NOVEDGE blog

"Light Plot Deconstructed": A New Book for VectorWorks SpotLight Users

Just two days ago Vectorworks Press (Nemetschek NA) announced the publication of "Light Plot Deconstructed", a new book written by Greg Hillmar, an accomplished scenic and lighting designer based in Richmond, VA.

"Light Plot Deconstructed" is a great companion guide for anyone seeking to learn the fundamentals of lighting design

Over his more than 15 years of experience using Vectorworks, Greg has developed proven methods for drafting light plots. His successful techniques for designing with Vectorworks have been exhibited many times over the years, whether it was to fellow colleagues at tradeshows or in the classroom where he has taught scenic and lighting design to many aspiring professionals at Randolph-Macon College. Light Plot Deconstructed is a great companion guide for anyone seeking to learn the fundamentals of lighting design with Vectorworks SpotLight.

The book is written in a conversational style, taking the reader through the process of creating a light plot using Vectorworks SpotLight. If you are interested in learning more about the book you can download a PDF file with the Table of Contents and a Sample Chapter. To learn more about Greg Hillmar you can visit his website or follow him on Twitter at @ghillmar.

Franco Folini

UPDATE: an interesting review of Greg Hillmar's book has been published on the iSquint blog on June 18, 2009.

The Story Behind the Rhino3D Book

Since March 2009, Novedge has been giving away a free copy of the book Working with Rhinoceros 4.0 for every purchase of a new license of Rhino 4.0. The book is a beginner's user guide for learning Rhino 4.0 written by the Dutch designer Michiel van der Kley (website). Since I am Dutch myself, I was interested in learning more about Mr. Van Der Kley, so I asked him if he could write an article about his work and his new book. From the start the book has been very successful and we thought we'd share Michiel's story with its audience.

Mirjam Hart

I started as what was then called, a "self-producing designer" in the eighties of the last century, without any real computer skills. At that time it came down to making proper drawings of my designs, trying to find solutions for construction, and then building the thing myself. After a few years I was introduced by a colleague into the 3D world so to speak, with a DOS version of a program called 3dstudio4. I could not believe my eyes. Things that took me days were done in an hour. I desperately wanted to have the same skills, so I worked with that program, and bought almost every book there was to make sure I got to the bottom of the program. In the beginning I didn’t understand much of it, but in a year from that day I was able to produce pretty pictures and designs with the computer. Most of my colleagues thought I was going mad, not touching wood, hammering nails or whatever it was I did first.

the [3D] software helped me to broaden my world

The software helped me to broaden my world, it made me take the first steps into the world of producers and into the high-end design market.

There was one thing though. I was not able to draw exactly what I wanted for two reasons:

1. My design language tended more and more towards an organic style and it seemed the program I had was not suitable for that kind of job.
2. In order to get things done through the program, it felt as if you had to get into the head of the engineers and programmers that made the program, or else you would fail, and their logic steps weren’t the same as mine.

I tried to find another program that would fit my needs better, and to make a long story short, Rhino was the absolute winner.

I was so happy once I found out that the program actually worked the way I thought a program should have to work. To give a simple example: draw two funny shaped lines and let the program fill the space in between with a surface. Most Rhino users will think that that is not at all special, but believe me, exactly this kind of simplicity is lacking in most other programs I have tried.

After my great enthusiasm, I was puzzled by the fact that most of my colleagues were heavily seduced by or in the 3ds Max community, thinking that Rhino was just another attempt to yet another 3D program that could not come near this all-in-one program.

Rhino was the definite knock-out for product design and sculpting

For some parts of the industry, 3ds Max is maybe the best, I don’t know. And it is not that I think it’s a bad program (far from it) but Rhino was the definite knock-out for product design and sculpting in my belief, so I thought I had to try and convince all my colleagues.

In the end, after serious debate with other designers and sculptures that got the light, I decided to write a book, a kind of user guide. I live in Holland, where not everyone reads English and there was no Dutch book available then.

I started to write 6 chapters in Dutch, then stopped because it is quite a thing to do. After three years I picked it up again, rewriting the first 6 chapters and finishing the rest. I published the book myself. With the help of the McNeel community it drew a lot of attention, and the people from McNeel encouraged me to make an English version of the book as well. So I did.

