NOVEDGE blog

Rhino and Autodesk Inventor Are Becoming Good Friends

Rhino 3D is not the minor CAD system many CAD companies were used to think

The Rhino community could not be ignored anymore! Rhino 3D is not the minor CAD system many CAD companies were used to think. Over the years the community of Rhino users has become larger and more influential with several Rhino designers holding key positions inside design and manufacturing companies of all sizes. Ignoring Rhino and his users is not anymore an option, even for a large software manufacturer such as Autodesk.

Autodesk announcement recognizes the key role Rhino is playing in the mechanical, industrial, and architectural design

Indeed, just a couple of days ago Autodesk announced the release of a "beta version" (they like to call it "technology preview") for an Inventor plug-in to read the Rhino (.3dm) file format. Technically speaking this is not a major accomplishment. The Rhino file format is open and fully documented. The software to read 3dm files is provided free of charge on the openNURBS website. The Autodesk announcement recognizes the key role Rhino is playing in the mechanical, industrial, and architectural design. OpenNURBS (.3dm) is now a file format that CAD companies must be supported in order to retain existing customers or to acquire new ones. The new Inventor plug-in "technology preview" can be downloaded from the Novedge website. If you are an Inventor user you should definitely try it.

Autodesk page dedicated to the Rhino importer for Inventor says, "This technology preview gives you more flexibility when creating designs with vendor or customer data by allowing you to directly import Rhino files into Autodesk Inventor. This translator reads Rhino files(*.3dm) bringing solids, surfaces, wires, and points into Autodesk Inventor to be directly utilized while modeling. Being able to import directly from Rhino files eliminates the need to convert the Rhino data to make it usable in your projects."

the next step should be to return Rhino the favor by documenting the Inventor file format

Autodesk is making a step in the right direction by solving a real problem for his Inventor users. The next step should be to return Rhino the favor by documenting the Inventor file format or by providing an easy way to export an Inventor model as Rhino file, as suggested by Evan Yares on a comment to the Ralph Grabowski blog.

Franco Folini

Autodesk Student Editions (Educational) Now Available from Novedge

Novedge has been selling Autodesk products for many years. During the last couple of years we have been promoting the educational section of our catalog by adding several new products from the most popular brands such as Solidworks, McNeel, Maxon, Nemetschek, SpaceClaiming, Alibre, etc.

Novedge have signed up with Autodesk to sell their educational products

Recently at Novedge we have signed up with Autodesk to sell an important group of their educational products, thus expanding even further our already rich catalog. Now I can proudly say that we are the best place online to buy 3D software for professionals as well as for students.
Our offering now includes:

• AutoCAD LT 2010 Educational
• 3ds Max 2010 Educational Superpack, which includes 3ds Max, Motion Builder, Mudbox, Cleaner, and Toxik
• Maya Unlimited 2009 Student Superpack, including Maya Unlimited 2009, Autodesk CleanerXL 1.5, Toxik 2009, and MotionBuilder 2009
• Mudbox 2009 Student Edition
• Autodesk SoftImage 7.5 Student Version

For each of those products Autodesk has two version, one with a perpetual non-expiring license and one with a time limitation (from 13 months for 3ds Max to 5 years for AutoCAD LT). If you are a student or a teacher and you are looking for an affordable edition of the most important 3D graphics tools, Novedge is the place to look.

Franco Folini

Interview with Lynn Allen, Autodesk blogger and evangelist

Lynn Allen is one the most popular bloggers in the CAD world (Lynn blog, Lynn on Pulse). She is also a sort of ambassador for AutoCAD, promoting this CAD system in every context. In a world of stodgy CAD executives and unexciting CAD geeks, she brings a sparkling touch, feminine charm, and a solid technical knowledge. Lynn Allen loves AutoCAD users, and AutoCAD users love Lynn Allen, and everywhere she appears she is received with the same excitement of a movie star. Here is my interview with Lynn.

Lynn, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I am currently the Autodesk Technical Evangelist and have been in the CAD industry for about 25 years. I present to about 30,000 users each year and enjoy keeping our customers updated on the latest products (as well as sharing tips and tricks). I have had a monthly column in Cadalyst magazine for about 16 years and am the author of several books on AutoCAD. I am very passionate about all things Autodesk. When I am not traveling for Autodesk I enjoy time spent at home with my husband and our very spoiled dog.

You are one of the most (if not the most) popular bloggers for the AutoCAD users' community. Can you share with us your approach to blogging?

I aim to share Autodesk software tips and techniques that will help the reader be more productive immediately as well as keep them updated on Autodesk news they might find valuable. I also try to balance a bit of a personal side to my blog so the readers can identify with me as a real person (which I am). Where possible I try to inject some humor, since, let’s face it, technical blogs can get pretty dry.

You recently started posting on Twitter. How has your experience been so far and how is it different from blogging?

