All Autodesk® Users

• AskNature.org and Biomimicry
• AutoCAD Training Promotion
• Project Butterfly - Edit and Collaborate on AutoCAD Drawings Using a Web Browser
• Training Schedule for August - September

Architecture, Engineering and Construction

• ALACAD’s Mike Massey to Speak at Autodesk University 2010
• Eagle Point Customer Transition Program
• ALACAD Presents the "Autodesk Solutions for Environmental Engineering" Webcast
• General Hotfix for Civil 3D 2011
• For Civil 3D Users: This Has to be One of the Best New Features for 2011
• For AutoCAD Map 3D Users: Using AutoCAD Map 3D Document View

Manufacturing/ Mechanical Engineering

• 3D Annotation for Inventor
• The Inventor 2011 Mesh Enabler
• Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor
• Autodesk Presents the "Multi-CAD Interoperability with Autodesk Inventor" Webcast

Plant and Process

• AutoCAD P&ID and Plant 3D 2011 Are Now Available
• Autodesk Announces the Plant Design Suite
• ALACAD's Live Plant & Process Webcasts

AskNature.org and Biomimicry

Biomimicry, the process of imitating natural designs to solve human problems, provides a powerful source of sustainable design inspiration. Autodesk is the exclusive founding sponsor of www.AskNature.org, the world’s first biomimicry design portal and database, where users can learn about ecological systems and search for nature’s solutions to sustainable design challenges.

AskNature is a free, open source project, built by the community and for the community. Their goal is to connect innovative minds with life's best ideas, and in the process, inspire technologies that create conditions conducive to life. To accomplish this, they are doing something that has never been done—organizing the world's biological literature by function.

Visit AskNature here.

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AutoCAD Training Promotion

ALACAD will be offering 15% off AutoCAD Fundamentals classes to be held every week from July 19th to August 20th. Call us at 888-442-3100 to learn more or sign up for a class today.

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Project Butterfly - Edit and Collaborate on AutoCAD Drawings Using a Web Browser

Project Butterfly is a free Autodesk Technology Preview that enables AutoCAD® users to edit and collaborate on AutoCAD drawings through a Web browser. With Project Butterfly, AutoCAD users can share and work on DWG files with colleagues and clients from any computer with an Internet connection.

• Share drawings with other people. View and edit DWGs without downloading any software, using just a Web browser.

• Invite your project team to an online meeting where all sides can discuss and co-edit a drawing in real-time. Or browse through comments and changes on your own time.

• Use Project Butterfly to collaborate with colleagues and clients. Anyone can access Project Butterfly, even if they don't have AutoCAD installed, and even if they don’t have a Project Butterfly account.

When working with drawings using Project Butterfly, you can use your Autodesk Single Sign-on account. This account is common to communities such as Autodesk Labs, Subscription Center, etc. If you have an existing Project-Butterfly-specific account, you may continue to use that. Try it now.

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Training Schedule for August - September

All classes will be held at ALACAD's Corporate Office in Birmingham, AL, unless noted otherwise. Call us at 888-442-3100 to register today.

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ALACAD’s Mike Massey to Speak at Autodesk University 2010

From a pool of more than 3,100 submissions, Mike Massey, ALACAD’s Vice President of Architectural Design Solutions, has been selected to lead a class at Autodesk University 2010 being held in Las Vegas in December. Mr. Massey will be leading a 60-minute class entitled “Perfecting the Process of Sharing Models Among Architects, Engineers and Construction Companies”. As Building Information Modeling (BIM) begins to saturate the AEC market, the process of communication between these entities will require change. The power of a fully collaborative model allows information to be exchanged much sooner in the design / build process. The key to capitalizing on this benefit is knowing how and when to exchange information. During this session, Mr. Massey will show attendees how to incorporate best practices in preparing the Revit model to be shared and using tools correctly when linking Revit models, as well as tips and tricks to help decrease the file size to help increase productivity.

Since joining ALACAD in 2005 Mr. Massey has been responsible for providing customer demonstrations, implementation, training and support for Revit Architecture and Revit MEP. He has delivered many presentations at area AIA and AGC events on the benefits of BIM (Building Information Modeling).

Mike has more than 15 years of experience as an architect working on various project types. His knowledge and enthusiasm for Autodesk products runs deep as a user of AutoCAD since Release 9 and AutoCAD Architecture since its debut. Mike is a contributing author for Autodesk Official Training Courseware and is a repeat speaker at Autodesk University.

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Eagle Point Customer Transition Program

The Eagle Point™ Customer Transition Program is a joint Autodesk and Eagle Point program that provides a path from Eagle Point 2D civil engineering design & drafting software to AutoCAD® Civil 3D® software to support Building Information Modeling (BIM) workflows. Through October 17, 2010, Eagle Point customers with qualifying, licensed commercial versions of civil engineering and surveying products may be eligible to receive a discount on migrations to AutoCAD Civil 3D licenses. For more information, call us at 888-442-3100.