That’s the book you can buy now.

I still use Rhino in almost every perspective

I still use Rhino in almost every perspective. As a quick sketchbook to get a grip on my preliminary ideas, to make the most convincing renderings, and to work things out, so they can be produced by the furniture industry. My work now is being produced by several leading furniture companies from Holland and abroad, amongst them Artifort, Arco, and even in my latest experience, a series of lights for Unseen Products. The lights are being produced in Nepal with a local paper, called Lokta paper. The paper is glued together with a special kind of glue in Nepal, placed in molds that are drawn and constructed in Rhino, CNC-milled in Holland, and shipped to Nepal. A real east-meets-west experience.

Michiel van der Kley

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

An Interview with Andrew Keen, Author of "The Cult of the Amateur"

Andrew Keen (blog) is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a writer. When his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, hit the bookstores a few weeks ago, it immediately attracted critics' attention. The book questions the core values of the Web 2.0 revolution, exposing its economic, ethical, and social dangers. As with every revolution, even the Web 2.0 has zealots who didn't miss the opportunity to discredit Andrew Keen and dismiss his book as badly researched. While I don't fully agree with Andrew, I strongly believe in the need for more provocative opinions like his in order to better understand all the implications of the changes created by the Internet.
The same day I finished reading the book I asked Andrew for an interview and a couple of days later we sat in a bakery in Berkeley drinking coffee and discussing the book. Here is a transcription with only marginal editing of the original live interview.

WIN A SIGNED COPY OF THE BOOK: We are offering three signed copies of "The Cult of the Amateur" to the three most interesting comments posted in the next two weeks. I and Andrew will select the winners. After reading the interview please leave a comment with your sincere opinion and don't forget to provide an authentic e-mail where we can reach you in case you have been selected.

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

I'm a Silicon Valley old-timer, a veteran of the Internet business. I founded AudioCafe in the mid-1990s. I've produced shows about the future of technology, I've worked in senior positions in a number of different startups as a sales and marketing executive -- so my background is as an Internet entrepreneur and an executive.

"The Cult of the Amateur" presents a different, less optimistic, opinion about the impact of the Internet on our society and economy. How has it been received so far?

I would agree that (my book) is not particularly fair; I think it's relatively accurate

It's been received very differently by different people. Most of the people in the Web 2.0 community don't think the book is fair or accurate. I would agree that it's not particularly fair; I think it is relatively accurate. They've tried to nitpick the book and suggest that some of my facts are wrong. All of my facts were taken from mainstream media, from newspaper articles so there's not that much wrong in the book.  It's a polemic, so I make arguments. Sometimes my arguments are less compelling than others, but I try to make a case and not every argument is perfect. The book has been well-received in the reviewing community. The New York Times, for example, gave an extremely good review. A.N. Wilson in the Daily Mail in London, very prominent biographer and writer, thought it was it an outstanding book. A number of reviewers really like it and some reviewers don't, of course. I've got really a lot of positive responses back from many readers. Although there are some technologists who are happy with what I've written, many positive reviews are from teachers, academics, librarians, people on the front lines of this new culture war, who understand what I'm saying, who respect the fact that the kids today are sort of media illiterate -- they have no idea what they're reading -- who are troubled by the disappearance of newspapers and who see in so-called community sites like MySpace and YouTube just a lot intellectual piracy and moral corruption. I'm particularly encouraged by the fact that people who really are on the front-lines of these new culture wars are sympathetic to what I'm saying. They say, "Yeah, you're right, this is something that is going around and we need to do something about it."

While a few great journalists are working hard to investigate and understand the world around us, many others sit at their desks rewriting press releases, or reformatting press agencies dispatches. Aren’t blogs and bloggers a better alternative?

the blogosphere doesn't really represent a very coherent business model; the vast majority of bloggers are not making money

