location for specific details. You might leave AUGI CAD Camp exhausted, but you’ll definitely leave better educated!

Upcoming AUGI CAD Camps

# posted by Richard Binning : Wednesday, March 30, 2005 links to this post

Monday, March 21, 2005

Test for Free at Brain Bench

Have you gotten your invitation yet? The first annual Brainbench "Bench Games" is now in session. Visit www.brainbench.com and you'll be greeted with the following:

Welcome to the first annual Bench Games! In an effort to assess global skills knowledge in over 400 subject areas, Brainbench is pleased to announce that we are going to make ALL of our certifications FREE to our members, through a competition we are calling the Bench Games.*


Have you gotten yours?

# posted by Richard Binning : Monday, March 21, 2005 links to this post

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Sneak Peak at AutoCAD 2006!

For those of you in the Central Virginia area, make sure that you take advantage of an upcoming completely free and totally live event. Autodesk’s Technical Evangelist and AUGI Sweetheart, Lynn Allen, will be presenting a sneak peak at AutoCAD 2006 for the members of Richmond's AutoCAD Manifest local user group.

This event will be held in the Main Board Room at the Henrico County Western Government Center. The doors open at 5:30 pm and the main event will begin at 6:00 pm.

According to John Morgan, current chairman of the Richmond AutoCAD Manifest Local User Group (RAMLUG), "We look forward to another exciting visit from Lynn Allen. It has been two years since she last spoke at a RAM meeting. Last time we had a great turnout with over 80 people. Let’s make it another great showing of Autodesk support from the Richmond area. Come and learn about the newest release of AutoCAD from the industry’s foremost speaker. Food and drink will be provided. For more information, visit the Richmond AutoCAD Manifest website at http://www.ramlug.org."

For those of you not in the Central Virginia area click this link to get your name on the list of invitees when the Autodesk Road Show comes to a city near you.

# posted by Richard Binning : Sunday, March 20, 2005 links to this post

Friday, March 11, 2005

GSA RFI Extension Posted yesterday.

For those of you who are formulating your response to the GSA's request for BIM experienced firms, you'll be happy to know that you've been granted a new deadline.
Here is the notice for those of you who are not on the list:

GSA
Public Buildings Service (PBS)
Property Development Division (WPC)
B -- Request for Information from Industry Partners on Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) Based, Integrated and Interoperable Building Information Model (BIM) Amendment to Combined Synopsis/Solicitation 01 http://tinyurl.com/63hzv

# posted by Richard Binning : Friday, March 11, 2005 links to this post

Thursday, March 10, 2005

AutoCAD 2006 New Features Assistance

The "Flash Enabled" New Features Workshop has been very helpful for new and migrating users as each new AutoCAD version has been launched. With AutoCAD 2006, they've taken this assistance to a new level. Now you can get customized New Features targeting your exposure level.


If you are entirely new to AutoCAD, choose the "New Customer" route. If you are upgrading from a particular release: 2002 or earlier, 2004, or 2005, you can choose those from the drop down list shown.

# posted by Richard Binning : Thursday, March 10, 2005 links to this post

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

FeedValidator thinks its valid!...

This just in....we have achieved validated RSS 2.0 output from Blogger.


[Valid RSS]



With a little help from php and eggminus don't you know.

# posted by Richard Binning : Tuesday, March 08, 2005 links to this post

Monday, March 07, 2005

Modifying Output for RSS (2.0) feed...

A little maintenance to enable my Blogger created page to output an RSS feed for those less fortunate....Stay tuned.

RLB

# posted by Richard Binning : Monday, March 07, 2005 links to this post

Claiming my feed...

No Need to Click Here - I'm just claiming my feed at Feedster

# posted by Richard Binning : Monday, March 07, 2005 links to this post

Sunday, March 06, 2005

AutoCAD 2006 is just around the corner...Sneak peak!

Hi there and welcome...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 be released by autodesk. Please return to this site for many additional feature sneak peeks in the coming days. For now, I'll share with you the first thing that jumped out at me after installing this latest version.

Heads Up Design

Heads up design is the concept or feature set that puts critical information directly "beside the cursor" (couldn't resist that one!) to facilitate better and quicker decisions, interaction, and promote productivity. If you are like me, you will probably jump right in to the AutoCAD window and start drawing. This is where I discovered the new "Heads Up Design" feature known as "Dynamic Input". The effect of Dynamic Input is what enables direct user interaction with tool tips while commands are in process. Historically, tooltips were short directions or information that pop up when the cursor hesitated over "enabled" objects. It was a one way notification, that while helpful was frequently ignored or quickly forgotten. With Dynamic input, the tooltip is now enabled for two-way communication, allowing you to interact and enter properties directly using the tool tip text box.