I will be the first to admit that while I enjoy twittering…I am not exactly sure why I twitter! It is a very low stress means of sharing information that I can do just about anywhere – which works out perfectly for me because I often have an intense travel schedule. I liken it to virtual stalking and for some reason we want to gather as many virtual stalkers as possible.

With release 2010 Autodesk puts AutoCAD under the spotlight not only as a standalone application but also as a complement to other design applications. What is the role of AutoCAD when other CAD systems are used in a design environment?

More often than not I find that were there is one of Autodesk’s higher end products such as Revit Architecture or Autodesk Inventor, there is also an AutoCAD. While the high end design challenges are tackled in the modeling software, AutoCAD is still often used for the detailing or the construction docs. The 3D models are intelligent and extremely valuable – but let’s face it – we still get paid to churn out 2D documents. Often that is where AutoCAD comes into play.

Autodesk competitors dismissed AutoCAD long ago as obsolete. Despite their expectations AutoCAD is still the most popular CAD software and is even seeming to enjoy a renewed vitality. Can you help us understand why?

Our customers love AutoCAD, plain and simple. Autodesk has worked hard to continue to innovate the product and keep it current. This year Autodesk added in some more powerful 3D features as well as parametrics. These types of features really kick up the power of the software and keep our customers coming back for more! It certainly isn’t your grandfather’s AutoCAD if you know what I mean.

What type of feedback do you receive from end users and how do you share that feedback with the people inside your company?

I am fortunate because I get a chance to share the newest features in AutoCAD with a live audience. I get instant positive feedback when I share the latest features that are going to make their everyday drawing life even better. I also get the occasional negative feedback and want to make sure any issues or disappointment is addressed with those who can do something about it. I have a few go-to resources in the company who can usually point me in the right direction to provide such feedback to those who can make changes within Autodesk.

I would like to thank Lynn for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Lynn or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Maurice Patel, Autodesk M&E Product Marketing

Maurice Patel is the head of Autodesk M&E Product Marketing. M&E is the media and entertainment division of Autodesk responsible for the popular products Maya, 3ds Max, and Motion Builder, among others. Maurice has been working in the DCC market for several years and is frequently quoted as an expert. As the market leader Autodesk has incredible power to influence the evolution of those technologies and tools. Those changes will effect not only 3D artists and Digital Content Creators, but also the mechanical design departments of manufacturing companies. In order to learn about the future direction of the market and the status of development I asked Maurice a few questions.

Maurice, can you tell us a bit about yourself and Autodesk M&E?

our mission is to develop solutions that enable our clients to create compelling visual content

Autodesk’s Media and Entertainment division is the leading provider of professional solutions for the film, television, games, manufacturing and architectural design industries. Our mission is to develop solutions that enable our clients to create compelling visual content – high-value content that will drive their businesses. Core to our strategy is the development of innovative 3D and image processing technology to enable creative professionals to generate synthetic images at the highest quality possible whether it be for a AAA games title, a blockbuster VFX movie or a state-of-the-art architectural visualization. Today our products are highly successful and used across the creative production pipeline for 3D, modeling, animation and rendering; 2D and 3D compositing, visual effects creation; editing, finishing and digital color grading.
Personally, I have been with Autodesk for over 6 years and in the M&E business for 12. I currently head up product marketing for Autodesk’s Media & Entertainment solutions. In this role I’m responsible for all product and industry related marketing aspects of the division’s film, television, games and design visualization solutions.

After the Alias acquisition in October 2005, Autodesk started to work on improving the integration between 3ds Max and Maya, focusing mostly on data exchange between the two applications. What has been accomplished so far and what are the plans for the future?

we’ve been working extensively on data interoperability

Indeed, we’ve been working extensively on data interoperability, not just between 3ds Max and Maya but between all Autodesk products as well as 3rd party applications. Core but not unique to that effort has been developing FBX, our open-standard, platform-independent 3D file format, of which we have released several versions in the past two years. FBX technology now supports an incredible variety of 2D and 3D data types and the list of types that it supports is constantly growing. We are of course planning on continuing to expand the workflow between these applications as well as with MotionBuilder, our compositing and visual effects solutions such as Toxik and Flame, other Autodesk products including AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit and 3rd party applications.