Well I think the biggest weakness in my book is that it idealizes mainstream media and I acknowledge the fact that it's not as ideal as I'd like it to be. I have a very idealized vision of how a good journalist works, and I think about John F. Burns at The New York Times or Robert Fisk at The Independent, and so many other journalists who really are my heroes as a young man, and in fact in some ways I wish I'd been a journalist myself. So you are right, there are a lot of lazy journalists and I think it's a good thing that the Internet is giving these journalists a kick in their pants. Some of them are losing their jobs -- I don't applaud that, I don't think it's good when anyone loses their job, but perhaps there was a lot of fat in traditional media that need to be cut away. I hope that the muscle doesn't get cut away as well. That's the danger. In terms of the blogosphere, of course, there are some very very good bloggers and some very smart bloggers, although out of 17 million you'd hope there would be because if there weren't I think it would lead to very dire predictions about the human race. The problem with the blogosphere for the most part is that they are dependent on the information of mainstream journalists. So if you do away with newspapers then what are the bloggers going to have to write about?  I'm all in favor of bloggers -- the quality bloggers -- becoming professionals, being paid, of spending their days writing about the world, and researching the world. The problem is the blogosphere doesn't really represent a very coherent business model so the vast majority of bloggers are not making money. That's why I applaud something like the Huffington Post which is making an attempt to actually pay the best bloggers for their work. So I'm all in favor of professionalizing the blogosphere, I'm just not that optimistic that it can be done.  It certainly needs more of an effort by everyone, mainstream journalists and people on the Internet.

One of the main problems of the Internet is to extract “good” and “relevant” content from a sea of “garbage” or unrelated content. You claim that popular vote (as in Wikipedia, Digg, and ReddIt) is not a good solution to this problem. What’s your opinion about the “genetic” approach, such as the one used by Pandora?

the crowd, to me, is not intelligent. The crowd is an abstraction, it's meaningless

I think that an interesting, tough question. I think that perhaps another company that you can include with the Pandora category is Mahalo. My understanding of Pandora is that they're using human expertise in musical form and identity to help people figure out their taste. And I'm more in favor of that. And I can't comment on the Pandora algorithm. I've used the Pandora system, I haven't been particularly impressed, but I like the principle of having a human element in the algorithm. That's why I like what McCabe Calacanis (blog) is doing with Mahalo. I think that's a good thing. I don't trust pure artificial intelligence algorithms, Google for me is problematic, and the other wisdom-of-crowd. Google is essentially a wisdom-of-crowd advocation in the same way as ReddIt and Digg.  So, I prefer the Pandora and Mahalo approach, which I think is more of a compromise and I think that may indeed be the future.  I'm not sure if Pandora will work, but certainly there has to be a human element; there has to be an editorial authoritative element. What I like about Pandora is that they get musical experts in the same way as Mahalo uses experts in search to enter intelligence into their website, which is a good thing.  But the crowd, to me, is not intelligent. The crowd is an abstraction, it's meaningless, and often just gets hijacked by activists who are hiding behind anonymity.

Who will benefit from a future without privacy where all the content is generated by amateurs? What kind of people will emerge as leaders in such a society?

(Google, YouTube, etc.) are walking a very narrow line between a sort of theft and a legitimate appropriation in order to monetize their wisdom of the crowd products

That's a really interesting and important question. I mean clearly in business terms the people that benefit are the Eric Schmidt(s) and the Steve Chen(s) and Chad Hurley(s) of the world. I wouldn't say they're fraudulent companies, because they're smart businesses, but they're companies that are decimating the traditional content businesses because they're essentially, if not stealing the content, walking a very narrow line between sort of theft and legitimate appropriation in order to monetize their wisdom-of-the-crowd product and undermine traditional business models. So in business terms, these are the people who benefit. I think they're smart guys, you know I respect the business wisdom of Eric Schmidt. What I don't respect is his dishonesty when it comes to social and cultural issues. When you hear Schmidt talk it's as if Google is our friend, Google wants to reform the world, bring wisdom to the masses -- he couldn't give a damn. He's become an immensely rich man, unimaginably rich and I don't see him doing much to improve the lives of people in Africa or anything like that, it's just a sort of doublespeak. Even more worryingly than that, the kind of people who'll benefit are the self-promoters.  This is a media which is designed for experts in self-promotion. Now Larry Lessing loves me and thinks that everything I say is wrong, and I don't like him any more than he likes me. But he says that I'm a brilliant self-promoter, which is true, which is why this book has had a lot of attention, because I'm good at that, I understand the way that works. I'm good at giving interviews. I'm not a shy sort of person. The problem though in this world is: do you really want a culture with people like myself -- big mouths -- people who are happy, experts in talking, experts in giving messages.  It's a new kind of oligarchy of spinmeisters of one kind or another. And people of real talent are going to get lost because they're not good at self-promoting. When you do away with the ecosystem, when you do away the infrastructure, when the writers have to promote themselves, when the musicians have to promote themselves, we're not going to have any more Bob Dylan(s) or Bruce Springsteen(s). We're going to have Madonna(s). We're going to have Paris Hilton(s), just good at self-promotional stunts, going out without knickers or saying stupid things to people to get their attention. Christopher Hitchens is a great guy, he'll prosper in this world. It would be great if all talented writers were as good as Christopher Hitchens at self-promotion, but they're not. That really concerns me.