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ALACAD Presents the "Autodesk Solutions for Environmental Engineering" Webcast

General Hotfix for Civil 3D 2011

In a continued effort to improve, Autodesk is releasing a hotfix for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 that addresses a number of survey, and some additional non-survey related issues. This hotfix contains the solutions to the following issues:

• Creating a feature line from a closed polyline with assigned elevations no longer causes the program to exit.
• Help now appears as expected when running Civil 3D as AutoCAD 2011.
• Datasets containing large numbers of control and non-control points now open and import more quickly.
• Figure prefix databases will now match lower case figure names.
• You can now create parcels from multiple objects selected in a DGN underlay.

You can download this hotfix here.

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For Civil 3D Users: This Has to be One of the Best New Features for 2011

If you dig back through the archives of my blog, you will find an entry on creating transparent hatches using a combination of Civil 3D and Map 3D.  You may recall that in Civil 3D we created our hatch areas on separate layers and used the SHRINKWRAP command to combine the hatch boundaries into a single entity.  After that we exported the hatch boundaries to a .sdf format and opened Map 3D.

In Map 3D we themed the hatch boundaries and controled the transparency through the style in Map 3D.  Then we used the FDO Connection to attach the .sdf to our drawing in Civil 3D and changed the MAPPLOTTRANSPARENCY variable to get our plotters to produce the transparent plot that we needed.  This was a lot of time-consuming steps, but it was a good workaround for producing exhibits for public hearings or Planning Commission meetings.  At last, we were able to convey our thoughts with colored areas on maps which was easier to understand than a set of engineered drawings.

It has taken a couple of releases, but the developers at Autodesk have finally given us a tool that we have been asking for.  Now, it is easier than ever to create a transparent hatch.  the example that I am going to use is of a Master Plan for a small development.  The development consists of high, medium and low density single family zoning, commercial and open space zoning.  All of these will be denoted by a different color hatch.  The Master Plan looks like the following in its infancy.

As you can see in the image above, I have created some parcels with a solid hatch pattern, each one colored based on the zoning. So, now we need to make the hatches transparent so that we can see the image below. In this case, I have established a layer for each hatch. I did this because there may be times when we need a different level of transparency for different hatches. (OK…..I hope you caught the hint!)

The hint was Layers! The transparency is controlled by layers in 2011! Why am I having “Shrek” flashbacks? And moving along….. If you take a look at the Layer Properties Manager you will see a new column associated to your layer properties. That column is the layer transparency.

You will also notice that the default is zero(0). This means that the layer is not transparent. To change the level of transparency, click in the transparency column for the layer that you want to adjust and enter the value in the dialog box, or choose a value from the drop-down menu. It is that easy. For this case I chose the Medium Density Single Family zoning and increased the transparency to 60. Here are the results.

The next question that usually arises is, “Well, that is great on my display, but can I plot the transparent hatch?” The good news is yes you can plot the transparent hatch. Make sure that when you are ready to plot your drawing that you enable the plot transparency switch in the Plot dialog box.

Transparent hatches are that simple! No more exporting to .sdf and connecting to the .sdf with the FDO connection. We can do them all inside of Civil 3D! Happy Hatching!

View all of Whit’s blogposts at: http://gettingtothedirt.wordpress.com

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For AutoCAD Map 3D Users: Using AutoCAD Map 3D Document View

As promised here is an example of using the Document View functions in Map 3D. To set the stage for this, we set the scenario as so: We GPSed the utility power line with a handheld GPS unit. As we GPSed the pole we also took a picture of the pole, we tagged or named the image file the same as the pole number. When we got back into the office we downloaded the images into their own folder on the server along with the GPS points and data we collected in the field. We then imported the points and created the object data tables from the point data. So now we want to link those images to our points or poles block in the map, so as we click on a pole we can view the photo we took in the field.

This is a good example of using the document view tool. The first step is making sure the OD table has the correct information and fields in it and that the images are in a folder that we can get to.

Looking at my example we see the OD table has a field value that matches the image file names. Once those two steps are complete we have to define the Document View. In order to do this we need to be in the Classic Map workspace. Looks like whoever created the default Ribbons for Map 3D forgot these commands or thought we didn’t need them. Using the Map menu pulldown select the Define Document View from the Object Data section.

In the Define Document View Dialog (yes, the old style dialog that you can not resize) We set up the parameters Map 3D uses to open/display the images.

1. Give the definition a name and description.

2. For the expression in my example I use the PoleNumber field from my Pole_No_OD Object Data Table. You can use the Expression button to browse and select your expression. (Do not confuse that with the FDO expression builder)

3. Select the folder where your documents are stored (you can use the browse button to get to it).

4. Type in the file extension for the type of document you want to view. In my example it's jpg but you can also use word documents or (almost) any type of document to view.

5. Next you need to provide the command line for the application used to open and view the documents. Again, use the browse button and browse to the exe file that will open the document. With my example and images as my documents I selected my installed IrfanView application. I could used Paintbrush as well but I like the speed of IrfanView.

6. Click the ADD button to add it to the list at the top.

Now, the Update button is nice if you need to go back and change one of the parameters. It's nice to have for the first few tries since you do not have to start over if something doesn't work the first time, just edit and update.