3ds Max is used not only in the entertainment industry but also in the manufacturing industry. Despite 3ds Max growing popularity in this area, importing and exporting data from and to a professional CAD system is still a difficult process. Any hints on what Autodesk M&E is doing to address this issue?

our goal is to provide digital continuity in the manufacturing processes from concept design to final ad

3ds Max is a leading visualization solution in the manufacturing industry and both 3ds Max and Maya are used in conceptual modeling. The issue of data import and export is fundamentally an issue of efficiency in the design process, an area that Autodesk is focused on addressing with its Digital Prototyping initiative. The Autodesk Digital Prototyping Solution enables manufacturing workgroups to create a single digital model that can be used in every stage of production, thereby bridging the gaps that exist between conceptual design, engineering and manufacturing. 3ds Max and Maya will help manufactures bring their products to market faster by reusing the Digital Prototyping data created in Autodesk Inventor. 3ds Max can work directly with Inventor and as a result manufacturers and their advertising agencies are able to create ‘synthetic’ or ‘digital’ images and animations of their products for marketing communications – without the need for costly physical prototypes. Ultimately our goal is to continue to eliminate the traditional data barriers or silos that exist in the design process and provide digital continuity in the manufacturing processes from concept design to final ad.

In the past few years Maya and 3ds Max have evolved to become extremely powerful systems for the professional production of high-quality graphical digital content. Many professionals and amateurs cannot afford the cost and don’t need the power and complexity of these tools. Can we envision a split in the 3ds Max product line similar to what we are seeing these days with Inventor and the recently announced Inventor LT?

Well as you know Autodesk does not talk publicly about future product plans. I can say that we have always been (and will continue to be) dedicated to providing professional solutions that equip today’s best artists, designers and visualization experts with the tools they need to bring their most imaginative ideas to life. We will also continue to plan for the future by looking at the various ways that both current and future solutions can meet the evolving needs of our clients.

While Autodesk comes from a tradition of supporting a single platform (Windows), the recently acquired Alias is open to other platforms. On May 2006 Martin Vann (VP Worldwide Sales, M&E) made a public statement about the strategic value of supporting Mac and Linux platforms. Do you still believe that Linux and Mac will play a primary role in the future for the Media and Entertainment sector?

The Mac community is at the heart of creative desktop content creation

Linux and Windows definitely play a primary role. I think it important to point out that this is not recent though, Autodesk has long had a tradition of supporting multiple platforms in the M&E industry and has had UNIX as a primary platform for nearly a decade. In September 2006, we finished the transition of all of our visual effects, editing and finishing, and color grading solutions to the Linux platform (from IRIX). This transition allowed us to offer our clients the best-of-breed in hardware performance and scalability. Autodesk Maya is also available on this platform.
The Mac community is at the heart of creative desktop content creation. We support these artists with Autodesk Maya, a 3D modeling, animation and rendering solution, as well as a desktop compositing application, Autodesk Combustion, and a media mastering and encoding solution Autodesk Cleaner.

You have been working in the media and entertainment field for several years and have witnessed the incredible transformations of this sector from a privileged point of view. Can you share with us your experience and your personal vision for the future?

There are several tends that will continue to drive rapid change in the industry over the next few years. Some important ones are: (1) Continued consolidation and globalization such as the recent Intel acquisition of Havok, (2) Virtualization and integration of processes through such initiatives as Digital Prototyping, BIM and Integrated Practice, (3) Sustainability will be an increasingly important component of the design process and (4) Innovation in tools and technologies for simulation and analysis will continue to prove a challenging and fruitful ground for research given that there are still fundamental unknowns in real world physics as well as complexities in modeling that make accurate, deterministic, simulations difficult.

I would like to thank Maurice Patel for taking the time to answer my questions. A special thanks to Mara Wright and Dennis Phinney for helping me to organize this interview. If you have any questions for Maurice or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with George Omura, AutoCAD Writer

George Omura (website) is an architect, illustrator, and animator, but he is mostly known for his books. He is a world-renowned author with more than 500,000 books in print, mostly about AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT. The first book I read about AutoCAD, back in 1991, was written by George. Like myself, legions of AutoCAD users learn how to use the popular Autodesk program from the pages of George's books. It is a great honor and pleasure for me to have the opportunity to ask a few questions to George and hear his qualified opinion about a few topics. Here is the interview.

George, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

I’ve been writing AutoCAD books for about 20 years now starting with version 2.5 of AutoCAD

First, let me thank you for inviting me to speak with you. Your site looks great.
As you know, I'm the Author of the Mastering AutoCAD series of books published by Sybex, an imprint of Wiley. I also have a book called Introducing AutoCAD which is aimed at the casual AutoCAD user. I’ve been writing AutoCAD books for about 20 years now starting with version 2.5 of AutoCAD. I update my books once a year following the yearly updates that come out of Autodesk.
I’m also the IT manager for ELS Architecture and Urban Design in Berkeley California. My role there is really more like a jack-of-all-trades. I do a lot of the PC troubleshooting and I field a lot of questions about all the software we use, not just AutoCAD. It’s a unique opportunity to see how people use computers in their day to day tasks. My role as an IT manager helps me with my writing efforts because I see the issues users face when they encounter something unfamiliar.

You have been writing books about AutoCAD since 1987. How has AutoCAD changed in the last 20 years?