If your worst prediction were to come true, who do we have to blame? The technologists who built the tools to “popularize” the creation of content or our leaders for not managing the evolution?

we're responsible for cleaning this thing up and for establishing a social contract

I would say none of those. I'd say we'd have to blame ourselves. We have to take responsibility for this. We look at the Internet web 2.0, it's a mirror, and we’re looking at ourselves. It's all too easy to blame other people. It's all too easy, and I blame myself, Eric Schmidt, it's all too easy to blame the politicians who are certainly not to blame - they're the victims if anything. It’s all too easy blaming the leaders of the mass media who again are the victims. I think we all have the responsibility. We are the ones who determine are we going to pay for our content or are we going to steal our content. Are we going to educate our kids about the value of Wikipedia? Are we going to let them on MySpace? Are we going to stop buying newspapers? Are we going to respect mainstream media or continue to whine and moan about their corruption? So ultimately we're the ones who determine this. There's nothing inevitable about technology. We shape it, we create it, it has no autonomy, no independence aside from ourselves. If there's one message in this book: we're responsible for this! If things go really bad, we collectively are to blame. And we're responsible for cleaning this thing up, for establishing a social contract, we're responsible for forcing people above all not to use this new media as a sort of Hobbesian state of nature where we insult each other. One thing I think we should collectively fight against, which would overnight clean this thing up, make it a much more attractive environment would be to fight against anonymity. Only if everyone agreed collectively as a kind of social contract to say "Ok, we're all going to go on this media, it's not ideal but one way to improve it is let's all agree not to be anonymous, let's all agree to reveal who we really are." We're not in China, we're not in Iran. No one gets puts in jail for saying unpopular things on the Internet. If people were put in jail, I'd be in jail for the rest of my life. The fact is we should reveal who we are because we behave like human beings rather than like animals. The monkey metaphor was all very well, but we actually do behave a little bit like monkeys, like primates, when we're anonymous. Like when we're in cars and no one knows who we are we stick our fingers up at each other. When we're sitting across a table we're polite. I want the Internet to reflect the best of human nature rather than the worse. At the moment I think it's reflecting more of the bad qualities than the good qualities.

Several people saw in your book an attack to the "freedom" created by the Internet. According to them, the fact that non-democratic countries limit and control the access to the Internet proves the value of the Internet as a tool to promote "freedom" values. What's your opinion on this?

the Internet at the moment is a kind of state of nature, there are very few laws. That's not a good thing in life

Firstly I certainly cherish our open democratic society. When I critique democratization doesn't make me anti-democratic. I'm thrilled to be living in America and not in Iran. I see China and Iran as the other extremes. I think we have to acknowledge that we need to self-police the Internet, that doesn't reduce freedom. We need to think. The best analogy is social contract theories, political writers like Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Internet at the moment is a kind of state of nature, there are very few laws. That's not a good thing in life. Rousseau thought that was a good thing. Rousseau idealizes the state of nature and I see the promoters of Web 2.0 very much in that Rousseau-ian path. I'm much more in the Hobbesian path. I see the state of nature as one being life is nasty, brutish, and short. Lots of people are dying on the Internet, or at least some people are or in cultural terms. I think we need collective social contracts. It doesn't have to be as harsh Hobbes, but we might learn from John Locke or some of the 20th century social contract theorists that we need to group together, make collective laws, and pacts, as a way of improving. That's not limiting our freedom, it actually increases our freedom. I don't think there's much freedom on the Internet. Why is it free when you go on the Internet and say something and everyone swears at you and insults you?  Why is it free when there are none, or very few sites where people really discuss issues in an intelligent and a grown-up way?  That's not free, that's just anarchy. So the real freedom comes out of social contract. Real freedom comes out of civilized people understanding that there are intrinsic problems with a lawless world whether it's in real-life or on the Internet and collectively suggesting to themselves we need to improve. It's Tim O'Reilly's idea of a code of conduct but it needs to be pursued with much more muscularity, much more aggressively, he's a little wimpy, he got to be much more aggressive. I hope this won't come true, but I fear there's going to be some really bad things happen on the Internet which will force us to do that. You know the Kathy Sierra (blog) thing was bad but I think there's going to be some even worse things happening which will force people to actually address this issue and to develop a more aggressive social contract.