Now that you have the document view defined, to use it select the View Associated Document from the Map menu Object Data section and select the object with the OD table attached. If everything works you should have that document open up in its own application.

View all of Murph’s blogposts at: http://map3d.wordpress.com

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3D Annotation for Inventor

The free 3D Annotation for Inventor technology preview allows Inventor users to apply 3D Annotations (dimensions, geometric tolerances, surface finish symbols, datum symbols, and notes) to a part model, which are then displayed in the graphics view. It is an emulation intended to provide the Inventor user with a sense of a 3D annotation capability to solicit feedback and to gauge interest level.

The 3D Annotation for Inventor technology preview is free but licensed for a limited term and for a particular territory as referenced in the End User License Agreement. Download 3D Annotation here.

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The Inventor 2011 Mesh Enabler

The Inventor 2011 Mesh Enabler is a free technology preview that enables Inventor users to work with imported Mesh data. As shipped, Inventor 2011 can import mesh data from Catia files. The Mesh Enabler adds the ability to post process the imported mesh data to convert the mesh features to Inventor Base features. The resulting Base features can then be used for further operations including drawings and measurements.

This preview is available until January 31, 2012 at which time the license expires and the function will be disabled. It is not known if this technology will be incorporated into a commercial product.

Download the Mesh Enabler at Autodesk Labs here.

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Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor

Owners of Autodesk Alias Design have an extremely useful piece of add-on software that they may not be aware of: Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor. This is a version of Alias Design created specifically for users of Autodesk Inventor 3D mechanical design software. It installs directly into Inventor to provide integrated freeform shape and parametric modeling within the Inventor environment. It allows users to: 

• Create complex 3D shapes, generate forms easier than with traditional NURBS surface modeling, and easily free-form edit a solid body created in Inventor or other third-party CAD software imported into Inventor. 
• Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor offers a seamless integration between industrial design and engineering teams. This new version is for either the engineer who needs to work on the conceptual aspect or the industrial designer involved in the actual engineering of the design. 
• Autodesk Alias Design for Inventor acts as a gateway for the integration of other modeling packages and CAD applications, making it easier to improve surface quality of free-form models created in Inventor or from other CAD packages.

To learn more about Autodesk Alias Design, call us at 888-442-3100.

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Autodesk Presents the "Multi-CAD Interoperability with Autodesk Inventor" Webcast

Multi-CAD Interoperability with Autodesk Inventor 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. CDT, September 8, 2010 Autodesk Inventor software enables you to streamline projects that require opening files in various formats. You can also deliver 3D design data to clients and vendors in leading file formats natively. In this webcast, Daryl Corelli will discuss Inventor’s interoperability features and capabilities including: reading and writing files from the most common CAD tools, integrated and comprehensive suite of translators, and reading or creating data in a client’s preferred format.

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AutoCAD P&ID and Plant 3D 2011 Are Now Available

The 2011 versions of AutoCAD P&ID and AutoCAD Plant 3D are now available. The enhancements for AutoCAD P&ID 2011 include: improved first experience for quicker start-up, improved multi-user support, and better editing features and use of standard AutoCAD commands.

The new features of AutoCAD Plant 3D 2011 include: file naming templates, the ability to convert lines to pipes, line locking, precise part placement, inserting piping components while routing, and adding sloped pipes and annotations in orthographic drawings. You can view a video on these new features here.

For those of you with a 2010 release on subscription, you can download the 2011 version from the subscription portal, found here. If you aren't on subscription and would like to upgrade to the 2011 version, call us at 888-442-3100 and we'll be happy to help you.

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Autodesk Announces the Plant Design Suite

Autodesk Plant Design Suite software is an integrated plant design and whole-project review solution that combines AutoCAD software, AutoCAD P&ID software, AutoCAD Plant 3D software, and Autodesk Navisworks software into a single economical package for faster time-to-productivity and better project coordination. Integrated AutoCAD functionality enables more streamlined 2D drafting, P&ID design, 3D modeling, and construction document generation. Autodesk Navisworks capabilities provide project-wide model aggregation and advanced tools for visualization, simulation, and error identification. Help improve communication, accuracy, and predictability of your plant design projects with the Autodesk Plant Design Suite. Both editions are economical and easy to deploy.

The Premium version contains:

• AutoCAD
• AutoCAD P&ID
• AutoCAD Plant 3D
• Navisworks Simulate

The Advanced version contains:

• AutoCAD
• AutoCAD P&ID
• AutoCAD Plant 3D
• Navisworks Manage

Call us at 888-442-3100 for more information or download a free 30-day trial version here.

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ALACAD's Live Plant & Process Webcasts

ALACAD Presents the Live "AutoCAD P&ID Demo" Webcast 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. CDT, August 24, 2010
ALACAD Presents the Live "AutoCAD Plant 3D Demo" Webcast 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. CDT, August 24, 2010
ALACAD Presents the Live "AutoCAD P&ID Demo" Webcast 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. CDT, September 21, 2010
ALACAD Presents the Live "AutoCAD Plant 3D Demo" Webcast 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. CDT, September 21, 2010

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