The first version of AutoCAD that I had written about was a toy compared with the AutoCAD of today

It's pretty amazing. The first version of AutoCAD that I had written about was a toy compared with the AutoCAD of today.  Still, people were doing some serious work with AutoCAD back then. There were definitely some major limitations, mostly due to the lack of power from the PCs at the time. I remember having to start a process, like regenerating a complex drawing, and then wait several minutes for AutoCAD to finish the job. Another bottleneck was the output. To get large prints of your work, you had to use a pen plotter. These devices took forever to generate a single sheet and users were constantly unclogging pens. Moving into the '90s, thing started to really improve. Processor speeds were taking off and the blueprint-reproduction companies were offering faster printing as a service to CAD users. I think that this is when architects really started to take CAD on the PC seriously. Improvements in the way AutoCAD displayed drawings also made larger projects more feasible. The transition to the Windows OS in the later part of the '90s was a major change for AutoCAD and CAD in general. This was a "make or break” transition for Autodesk I think. There are very few programs around today that have their roots in the old PC-DOS and AutoCAD could have been one of those programs that didn't make it. Autodesk had versions of AutoCAD on Xenix, Unix, Mac OS, and Windows. They even had version 14 on both Windows and DOS. Now AutoCAD is no longer the most power-hungry program on the scene and no one really thinks twice about attempting a large project with AutoCAD. Large format laser plotters are capable of cranking out 5 to 10 large format sheets per second. The problems that arise now are more often due to file format issues.

How have your readers changed in the last 20 years?

in the early days, my readers were from a pretty broad range of users from college students to retirees

That’s a little harder to determine since I don’t have that much direct contact with my readers except for the occasional email question. It seems that in the early days, my readers were from a pretty broad range of users from college students to retirees. Now that AutoCAD is a mainstream program, I’d guess that the balance has tipped to the younger users who are leaning AutoCAD as part of their professional training. There are also the readers who just want to know about the latest features in the newest versions of AutoCAD.

What is your training process when you approach a new program or are writing about a new release of AutoCAD?

I’ve always felt that people need real world examples to work with

I’ve always felt that people need real world examples to work with. In Mastering AutoCAD, I was trying to mimic the process that I found helpful when I was learning AutoCAD. I had some projects that I wanted to draw with AutoCAD so I started with the easier items. From there I built up other parts of drawing while learning more about AutoCAD as I went along. Mastering AutoCAD starts out with a simple door comprised of some lines and an arc. The reader eventually ends up with a floor plan with notes. So basically, I look at how I might learn and use a new program for my own work, then try to convert that process into training material.

Based on your experience, what is your approach when you have to explain a complex concept to your readers?

(explain a complex concept) it’s always helpful to connect a concept to a real world situation

Again, it’s always helpful to connect a concept to a real world situation. I try to start by explaining a complex concept in general terms that are related to something most of would encounter in the real world. For example, when working with AutoCAD 3D, you use the UCS (User Coordinate System) quite a bit. But the UCS is an unusual concept to work with, so I ask the reader to think of the UCS as a drawing surface that can be positioned in any orientation in space. You’re still drawing in 2D but the drawing surface is a 3 dimensional object that can be moved around.

Many amateurs ask us for the best tool to create 3D models similar to the ones they see in magazines, ads, and in online galleries. What would be your answer?

with the new modeling tools in AutoCAD 2007 and 2008, 3D modeling is easier than ever

Being an AutoCAD fan, I tend to promote AutoCAD as a 3D modeling tool. Now with the new modeling tools in AutoCAD 2007 and 2008, 3D modeling is easier than ever and you can create some very realistic 3D scenes. The rendering features in AutoCAD are basically the same as ones you’d find in Autodesk Viz. With the new lighting tools and materials in AutoCAD, you have better control over a rendered scene. Or if you prefer to have a more “loose” looking 3D rendering, you can use the Visual Styles in AutoCAD to give your model a “chipboard” model look. These are great tools and I hope more users get into them.

When you started your career as a writer, books were the major source of information for many CAD users. Now users can access tutorials, online training, discussion forums, etc. on the Internet.  What is the role of your books in this new scenario?

people are still seeking out good reference material in the form of books

What surprises me is that along with the expansion of on-line material and user forums, there has also been a huge increase in the number of AutoCAD book titles. This tells me that people are still seeking out good reference material in the form of books. I’d like to think that, in general, readers will continue to use books as a source of knowledge. Having said that, there are some really excellent on-line tutorials out there and they can really help users get up to speed fast. But we aren’t always able to get to the on-line resources we need. Once you have a book, it’s always there and available. With a book, you don’t even have to be at your computer. You may have a question pop into you mind and you can have an answer by referring to a book rather than having to fire up your PC, logging in, and searching the internet. You don’t have to wait for complex pages to open or for video files to load. It’s ironic, but a lot of the time, you can get an answer to your question faster using a book.

What's the name of your latest book and what is it about?