I would like to thank Andrew Keen for taking the time to answer my questions. If you have any questions for Andrew or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and win a signed copy of "The Cult of the Amateur".

Franco Folini

An Interview with Scott Sorochak, CEO of BookCrossing

Scott Sorochak is the CEO of BookCrossing, a company and website based on a simple and revolutionary idea about sharing books. BookCrossing was founded in 2001 by Ron Hornbaker, Heather Mehra-Pedersen, and Bruce Pedersen. Since then the community of bookcrossers has gown continuosly. Scott, a bookcrosser under the name of redsoxbookguy and a blogger, recently became the new CEO.

While BookCrossing is not related to the CAD world in any obvious way, I believe that great and innovative ideas -- like this one -- can change the way we look at things, people, and processes around us, inspiring new ideas and pushing further innovation.

Unfortunately I missed the opportunity to meet Scott in person at the last meeting of my BookCrossing group in San Francisco (I couldn't attend the meeting) and therefore asked him to answer a few questions by e-mail. Here is the interview.

Scott, can you tell us a bit about yourself and BookCrossing?

as an avid reader, I was completely awe struck at how this tiny company has gained so much worldwide popularity

I grew up and went to school in Boston but I've been working in Silicon Valley for about 20 years now. I came across BookCrossing after meeting with the founders and working with them to map out the next 3-5 years of the company's growth. As an avid reader, I was completely awe struck at how this tiny company has gained so much worldwide popularity, yet still remained relatively unknown. BookCrossing is simply the act of Reading a book after you've purchased it and rather than toss it on shelf to collect dust somewhere, you Register it on the www.bookcrossing.com website so it gets a unique tracking number and then you Release it. Leave it in a coffee shop, hotel, public transportation, anywhere, for someone else to also enjoy... it's a blend of serendipity, altruism and fanaticism over books all rolled into one.

How do you balance the for-profit motivations of BookCrossing as a company, with the altruistic, sharing attitude of your members?

the core elements of BookCrossing have been free for 6 years now and that will not change, period

That's a great question. The core elements of BookCrossing have been free for 6 years now and that will not change, period. But without question, we are a company that employs staff, has built a global platform to service our nearly 600,000 users in over 130 countries and all that takes money. We have a nominal amount of advertising on the site which we really try hard to tailor to the members and we also have some affiliate relationships with book retailers so that our members can buy the books through our site.  We also did a survey a few months back and one of the questions was whether or not members would be interested in a "premier membership offering" that would be above and beyond the core offering.  Nearly 50% said yes, so we're thinking about how that would play out and what would be included in that offering. Our members have always helped to contribute in one way or another to the financial support of the site through these and other methods and we are grateful for it.

What is the impact of your members’ community on the evolution of BookCrossing?

what is amazing to me is the community "bridge" between online and offline

As I mentioned before, we're now nearly 600,000 members strong in over 130 countries worldwide and have registered over 4,000,000 books in those short 6 years. What is amazing to me and something that cannot be easily replicated anywhere else, is the community "bridge" between online and offline. What I mean by that is the core part of BookCrossing is registering your books, making journal entries on books you've read, tracking their progress as they bounce around the globe from person to person. All that is done online. However, nearly 50% of our members actually get together-locally in their communities weekly or monthly to meet-up in small groups(10-20) and swap books, share stories about the authors and characters, and release books. When you have a product and service so strong that it connects that online and offline community like that, it's irreplaceable... this is only going to grow and get stronger as BookCrossing grows regionally in each country and we expand into countries we're not yet in.

