Heidi Hewett's Blog

AUGI 2006 Salary Survey!

Time is running out! October 31 is the last day for you to respond to the AUGI 2006 CAD Salary Survey! It only takes a few minutes to answer all the questions...  really! I just did it in less than 2 minutes! The results from this survey are valuable for all of us and the more people that respond, the more accurate the results!

Do you DWF?

If so, Scott Sheppard and Hilde Sevens, from the Autodesk DWF team, are interested in learning more about how you use DWF. Please take just a few minutes (really!!!) to view their request and provide some quick feedback.

http://dwf.blogs.com/beyond_the_paper/2006/10/senior_product_.html

Thanks!

Off Course - On Target

Off Course - On Target is an intriguing name for what is guaranteed to be an intriguing blog! Some of you may remember my interview with Wayne Hodgins. Wayne, unknowingly, was an inspiration for my blog and one of my first blog posts was based on my interview with him. Now Wayne has launched his own blog providing a “path to learning how to become more open to new ways of thinking, how to recognize when and how to act on new ideas, and how to be more innovative, inventive, effective, and productive”.

Visit http://waynehodgins.typepad.com/ to LEARN more!!

Transitioning from 2D to 3D AutoCAD drawings 114

In my last “Transitioning from 2D to 3D” post, I finished creating the 3D VAV boxes in the HVAC plan. The VAV boxes are currently on the floor. I could move them to the ceiling now, but I decided to wait until I finish creating the ductwork so that I can move the ducts and VAV boxes at the same time.

The ductwork provides the opportunity to use a variety of AutoCAD tools. As usual, there are many different ways to create the same model. I’m going to focus on the methods that enable you to take advantage of the existing 2D geometry using the fewest steps and/or the least amount of thinking.

1. Zoom into an area with ductwork.
   
2. From the Dashboard, choose Cylinder.
3. Pick the midpoint and endpoint of the existing 2D duct to specify the radius of the cylinder. Don’t worry that the cylinder is oriented incorrectly.
4. Drag down a small distance and pick to set the height of the cylinder. You could just as easily drag up. We’ll rotate the cylinder into the proper position and then adjust its height by snapping to existing 2D geometry.
   
5. Select the cylinder and then pass your cursor over the Move grip at the cylinder base. The Move grip tool will display.
6. Select the axis around which you want to rotate. By default, AutoCAD will try to move the selected object along the axis but you can easily switch to Rotate functionality.
   
7. Press the spacebar twice to change from the Move grip tool to the Rotate grip tool.
8. Drag the cursor straight up (along the z polar axis) and pick or enter an angle of 90. If you drew the initial cylinder (step 4) up instead of down, you would do the opposite for this step.
   
9. Select the stretch grip at the end of the cylinder and stretch it to the proper height. The “proper height” depends on what your goal is for the model. If you want the model to be as close to real life as possible, you might want to create each duct segment, including the connectors, as separate objects. However, if you are only concerned with how the model looks, you can reduce steps by combining several “parts” into one. I decided to stretch the duct all the way to center of the large duct to which it will connect. It doesn’t exactly match the real-world parts, but it is quick and will “look” fine after I create the larger duct.
10. Pick the midpoint of the line at the end of the large duct.
    
    I could have “eye-balled” a distance that would extend the small cylinder far enough into the larger cylinder, but if I didn’t stretch far enough, there would be a gap at the intersection of the two cylinders. If I stretched too far, the small duct might protrude to the other side of the large one. By stretching to the middle of the larger duct, I know there won’t be any gaps or excess protrusions.

View Animation

Autodesk Impression Technology Preview

Autodesk Impression Technology Preview is available for you to download from http://labs.autodesk.com. This is the first full-blown application to be posted on Autodesk Labs. With this new technology, you can "create presentation-ready graphics directly from your CAD drawings. Open your DWG and DWF files with Autodesk Impression, and start to develop illustrations right away in an environment that is straightforward, yet flexibile enough to explore your creative side.  Use pre-built appearance styles to add everything from hand-drawn strokes to textured color fills, or produce your own distinct look by creating custom appearance styles.  Either way, the look-and-feel of your drawing is reusable – saving you time, and effort. And because Impression understands your DWG data, you can also take advantage of the power of blocks and layers."