I've got two new books

I've got two new books. They are "Mastering AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008" and "Introducing AutoCAD 2008", both published by Sybex, an imprint of Wiley. Mastering is the do-it-all book covering nearly every aspect of AutoCAD in detail. It is intended for beginners and intermediate users who need to know AutoCAD inside-out.  I'm especially pleased with the 3D portion of the book since 3D modeling has always been an area that I'm especially fond of, but the rest of the book also is pretty good too, if I say so myself!
"Introducing AutoCAD 2008" is the latest revised version of "Just Enough AutoCAD 2007". My publisher decided that it needed a name change to fit in with their "Introducing" series of books.  A lot of AutoCAD users don't want or need to be power users. They just want to be able to perform some basic tasks in AutoCAD with the minimum amount of training. "Introducing AutoCAD 2008" was written for the user that has to be up and running with AutoCAD quickly but doesn't have to know every detail of the program.

I would like to thank George Omura for sharing his time to do this interview. If you have any questions for George or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

CAD Companies Push the Marketing Frontier on Wikipedia

Reading Paul Wilkinson blog, I discovered a sophisticated and pretty useful online tool called Wikipedia Scanner created by Virgil Griffith. Using the WikiScanner anybody can check the anonymous editing of Wikipedia pages done from computers registered under company domains such as Autodesk, SolidWork, and Adobe.
A search for edits from the Autodesk domain returns a long list of Wikipedia editing activity, spread over several topics, with only a few related to CAD and AutoCAD. Some of the edits are about Autodesk products and are useful contributions to the Wikipedia project. Other edits feel more like a marketing operation than a sincere, objective contribution.

One example is from November 12, 2006, when someone from an Autodesk computer, IP 198.102.112.18, edited the SolidWorks' page, adding this sentence to the product description: "In recent years it has begun to lose ground to more sophisticated modeling systems like Autodesk Inventor, launched in 1999, and Solid Edge in 1996."

What is particularly fascinating is the variety of topics edited from Autodesk computers. You can find editing on pages ranging from the Roman Empire page (see the edit) to the Pretty Ricky, a R&B group (see the edit).

Edits from SolidWorks' computers are slightly less interesting. Someone edited the Autodesk products pages a few times, typically trimming the more explicit marketing statements (by the way, mostly posted from Autodesk computers). Here's one example where the sentence “Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has quickly become the number one mid-market modeler” later became “Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has been bundled with AutoCAD to increase usage”. The page was edited from IP 12.159.140.125, a computer on SolidWorks domain.

Another interesting example is from July 15, 2006, when someone from a SolidWorks' computer, this time from IP 12.145.143.98, edited the SolidWorks' page and added this candidly promotional sentence: "Click here to learn more about COSMOSFloWorks" (see edit).

The last pearl I found using Wikipedia Scanner is from Adobe (see all edits): on July 22, 2005 someone from an Adobe computer, IP 192.150.10.200, changed the Carly Fiorina page on Wikipedia, calling the then HP CEO, “Bitchy Fiorina” (see edit).

Franco Folini

An Interview with Jimmy Bergmark, AutoCAD Guru

Jimmy Bergmark is the owner and principal of JTB World, a Swedish consulting company specializing in AutoCAD programming and customization. Jimmy is well known in the AutoCAD community because of his constant presence and highly qualified advice in several discussion forums and also because of his popular technical blog. Jimmy has been working with AutoCAD since 1989 and is one of the most qualified persons to discuss the evolution of AutoCAD as a platform to support custom applications. I asked him for an interview and Jimmy gladly accepted.

Jimmy, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

a lot of what I do is around AutoCAD as well as other products from Autodesk

I graduated as an Electronic Engineer with focus on electronics and computer science in 1989. Programming was something I started with using a Sinclair ZX81 in the early 80-ies and programming is what I still do. During the time that has passed I have also worked as Building Engineer and CAD Manager. For 9 years I was at an EPC (Engineering, procurement, and construction) company, Pharmadule Emtunga. On my free time I did run JTB World as a side business for several years and a year ago I and my wife decided to run JTB World at full time. My work now is software development and consulting. Since I and my wife do everything from development to sales it can be called a Micro-ISV (independent software vendor) company.
A lot of what I do is around AutoCAD as well as other products from Autodesk like AutoCAD Architecture but it’s not limited to that. Other types of applications I develop are for example an application that centralizes company’s email signatures so they all look the same and JTB FlexReport for network license reports. In essence, when someone or a company comes with a problem/wish/request I do what I can to help to solve that. Sometimes I help with work procedures like how to use existing software’s most effective or it can be software development or integration using languages like AutoLISP, VBA, VB.NET or whatever suits the job best.

What are the most recurring problems you have to solve when CAD end users ask for your help?