Do you think the BookCrossing idea can be applied to other areas? Are you aware of similar groups or companies?

Sure, why not. But as I sort of implied before, you can't just throw up a website, put together all different types of offline/online marketing programs and say "hey, we've got x thousand members now, we're a success! Because you have to measure it by how active the users are, and most importantly are they coming back to use your product or service. I can't name many companies that are like that in the vertical social networking space.

What are people’s main motivations behind the act of releasing a book “in the wild”?

people just feel good about passing along something they've already paid for, enjoyed and now giving it away for free

I think its a couple things. First, more than likely you've just finished a book and you're dying to tell someone about it, the characters, the author, etc., you want someone else to enjoy that book. What better way than to drop it off in a convenient location on your way to work or at a coffee house, or at a school function. People just feel good about passing along something they've already paid for, enjoyed and now giving it away for free. Another reason is that our system automatically tracks when that book is picked up again and someone makes a journal entry after having found, read the book and reviewed it. No personal identifiable information is shared, but our system ties your screen name to your email address and let's you know when that book is found. I've released books up in Tahoe during last ski season and just now some folks found the books in the lodges. Someone else just emailed me that they dropped a book in a plastic bag off the back of a ship and the book was just journaled after someone found it on a beach... 4 years later... just like a message in a bottle. When you get that email, even if it's 4 years later, you remember that book and how much you enjoyed it and now realize someone else has it. Lastly on this topic, many books travel all over the world as people travel on business, vacations, etc. We have ties into Google maps which allows you to visually track the books caught and released and its amazing to see your book traveling globally... it fascinates people.

What was your first experience as a bookcrosser like?

Amazing. I attended a local BookCrossing "meet-up" or gathering in my local area and I just listened intently on how each person loved this book, the characters, authors... others would chime in and agree/disagree... 3 hours later I left with 6 books, 3 of which were from authors I'd never heard of but sounded so interesting from what the other BookCrossing members had said about them. I was amazed at how much more I was reading and the diverse set of interests I had in the various genres. I suspect most BookCrossers go through that experience.

The Internet is changing the way people read and enjoy books from an individual activity to some sort of collective experience. How is BookCrossing supporting these changes? What are your plans for the future to support this evolution?

(Expanding a little on my answer above to "What is the impact of your members’ community on the evolution of BookCrossing?") We are actively partnering with traditional "brick and mortar" companies that see our vision of sharing books. We've announced partnerships with organizations such as Panera Breads and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, whereby, the BookCrossing community is getting together in those locations to conduct their weekly/monthly meet-ups. The BookCrossers love it because its a nice, comfortable, safe setting for them to exchange books and the companies love it because rather than a customer stopping in for a $5 latte and leaving in 5 minutes, our BookCrossers typically stay upwards of 2+ hours and you can bet they're spending more than $5. These are great partnerships and we're actively engaging others on a global basis.

How is the Bookcrossing idea being re-interpreted in different countries?

We have many support and mirror sites today: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and many others. We try to give folks the ability to localize the sites to provide a regional look and feel, while still maintaining the core parts of the BookCrossing technology. That's worked well so far and we are expanding quickly in other countries with this "cookie cutter" approach.

I would like to thank Scott Sorochak for taking the time to answer my questions from London. A special thanks to Susan Tunis for her superb management and support of the San Francisco BookCrossing group and for helping me to arrange this interview. If you have any questions for Scott or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

P.S. July 6, 2007 -- Thanks to Maracuja, Zazie, and LaVale we have an Italian translation of Scott Sorochak interview. The translation was published on the Italian BookCrossing forum, here.

An Interview with Louis Gary Lamit, Author of the Book "Moving from 2D to 3D CAD for Engineering Design"

Louis Gary Lamit is a CAD professional and teacher with several years of experience behind him. He is the owner of Lamit and Associates and the author of the book Moving from 2D to 3D CAD for Engineering Design recently published by BookSurge. The transition from 2D to 3D has been an hot topic for several years, and is once again back with rich discussions involving almost every single CAD blog. This timely book captures the momentum the transition is gaining. It also provides me with a perfect opportunity to ask Gary for his first hand qualified opinion about this transition, the reasons behind it, and the forces that have been holding it back for so many years. Here is the interview.