Scenes from Birmingham

On Tuesday, ALACAD hosted the Birmingham CAD Camp. In between the many valuable classes, attendees networked with eachother, instructors, and vendors. And, of course, many of them took the opportunity to test their AutoCAD knowledge by participating in the AUGI Top DAUG contest! During lunch they were treated to a special "munch an learn" session where Todd Hunter, from Autodesk, provided a sneak peek at Autodesk Impression.

This was my last CAD Camp (at least until Spring) but the rest of the gang (Matt, Robert, David, Travis, and Alex) will continue to tour the country, teaming up with local instructors. Check out the remaining CAD Camp schedule to see if they are coming to a city near you!

Autodesk University 2006

If you couldn't attend one of the fabulous AUGI CAD Camps or if attending CAD Camp made you realize how much there is to learn, how about asking the boss to send you on an educational trip to Las Vegas?! Autodesk University will be held at the Venetian Hotel, November 28 - December 1.

Autodesk University is "the Premier Autodesk Learning and Networking Event" offering:

• Nearly 500 expert-led classes in an ideal learning environment
• Information about the Autodesk 2007 family of solutions
• End-to-end design, visualization, and collaboration solutions from Autodesk and industry partners
• Face-to-face meetings with leading developers and Autodesk staff and executives
• The collective wisdom of a community of peers and industry leaders
• And much more

To learn more about Autodesk University 2006 visit www.autodesk.com/au.

See you in Vegas!

How does your salary stack up?

Find out how your salary stacks up against others with your title, in your industry, and in your geographic region by participating in AUGI's 2006 CAD Salary Survey. The more people that participate, the more accurate the data! I just took a look at the survey and it should only take you a few minutes to complete. It has 17 easy-to-answer questions.

Message from AUGI:

This year's survey has been enhanced to include more job titles, more industries, and other improvements. You'll get results that you can show to the boss, and maybe even take to the bank. But first you have to complete the 2006 CAD Salary Survey!

So that this year's survey can provide measurable and meaningful data, it is important that all AUGI members participate. Look at it this way: In exchange for a few minutes of your time today, you can receive big benefits in the near future.

You need to be an AUGI member to take the survey and view the results... but that is okay because AUGI membership is FREE!

Become an AutoCAD superstar!

Imagine going on a job interview for a CAD-related position and when your perspective employer asks if you have any samples of your work, you say "Sure! Launch AutoCAD!" or "You bet! Go to the Autodesk Web site".

One of my responsibilities at Autodesk is to collect customer drawings for use in marketing and training material. These drawings come from people like you, working on real design projects. The drawings we collect are used for various purposes around the world including posters, brochures, courseware, tutorials, sample drawings, software demonstrations, the Autodesk Website, you name it! I love it when I travel abroad and see drawings that I collected being used in Japanese AutoCAD brochures, German training material, and French AutoCAD sample files. Last year we received a great data set from Rodrigo, a former architectural student in Mexico. The drawings he and his partners produced can be seen in AutoCAD related material around the world including Webcasts and the Customer Stories.

Your drawings don't have to be elaborate models or from a particular industry. We need drawings of every type and from any industry

So, if it is so easy to become a CAD superstar by submitting your drawings, why isn't everyone doing it?  There is a catch... a legal one. The owner of the drawings must sign our legal release form before we can use the drawings publicly. We understand that some drawings contain information that should not be made public. However, when we include the drawings in AutoCAD, Websites, or anywhere else, we can't control where they might end up. Thus, we need full permission to use them. If your drawings contain data that you can't share, you can remove the data before submitting them. We have received drawings from large and small customers around the world. For AutoCAD Release 14, we received drawings for London's Heathrow Airport... imagine that! They modified the drawings to remove information that might be considered a security risk. For AutoCAD 2000, we received 4 CD's of drawings from the World EXPO '98 in Lisbon Portugal. For AutoCAD 2004 we received a set of floor plans for an office remodel in Denver, Colorado. These drawings and the many others that we have received from large and small firms, government agencies, educational institutions, students, and individual users are what enable us to produce realistic and meaningful training and marketing material.