I answer very basic questions or it can be more tricky questions that no one else have been able to answer

I get questions by e-mail and I try to visit discussion groups from time to time and sometimes I answer very basic questions or it can be more tricky questions that no one else have been able to answer. CAD end users are often in a quite complex software world and if they don’t have a CAD Manager to go to or someone else to help them they are free to contact me. Sometimes I answer for free and if they want to have me as a resource for more help it is for a fee.
I know from experience that users can sometimes sit for hours with a problem and often I know the answer or can quickly find it and they can focus on their work as drafters or engineers. I would say that a lot of things are the same today compared to when I worked for a company as CAD Manager. Now I have somewhat more freedom though both when it comes to working hours and what type of works I select to do.

You have been working with AutoCAD for many years. Did AutoCAD evolve in the way you expected?

if AutoCAD hadn’t evolving in this good way I don’t think I still used it as much as I do

I have used AutoCAD since 1989 and almost used it continually since then. If AutoCAD hadn’t evolving in this good way I don’t think I still used it as much as I do. I must say that still I really like to work with AutoCAD a lot. In some ways I must say that not much have changed. Already back then AutoLISP was available as a programming language for AutoCAD and we did a lot of work in 3D with building information attached to the objects. Of course a lot has changed both with AutoCAD and Windows platforms.
Something that never seems to improve its performance for the user, at least it feels like that. In the early years there where things like you had to try to avoid to regenerate a drawing and used every trick to work around that as well as memory limitations. But even today there are sometimes problems with the command line not being responsive when characters entered comes in wrong order, when CUI (command user interface) was release most everyone complained on performance.
When I worked as CAD Manager I often run into the need for handling larger 3D models better. We used NavisWorks for navigation within the models and wished that the same good performance was in AutoCAD. Hopefully Autodesk will make use of the technology that NavisWorks has after their acquisition of that company. Most AutoCAD releases have had something for someone but you always expect more to be both fixed and added to each release.

Is there any feature that you really believe is missing from AutoCAD?

it should be possible to dynamically clip a 3D model (with support for all object types) in all directions so you easily can limit what you want to work with

It should be possible to dynamically clip a 3D model (with support for all object types) in all directions so you easily can limit what you want to work with. Along the same line it should be possible to show and hide on object (also when nested in xrefs or blocks) as well as easily set transparency. And when transparency is used you should be able to snap to these objects or not. AutoCAD should also support multiple users to work in the same model file. Even if you can use xrefs it’s not that dynamic workflow as one could wish. Something like a VISRETAIN=2 would be needed to be able to handle nested xrefs in several levels. Another thing is functions like the old Actrix had so you could easily connect things to each other. This would be a great addition to dynamic blocks for example, not to forget 3D support for dynamic blocks. And this list can go on with hundreds of other things.

The AutoCAD world seems to support legions of utilities, lists of tricks, and tips. Do you attribute this to the flexibility of the software or to its intrinsic complexity?

with these (AutoCAD APIs) you can do almost anything

AutoCAD has very mature and flexible APIs. I mostly use AutoLISP, VBA or VB.NET.  With these and others you can do almost anything and therefore there are so many utilities and 3rd party applications. I like this flexibility because if AutoCAD should include everything that everyone wished for it would be a monster. One great proof on how good AutoCAD is as platform is to look at all the verticals Autodesk themselves has that are based on AutoCAD. AutoCAD is really complex as it is and I appreciate that it’s not an easy task to decide what should be included in a new version or not.

You have a popular blog full of great information for all AutoCAD users and developers. How has your experience as a blogger been?

I often find myself returning to my blog to find things

I think it has been great. Several times I have written articles for CAD Magazines and it always feels like you need to get it so perfected. With the blog it is not that kind of pressure. I can use it as my personal scratch book. I often find myself returning to my blog to find things. Still the blog seems to fill a need among others in the online community and that feels good. I have found that I spend somewhat less time in the newsgroups since I started blogging. Instead I try to spend time to make blog posts that not only are links to other blogs (sometimes I do that too). I try to either add something to a discussion, share a solution to a question I got per email or seen in a newsgroup, writing something really unique or in depth about a topic.

If, for example, you have an end user requiring a special feature for AutoCAD, when would you recommend developing an in house solution, and when to go for an external tool?

if what you want to do is involving integration of several systems it might be that you have the best background for the job