Gary, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?
I am currently a full time instructor and CAD department coordinator at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA, where I teach Pro/ENGINEER, Pro/SURFACE, Pro/SHEETMETAL, Pro/NC, Expert Machinist, and Unigraphics NX.
I started in Detroit at the age of 16 in 1966 as a drafter for the automobile industry doing tooling, dies, jigs and fixture layout, and detailing. Subsequently I spent a number of years doing design, numerical control (NC) programming, technical illustration, and doing engineering work in the firearms, aircraft, and piping industries. My education included a BS degree from Western Michigan University, Masters' work at Wayne State University, Michigan State University and University of California at Berkeley and I hold an NC programming certificate from Boeing Aircraft. Since leaving industry, I have taught at all levels from Junior High School to University throughout the USA.
Starting in 1978 my publications include: Industrial Model Building, Piping Drafting and Design, Descriptive Geometry, Pipe Fitting and Piping Handbook, Drafting for Electronics, CADD, Technical Drawing and Design, Principles of Engineering Drawing, Engineering Graphics and Design with Graphical Analysis, Basic Pro/ENGINEER in 20 Lessons, Basic Pro/ENGINEER and PT/Modeler, Pro/ENGINEER 2000i, Pro/E 2000i2, IX Design, Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire, Introduction to Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0, Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0.

3D CAD systems have been around for many years. Why do you believe this is a good moment for a book about the transition from 2D to 3D?

50% of design and documentation is still being done with 2D CAD

There is presently a huge push from AutoDesk Inventor, PTC Pro/ENGINEER, UGS Solid Edge, and CATIA SolidWorks to entice the last 2D users to move to 3D CAD as their primary design tool. A team from PTC told me that 50% of design and documentation is still being done with 2D CAD. I was very surprised since Silicon Valley where I teach has been involved in 3D Design since the early 80's. When I met with four members of SolidWorks last summer I mentioned my project (book) and they flat out stated its 65% still doing 2D CAD and that they were deeply involved in every effort possible to get these companies as users of their version of 3D CAD.
With such a big push from all 3D CAD companies I would suspect that the use of 2D CAD will diminish to about 25% in the next 5 years. But, I was wrong in 1987 so I could be wrong now. I would have never suspected we would be having this discussion 20 years later.

How did your experience as teacher at De Anza College in Cupertino CA influence the content and style of your book?

why change to 3D, how to change to 3D, and what can you realistically expect to encounter in the process

I have a dislike for acronyms and sentences with long words and marketing catch phrases that when paragraphed do not sound like they should be uttered by people in real jobs doing real design work (no offense to marketing departments everywhere), but as drafters, designers, engineers, checkers, project managers, do we really speak like this? I have attempted to keep the book practical and focused on the subject; why change to 3D, how to change to 3D, and what can you realistically expect to encounter in the process.
Since my students are mainly professionals I have tailored my teaching to an educated and experienced individual who needs the mastery of the CAD tool to remain in the workforce. Writing textbooks on engineering subjects has been part of my life for almost 30 years (since 1978). The style of this book is straightforward and meant to engage the CAD or engineering design manager in their own way of seeing the world and what practical considerations they need to investigate and steps they need to implement in order to move their company from 2D CAD to 3D CAD with as little disruption as possible and with the maximum benefit at the end of the transition.

If the transition from 2D to 3D is inevitable, what are the reasons for the huge delay?
I will quote from my book where in 1987 we wrote: €"In the near future, a solid model will form the master representation of a part in contrast to the current practice of using the engineering drawing as the master representation. The main output of the design/drafting office will be a solid model of the part together with all the associated information that is contained on the engineering drawing and the provision of the engineering drawing will be a secondary function. In particular, the drawings, if required, will be generated from the model. The combination of a solid model and the necessary tolerance and associated technical data will be called the product model. Functions downstream of the design office will take the product model as their primary input."CADD: Computer Aided Design and Drafting", by Louis Gary Lamit and Vernon Paige.
A mere 20 years after I wrote this with my coauthor, industry is still engaged in the debate, 2D or 3D, or both. I had spent time employed as a drafter and designer (1966-73), and teaching "drafting" (1973-1984) all "on the board". In 1984 I took a job as the CAD/CAM instructor at De Azna College. I taught traditional drafting and design and descriptive geometry, but my primary class load was teaching ComputerVision. All work was done as 3D wireframe modeling and drawings were derived from the model. I thought I was in heaven, until, we added a new CAD system called AutoCAD in 1987. It was very difficult for me to understand why we would go backwards and do things similar to the drafting board - drawing in 2D, albeit with the aid of a computer.
I think that cost, concern over legacy design data, and transition implementation including training is the greatest influence. But, during the research for this book, there was one quote from a person I interviewed that really struck a chord: We simply could not be in business doing all the things we do if 2D were the only option.