When you get an opportunity, fire up AutoCAD 2006 and start by picking a point somewhere on the screen and click and hold your left mouse button to begin the standard "window" selection method by dragging the mouse to the right. Notice anything new? How about the background color of your selection window? What about that new "dynamic" input tool tip?



To change the values or cycle between the "X" and "Y" coordinates input try hitting your "Tab" key to choose which value you want to adjust. Now try dragging your mouse to the left past your starting point. The window will change from solid or continuous borders to the familiar dashed line representing a "crossing type" of selection window. Check out the new background color! Talk about heads up display!



It gets better, so return here for more information and tips and tricks everyday this week. If you are not able to see the now "Active" tooltip, be sure to look at your status bar and toggle on the new "DYN" button you'll find there!



Note: for more information about AutoCAD 2006 be sure to visit these other informative blogs for some exciting sneak peeks! (Note: Urls shortened to improve formatting.)

Shaan Hurley's Between the Lines: http://tinyurl.com/3oneb
Lynn Allen's Blog: http://tinyurl.com/6khq6
Matt Dillon's Breaking down the walls: http://tinyurl.com/4e95b
Scott Durkee: http://tinyurl.com/6dul5
Ellen Finkelstein: http://ellenfinkelstein.com/autoCAD.html
Jimmy Bergmark's World: http://jtbworld.blogspot.com/
Lee Ambrosius' Beyond the UI: http://tinyurl.com/56qmg

See you tomorrow with something new from AutoCAD 2006!

# posted by Richard Binning : Sunday, March 06, 2005 1 comments links to this post

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Quick Tip - Dual Dimension Formatting (Updated!)

Ever wish you could remember the Dual Dimension Format settings?

  • To ensure that your primary dimension string was displayed above the dimension line.
  • To Add an alternate dimension string below the line.
  • and ensure that the line between them remained unbroken?
  • Like this? (See Graphic Below)

  1. Enable "Alt Dimensions" [DIMALT] = "ON"
  2. Add \X as a Primary Units Suffix value [DIMPOST] = "\X"
  3. Ensure Vertical Placement is "Above" [DIMTAD] = 1
  4. Like This: (See Graphic Below)

Hope that helps!

# posted by Richard Binning : Thursday, March 03, 2005 links to this post

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Where are my Pen Tables? - a Visual Lisp Code Solution.

Are you missing some plot style tables?

Ever launch the plot dialog box only to find that your pen tables have taken a vacation? Does your selection window look like this graphic?



Are you sure that your pen tables are available? An easy solution to this should avoid typo-graphic errors. Can't remember where they should be? No need to memorize that long 16 folder deep plot table location! Just let AutoCAD show you where it thinks your pen tables are located.

Drag the following lisp routine to on top of your AutoCAD window.


;;; FILENAME:ShowPStyles.lsp
;;;==============================================================
;;; AUTHOR: Richard Binning
;;; DATE: 03/02/2005
;;; DEVNOTE: Initial Build for AUGI Forums (http://www.augi.com)
;;; MASTER: Posted to Besidethecursor
;;; (http://www.integr-8.com/besidethecursor)
;;; DEVNOTE: Initial Mods for 2005 Products
;;;
;;; DISCLAIMER:
;;; Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software
;;; for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided
;;; that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that
;;; both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
;;; all supporting documentation.
;;;
;;; THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
;;; WARRANTY. ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR
;;; PURPOSE AND OF MERCHANTABILITY ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED.
;;;
;;;===============================================================
;;; DESCRIPTION: ShowPStyles.lsp - Macro to retrieve the defined
;;; AutoCAD PlotStyleTable Search path
;;; Uses standard Visual Lisp methods to retrieve data
;;; Launches default explorer window to selected folder
;;;
;;; USAGE: 1.) Load this file
;;; PREREQ: Requires (vl-load-com) for visual lisp functions
;;;===============================================================
(defun RLB:ShowPStyles ()
(vl-load-com)
(prompt "\nLaunching expected Plot Table folder window - By RLB")
(setq PStyles (vlax-get (vlax-get (vlax-get (vlax-get-acad-object)
"Preferences") "Files") "PrinterStyleSheetPath"))
(startapp "explorer" (strcat "/n,/e," PStyles "\\" ))
(princ)
)
(RLB:showPStyles)




When the explorer window opens, look for your pen tables. If you don't see them (as shown above), you can:

  • Use the options dialog box to select a new location.
  • Or drag the plot style table files (ctb or stb files) to the open explorer window.
  • Or create a link to the correct folder in the current open explorer window.

Hope that helps,

RLB

# posted by Richard Binning : Wednesday, March 02, 2005 links to this post