Sheets Happen! An introduction to the Sheet Set Manager
Whether you design manufactured parts, maps, or buildings, sheets happen! The sheet set functionality in AutoCAD enables you to efficiently create, manage, and share your entire set of sheets from one convenient location. At first glance, the powerful functionality offered by the Sheet Set Manager may seem overwhelming but you don’t have to learn and implement all of the functionality simultaneously.
Begin taking advantage of sheet set functionality for your current projects with minimal effort by importing your current drawing layouts into a sheet set. You can easily open drawings from a central location while you continue to edit them using traditional tools. Create new sheets using traditional tools and then import those sheets into your current sheet set. Easily plot, publish, archive or create an electronic transmittal of the entire set of drawings.
When you feel comfortable using the most basic sheet set functionality, you can begin assigning sheet set properties. Using sheet set properties, you can easily plot to any named page setup, regardless of the page setup that is saved in each of the drawing layouts. You can also assign your drawing template file to the sheet set making it easy for you to create new sheets directly from the sheet set manager.
Moving on to the most powerful sheet set functionality, using Fields, enables you to automate the sheet data that is stored in your drawings. You can create your own fields in the form of custom sheet set properties and then reference those, and other fields, in your plot stamps, callouts, view labels, and titleblocks.
Over the next few months, I will post a series of articles that enable you to progress through these various levels of implementation from the simplest to the most complex. If you spend only a few minutes a week, you can create a fully functional sheet set with minimum disruption to your current workflow.
The following diagram provides an overview of the topics I will be covering. If you aren't haven't seen a demo of sheet sets, you might want to review the Sheet Set videos under the AutoCAD Awareness post. Those videos were created in AutoCAD 2005 but they apply to AutoCAD 2006 as well.
October 31, 2005 in Sheet Sets | Permalink | TrackBack
AutoCAD Awareness
The first step in learning HOW, is to learn WHAT. WHAT can you do in AutoCAD? WHAT has been added or enhanced since the previous release? If you don’t know what the software is capable of, you can’t possibly know how to use it. I hope many of you have had the opportunity to see an AutoCAD demonstration through your local reseller, CAD Camps, Webcasts or other venues. If not, or if you need a refresher, here are several ways to learn more about new(er) AutoCAD functionality.
· New Features Workshop. If you have AutoCAD 2004, 2005, or 2006, you can access the New Features Workshop from the Help pull-down menu.
· AutoCAD 2006 demonstration videos. If you want to see the highlights of AutoCAD 2006, you can access short videos (with audio) from the sidebar of this blog, under AutoCAD 2006 Videos.
· AutoCAD 2005 demonstration videos. If you want to see the highlights of AutoCAD 2005, you can access short videos (with audio) using these links:
Sheet Set Manager (Sheet List)
October 28, 2005 in Learning | Permalink
Technology assimilation and me-learning: An interview with Wayne Hodgins
Wayne Hodgins, Strategic Futurist and Director of Worldwide Learning Strategies for Autodesk, Inc, scours the globe looking for new learning technologies and sharing his vision for the future of learning, training and education. Wayne has been profiled by various business press including Forbes, Fortune, Industry Week and CNN and he has delivered numerous keynote presentations to academic, business, and government audiences around the world. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Wayne and I wanted to share some of his thoughts on technology assimilation and me-learning.
Hewett: What are some of the challenges that software companies face with regard to educating their customers?
Hodgins: During a survey, we asked customers what they valued most with regard to the software. The number one response, more than the next four responses combined, was access to learning materials. They didn’t want more information about features. What they wanted was help integrating feature information into their job tasks.
Education is critical to a company’s success. If we don’t succeed at the learning portion of our business, we don’t succeed at all because customers only know the value of what they understand. When customers look at a product, they can only see the value to the degree to which they understand what those features are, what they would do with them and how they would help them. There is a technology assimilation gap (TAG) between the capability of software functionality and the ability of customers to use that functionality. If software functionality increases without an equivalent increase in customer education, the gap will continue to get wider. This gap can only get so wide before it becomes a real problem when at some point customers no longer see value in the software because they don’t understand it. If we don’t focus on educating our customers and future customer base, we will not succeed.
Hewett: Can you explain your idea of “me-learning” and “getting bigger by getting smaller”?
Hodgins: Me-Learning is personalized learning. It is getting just the right content to just the person at just the right time in just the right way. You can do that if and only if you’ve got this degree of smallness where you can pick and choose just the right pieces and just the right means. You know when your pieces are small enough if each piece can stand alone in its own right. But, they have just become small enough that by themselves, they’re useless. You can compare these pieces to Lego blocks. Individually, Lego blocks are useless. They have no value. But, when you put them together, they’ve got enormous value. And, they have value because you can pretty much build anything. We want to be able to smash down into these small little pieces, video, audio, animations, illustrations, text. Those pieces become different shapes or different colors of Lego blocks.
You have to think big. It’s the bigger thinking, bigger picture, conceptual stuff, that helps you keep things in focus and helps you decide and make priority decisions. However, while thinking big, you must work small. This is about a holistic systemic set of changes that we need to change our thinking around, our processes around, in terms of this idea of working small and having things very modular and having everything be on-demand, dynamic assembly.
I found my conversation with Wayne to be particularly inspiring as I was preparing to launch this blog. Although I was first introduced to Wayne’s “Technology Assimilation Gap” many years ago when we worked together in the Autodesk Learning and Training department, I had completely forgotten about it... or had I? As memories of Wayne’s TAG presentation came flooding back, I realized that minimizing the technology assimilation gap is exactly what this blog is about! Hopefully, over the coming months and years, this blog will help to fill that gap as we attempt to transition to Wayne’s grand vision of “me-learning”.
October 26, 2005 in Learning | Permalink
Welcome to AutoCAD Insider!
Are you realizing the full potential of AutoCAD? Or are you using AutoCAD 2006 the same way you used AutoCAD 2005, 2004, or even Release 14? Don't be afraid to admit it… you’re not alone! AutoCAD is a huge, powerful application with many ways to accomplish the same task. If you can accomplish your task using old tools, why spend valuable (billable) time learning new ones? Think of time as an investment. You've heard "it takes money to make money" right? Well, it takes time to make time. If you invest just a small amount of time to learn new functionality, you can increase your efficiency and save MORE TIME.
Hi! My name is Heidi Hewett and I am an AutoCAD Technical Marketing Manager, for Autodesk, Inc. Don’t be confused by the “Marketing” title. The emphasis is on “Technical”! A more appropriate job title for my role at Autodesk might be AutoCAD Technical Learner and Educator. That is what I do! I learn new AutoCAD functionality during the software development process and then I educate Autodesk employees, partners, and customers on that functionality. Since I develop and deliver content for topics that have never been taught, I try to uncover the challenges and determine the best methods for communicating the content. This blog provides a way for me to share my challenges and discoveries with those of you that teach and/or implement AutoCAD functionality so that you can take AutoCAD to the next level without a huge investment in time. In addition to AutoCAD-specific topics, don't be surprised to find more general information related to adult learning, training, and education.
Thanks for taking the time to visit and I hope you enjoy all that is to come!
Heidi Hewett
AutoCAD Technical Marketing Manager
Autodesk, Inc.