Because I work on the AutoCAD team, I am specifically interested in plain AutoCAD drawings. However, I would be more than happy to pass along any other drawings (ADT, MDT, Revit, Inventor, etc) to the appropriate people on those teams. At this time, I am especially interested in finding drawings that include AutoCAD geometry and corresponding table information. For example, maybe you have a civil drawing that uses lines and arcs to represent piping and it includes a table or Excel spreadsheet to show the total length of the pipe, cost per unit of length, total cost, pipe description, etc. This is just one example from one industry but I’m interested in any similar data from any industry.

If you are interested in submitting drawings (wouldn’t this be a great project for a design school?), please contact me directly. I will be glad to answer questions or review your drawings (maybe in DWF format) prior to you “officially” submitting them. I’ve posted the Consent Release Form under the Documents section of my blog.

CAD Manager's Survey

Time is running out for you to respond to Robert Green's CAD Manager's Survey.

The data that Robert collects from this survey will support various CAD Manager-related articles and reports in Cadalyst Magazine and in his CAD Manager’s Newsletters.

The more people that respond, the more accurate the data! If you are a CAD Manager, please take a few minutes to respond to Robert's survey before it closes down this weekend!

Scenes from Milwaukee

MasterGraphics hosted the Milwaukee CAD Camp on Tuesday. The attendance was fantastic... not that you can tell from looking at this incredibly dark photo!

Attendees were treated to a special presentation by Todd Hunter from Autodesk. He provided a sneak peek at Autodesk Impression, a new (yet-to-be-released) application that will enable you to produce 2D presentation "sketches" from your AutoCAD drawings.

FREE ATP Courses!

ATP (AUGI Training Program) courses for October 2006 start today!

AUGI membership is free! ATP training courses are free! What are you waiting for?

Visit http://augi.typepad.com/augi_news/2006/10/atp_courses_for.html to learn more!

Transitioning from 2D to 3D AutoCAD drawings 113

Continuing work on the VAV box from my previous post, I’ll create the extrusions for the primary air inlet and the supply outlet. Since the VAV box is a block, I used REFEDIT to modify the block definition. I’ll continue with my edits from within the REFEDIT command.

1. Press Shift and the middle mouse button to orbit around to the opposite side of the model.
   
2. From the Dashboard, choose Cylinder to draw the protrusion representing the primary air inlet.
3. Pass the cursor over the side of the box to activate it as the current work plane (the DUCS toggle must be on).
4. Pass the cursor over the midpoint of the back line representing the 2D air inlet to acquire the point (midpoint OSNAP and OTRACK must be on).
5. Pass the cursor over the midpoint of the vertical edge of the VAV box.
6. Move the cursor towards the intersection of the two tracking vectors and pick. I could have drawn the cylinder at the midpoint of the 2D geometry and then moved it up like I did in the last post… but this alternate method saves a few steps.
   
7. Pass the cursor over the endpoint of the back line representing the 2D air inlet to acquire the point. I could enter a value for the radius of the cylinder but since I have appropriate 2D geometry, I might as well use my object snaps and tracking.
8. Move the cursor towards the intersection of the horizontal and vertical tracking vectors and pick.
   
9. Drag the cursor out and pick a point (ie. midpoint, endpoint) on the front line of the 2D air inlet. I could enter a value for the height of the cylinder but I wouldn’t want to think that hard! I might as well use the existing 2D geometry!
   
10. From the Dashboard, choose Box to draw the protrusion representing the supply outlet. Instead, I could use the Ctrl-Alt (Presspull) functionality similar to the previous post. This is just another option.
11. Pick opposite endpoints of the existing 2D rectangle.



12. Enter the height of the box. I entered a height of 14. The box representing the supply outlet needs to be vertically centered on the VAV box. I’ll use the MOVE command to move it into position.
13. Select the small box, right-click and choose Move.
14. Pick the midpoint of the back vertical side of the box.
    
15. Pass the cursor over the midpoint of the vertical side of the VAV box.
16. Move the cursor towards the intersection of the horizontal and vertical tracking vectors and pick.
    