It could be either way. One thing I often recommend is to sign up at myfeedback.autodesk.com because that way you can actually be involved in what should be added to future versions of AutoCAD as well as come with suggestions on proposed new features.
If you don’t want to let Autodesk do the work and you have the knowledge and time to do the work in house it can be a good way to go. Consider if your in house resources have spare time between other projects. That might be a good opportunity to do it even though it might cost more than going for an external tool it is a great opportunity to increase the in house knowledge. Think about if what you are about to do can be done with the programming language and API you know or not. Maybe you know AutoLISP very well but for this specific feature managed .NET might be the best choice and instead of learning it this time it can be better to outsource it. I’ve done in house development so many times myself, sometimes just for the fun of it and sometimes because of the complexity. If what you want to do is involving integration of several systems it might be that you have the best background for the job.
But you really need to calculate the time and cost. Make a ROI calculation. It could be that if you don’t do development work full time it might be much cheaper to let a consultant do it or find an existing tool. Sometimes what you, your manager or users wants is too much. If you let the ideas flow too freely you almost every time will end up having to do a unique solution and that might not be the best thing. Try to use your existing tools as much as possible out-of-the-box. If you for example have AutoCAD Architecture consider alternatives like Revit instead of trying to build a new Revit upon AutoCAD Architecture. Try to keep it simple but remember too that a lot can be automated that you might not even think about. Don’t hesitate to send me the requirement, idea or the question and I will try to guide you, give you a quote and help you out.

I would like to thank Jimmy Bergmark for this interview. If you have any questions for Jimmy or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Mary Hope McQuiston, Head of Autodesk Extended Design Group

Mary Hope McQuiston is the head of the Extended Design Group of Autodesk, the group in charge of all DWF products including Design Review, Freewheel, and the DWF Toolkit.
The CAD visualization market is currently at the center of a battle for the establishment of a standard file format for collaboration and visualization of CAD data. The two major contenders are Adobe PDF 3D (Portable Document Format) and Autodesk DWF (Design Web Format). Adobe is trying to attract users leveraging its brand name and the popularity of the PDF file format, while Autodesk is betting on the huge installed base of its products and giving away viewers and SDK for free. Having recently interviewed Doug Halliday of Adobe I thought it would be interesting to have an opinion from the other side of the trench, the Autodesk side. I asked Mary Hope for an interview and she accepted.

Mary Hope, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your professional activities?

our products enable non-CAD users to better collaborate with the architects, designers and engineers

I oversee the extended design business here at Autodesk, which day to day involves driving product management, marketing and business development. The group develops solutions and underlying technology to simplify collaboration between core Autodesk design users and their extended project teams. Essentially our products enable non-CAD users to better collaborate with the architects, designers and engineers using Autodesk’s design applications. In addition, we focus on helping non-CAD users access and re-use the 2D and model-based or 3D graphic information originally authored in the CAD applications in their “downstream” systems and applications.
Our product portfolio includes Autodesk Design Review, Autodesk Freewheel and the DWF Toolkit. These products also double as components of Autodesk’s collaborative platform and are utilized in Autodesk customer workflow solutions like FM Desktop, Productstream, Buzzsaw, Vault and Impression and in hundreds of third party solutions as well.
As far as me personally I’ve been with Autodesk a combined eight years, from 1994-1999 and again since November 2004. Prior to Autodesk I ran the health sciences division of a CD-ROM publishing company and in between stints at Autodesk spent five years in executive roles at Verticalnet, a builder and operator of 56 vertical marketplaces, and at Neoforma, a developer of ASP based supply chain management software for hospitals.

DWF and PDF are each competing to establish itself as the reference file format for data visualization and collaboration. How would you describe the differences between the two?

"with a PDF or GIF it’s like you’re getting a brochure of the design. DWF, on the other hand, is the design" (DWF user)

One customer I just spoke with sums it up pretty well, he told me - “With a PDF or GIF it’s like you’re getting a brochure of the design. DWF, on the other hand, is the design.”
Autodesk DWF technology and Adobe PDF have similarities: Both are built around self-contained files that support multiple pages, printing, and password protection. The biggest difference is that DWFs have always been intended for handling CAD data and project/product workflows. The entire concept of the DWF file was created and developed solely with CAD data and users in mind – hence a DWF is the model. PDFs, on the other hand, were first designed for use as a conduit for text and graphics, and they are just now entering the CAD space.

The full sharing of CAD data outside the design department has been the goal of the developers of CAD viewers and collaboration tools for many years. Despite all the effort and investments, this goal has yet to be reached. What are the major obstacles in your opinion?

I believe lack of applications beyond basic viewing and printing has prevented full adoption of digital workflows

Status quo, or inertia, is a big barrier. We believe making it as easy as possible to share design data—and integrating design-sharing capabilities directly into our design software—is helping. This is why we built DWF publishing into every Autodesk application and why we make it easy to capture data from non-Autodesk applications via our free DWF writer and plug-ins.
Incomplete data has been another obstacle. Historically the data shared outside the CAD department has been limited to “the picture” of the design, rather than the rich data within it. This is why we architected DWF to support the complete data. We are seeing that organizations who create and share rich data with their extended teams – including 2D drawings, 3D models and non graphical data like building properties, model animations and bill of materials – are moving to a digital review process and re-using this data for other needs outside the CAD department. For example, we have customers who have been able to adopt a digital manufacturing process with the combination of Inventor and Design Review. The factory floor personnel can view animations and take measurements of the 3D models published from Inventor, this alone eliminates downtime.
The process has been viewed as one way and that has likely been an impediment. Our customers have presented a real need and value in having two way communication between the CAD user and their extended teams which is why we’ve built our platform with “round tripping” in mind. With Autodesk solutions CAD users can share rich data with team members - be they assemblers on the factory floor, building contractors or utility service engineers - who can then review, mark up and send back their comments to the original author who can, from within their design application, view, track and integrate these comments. There are huge productivity gains for everyone when the communication is two way.
Finally, I believe lack of applications beyond basic viewing and printing has prevented full adoption of digital workflows. This is why we make our DWF Toolkit, including the spec and source code, available free from our website. We want to encourage and enable the development of purpose built applications beyond basic viewing and printing.