Many believe that one of the major reasons we still use 2D CAD systems is because the current generation of designers have a strong background in 2D. Will the new generation of designers, having grown up with video games and the Internet, make 2D obsolete?

for the thousands of students my program has trained very very few ever want to do 2D design using a 2D CAD system

I suspect 3D games, HDTV, etc. will all have some effect in implementing a 3D world throughout engineering design. But I do not think we have to worry about people being trained to "see" in 3D like we had to train people to see and think in 2D. I have personally taught drafting and engineering graphics in Jr. High, HS, Technical school, Community College, Engineering College, and University. One of the most difficult things was teaching people to break down 3D objects into "6 standard views and an isometric". It is so much easier to teach 3D design using a CAD system. The only reason we have views in 2D is because that with the exception sculpting and physical modeling there was no other method to convey a design.
As the years have rolled by I have seen a definite change in the type of person and their understanding of design. Fewer and fewer individuals have 2D training as their basis of engineering graphics. But, regardless of when you started in engineering design, very few people think or see in 2D. In fact those who do were trained to do so. It did not come naturally. When you think about your car do you see the top, front, and right side? (How about when you picture your mom or dad or significant other- TOP, FRONT, and SIDE view? OK let's not go there.)  But, do you see the whole car- realistically in 3D, pictorially?
For the thousands of students my program has trained very very few ever want to do 2D design using a 2D CAD system. They realize that their career will be stunted if they get into a job that requires little or no 3D CAD and just getting them through the required AutoCAD series at De Anza is like pulling teeth. As a number have said- it's really hard to use 2D CAD! Modeling in 3D is so much easier, as is generating drawings from 3D models. Design and innovation happens in 3D -in your head- not 2D. Hopefully no one is dreaming in 2D except very old drafters (OK so I am old also- but I now only dream in 3D- in color- with shading- and realistic rendering).

Who should read your book: end-users, CAD managers, or executives?
This book is written to assist managers in their decision to go 3D and to guide them through the process. The best approach I have found is to evaluate 3D CAD software in terms of learning curve, legacy data re-use, total cost including software, training and support, and future scalability.
For those in the design industry, eventually your company and design department will be faced with the inevitability of transiting your design tool from a 2D CAD to 3D CAD system, either now or in the near future. Instead of "why change?" there is a more important question; with so many of the competition already using 3D CAD, "can I afford to stay with 2D design?" So the question of changing from your existing 2D CAD design tool to a 3D CAD tool becomes; when to start, not if to change. In the end, the real question is not, why change, but how to change. The challenge is to have the transition from a 2D CAD tool to a 3D CAD tool be as seamless as possible, limiting design down-time, expensive missteps, and internal discord.

How long do you believe it will take before we can consider the transition from 2D to 3D complete?

within five years fewer than 20% of mechanical design would be done using 2D CAD

Though a vast majority of jobs for my students (most are degreed professionals) are in positions using 3D CAD (50% Pro/E and 30% SolidWorks) there is still a need for the use and understanding of 2D CAD (AutoCAD in our case). Many companies still have legacy projects on 2D, and some still use it as their primary design tool. This book is meant to guide and assist individuals and companies in their quest for productivity and competitiveness through the selection and implementation of the appropriate design tool for their needs.
I suspect that within five years fewer than 20% of mechanical design would be done using 2D CAD. But then again I did write-predict in 1987: "In the near future, a solid model will form the master representation of a part in contrast to the current practice of using the engineering drawing as the master representation." Boy was I off by 10-15 years!

I would like to thank Louis Gary Lamit for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Gary or for Novedge, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

P.S. On this topic I would suggest an article I posted on this blog back in December 2006: Why the transition from 2D to 3D is taking forever.