17. Erase the 2D geometry.
18. On the Refedit toolbar, choose Save Reference Edits.
    

If you have other versions of similar block definitions, you can repeat these steps to update all of them.

View Animation

Scenes from Uncasville

Where the heck is Uncasville? About a $150 cab ride from Providence, Rhode Island!

On Friday, I had the pleasure of demonstrating AutoCAD 2007 during the keynote presentation at the Datamat 2006 Technology Expo in Uncasville, Connecticut. The wonderful audience was very tolerant of my random incoherence due to lack of sleep. After numerous flight delays, I arrived in Providence too late to take the hotel shuttle or rent a car... thus, the $150 cab ride! When I arrived at the beautiful Mohegan Sun Casino/Hotel (where the event was held) at 3:30am, they had already sold my room to someone else. Ah.... adventures in travel! The hotel was kind enough to give me a deluxe suite (larger than most apartments) instead! As it turns out, I must have been too delirious to take pictures at the event so... I have no scenes from Uncasville… just the memories. In any case, I wanted to thank the friendly and attentive hosts and audience for making my crazy trip worthwhile! BTW, the hotel "shuttle" back to the airport after my presentation turned out to be a stretch limo... perfect for sleeping!

My adventures in travel continue with the Milwaukee CAD Camp on Tuesday… hope to see you there!

Scenes from Jacksonville

On Thursday, Imaging Technologies hosted CAD Camp in Jacksonville, Florida. There was a great turnout of enthusiastic CAD-learners!

Scenes from Phoenix

Phoenix/Tempe was the place to be yesterday as CADsoft hosted the Phoenix CAD Camp!

If you couldn't make it to Arizona, how about Florida? Hope to see you in Jacksonville on Thursday!

Transitioning from 2D to 3D AutoCAD drawings 112

In my previous posts, I updated my 2D plan to include 3D objects for the columns and beams, walls, lights and diffusers. To get a better idea of how this drawing looks, I’ll set the conceptual visual style.

The next thing I want to update is the VAV box in the HVAC plan. To make it easier to see the 2D objects that I’m working with, I’ll turn off all the layers except for the 2D walls and HVAC plan. The HVAC plan uses blocks for the 2D VAV box. I’ll edit these block definitions using the REFEDIT tool similar to how I edited the column, beam, lighting, and diffuser blocks. Although the process I’ll use is not drastically different, this block has a few more components, giving me the opportunity to explore different methods.

1. Zoom into a VAV block.
2. Select one of the block references, right-click and choose Edit Block In-place. This launches the REFEDIT command.
3. In the Reference Edit dialog box, choose OK.
4. Press the Ctrl and Alt keys and pick inside the VAV box.
5. Drag the cursor up and pick a point or enter a value for the height. I entered a height of 17.125.
   
6. Press the Ctrl and Alt keys and pick inside the small rectangle representing the induced air outlet.
   
7. Drag the cursor up and pick a point or enter a value for the height. I entered a height of 14. The small box representing the induced air outlet needs to be vertically centered on the large box. You can use various tools to move it, including the MOVE command.
8. Select the small box, right-click and choose Move.
9. Pick the midpoint of the back vertical side of the small box.
   
10. Drag the cursor over the back endpoint of the 2D rectangle representing the small box and the midpoint of the vertical side of the large box to acquire these points. You don’t want to pick the points, you only want to pass over them so you can use Otracking (OTRACK must be enabled on the status bar). If you are not familiar with Otrack, these few steps are probably confusing… sorry…  This is easier to show than to explain. Viewing the animation will probably be very helpful for these particular steps.
11. Drag the cursor to the approximate location where you want to move the small box. You’ll know if AutoCAD acquired the points because the tracking vectors will display and the tool tip will indicate that it is tracking the Z values of the Endpoint and the Midpoint.
    

View Animation

Using these familiar tools (Osnaps. Otrack, MOVE, etc) you can easily manipulate objects in 3D space. We still need to make more changes to the VAV box. In the next posting, I’ll create the last two protrusions using slightly different methods.