Recently Autodesk decided to offer Design Review for free. What is the strategy behind this decision?

Our strategy of offering Design Review as a free download was primarily driven by customer demand. In particular our manufacturing customers told us that moving to free would help them get some of their key stakeholders – such as suppliers – to adopt digital review processes.
By offering everyone free publishing from our design applications and free review and markup tools with Autodesk Design Review, we are able to addresses these requests.

How have the DWF technologies and tools been received outside of the Autodesk users’ community so far?

DWF is received really well outside of what we’d consider the traditional community of Autodesk software users. We see this directly in the number of downloads of Design Review and the DWF Toolkit but also indirectly with the hundreds of partners worldwide who are building tools and applications based on our technology. Last year, for example, we worked with both Microsoft and Google to develop the ability search, index and return DWF files posted on the web. Actions like this really help us meet our objective of democratizing CAD data well beyond our traditional user community.

Autodesk recently joined other tech companies such as Google and Adobe in opening its Labs up to the end users. How are you incorporating all the feedback you receive into the development process?

Autodesk Labs expose end users to a collection of technologies that may or may not be developed into products

Yes, we recently launched Autodesk Labs (labs.autodesk.com) that exposes end users to a collection of technologies that may or may not be developed into Autodesk products. Autodesk Labs receives direct feedback from its community of users through e-mail and on discussion boards. Specific feature requests are sent to the product manager responsible for the application. These requests are then evaluated, and prioritized on the product roadmap.
Autodesk Freewheel, our zero client viewer, for instance, was originally just available via Labs. People liked it so much they wanted to use it in their production processes. So we created a production version of the service. Further feedback noted that users were eager to publish to Freewheel directly from Autodesk design applications. We responded by releasing plug-ins for AutoCAD, Revit and Inventor.

What is or could be the role of a viewing technology such as DWF in a PDM or PLM system for a large corporation?

we provide the building blocks for enterprises to visualize and correlate CAD data with backend PLM and PDM systems

With the flexibility of our Viewer APIs and our Free DWF Toolkit we provide the building blocks for enterprises to visualize and correlate CAD data with backend PLM and PDM systems.
Today Design Review automatically correlates the information published in a DWF so for instance when you click on a BOM item or component assembly in DWF you also see the related 3D part(s) highlighted and visually correlated. The same works in 2D.
Leveraging CAD data either inside a DWF or connecting from external back end systems is a big advantage of our solution. In fact, DWF essentially provides a “container” and a format for connecting 2D or 3D CAD graphics with the CAD attributes and data. We also realize much of the CAD information and attributes can be outside the CAD system, so we provide conventions to allow those systems to easily leverage, enrich, correlate and work with the CAD graphics and data already published to DWF.

I would like to thank Mary Hope McQuiston for taking the time to do this interview. If you have any questions for Mary or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

Who is Using Wikipedia to Promote Autodesk Inventor?

A few days ago while browsing Wikipedia searching for information I landed on the Autodesk Inventor page.

not exactly an encyclopedic and objective style

Going through the text I was surprised when I found a series of statements that looked as though they have been written by a marketing department. I don't think people at Autodesk (ADSK) are approaching Wikipedia the way Microsoft did (paying a blogger to edit a page). An Inventor fan must have done the editing. When I discovered the page, there were a few statements like:

… Inventor is based on newer, more advanced parametric modeling techniques... Inventor takes these concepts to the next level …

Well, not exactly an encyclopedic and objective style, I would say. And again:

Generally considered a latecomer to the market, Inventor has been developed using a newer technology-base to allow for unique innovations.

What is acceptable for a product brochure is not obviously good for an encyclopedia.

After the discovery, as a Wikipedia member, I cleaned up the page and removed the boldest marketing statements. Thanks to the Wikipedia revision history system, you still can see the original version of the page.

Also, using information from Wikipedia I was able to trace back to the anonymous author of the marketing statements. On February 16, 2007 the mysterious author edited the Inventor page from a computer in Brunswick or Cleveland, OH. Interestingly enough, this is the only contribution of that user to Wikipedia.

Franco Folini