AUGI BOD Nominations Submittal

The AUGI (Autodesk User Group International) BOD (Board of Directors) Nominations submittal is open and ready. Nominations for the BOD are open until May 24th, 2009. There are certain criteria that one must meet in order to be considered for one of these postions. Here is a link to AUGI's website page that sdescribes what is involved and that describes the BOD.

If yo uthink yo uhave what it takes and you want to make a difference through AUGI, visit the page and see if you qualify. Voting will be held soon. Voting starts June 29th and runs through July 12th.

Autodesk Wants to Know if You Want Transparent Objects in AutoCAD

It seems that the good people in the AutoCAD Product Design and Usability Group want to know if you are interested in having the ability to make objects transparent in AutoCAD. I'm glad they asked because I would love that. In fact I was trying to that the other day, and today. Seems like I am trying to do that more and more now. Please Autodesk, put this in. But do it right, please.

They are giving us the chance to tell them how we would like to handle our transparencies. They have produced a fairly extensive survey (took me about 5 to 10 minutes to complete) that you can fill out. It's a good survey format, easy to use and there are plenty of comment boxes where you can further explain your desires. They want to know how you would use it so they can put the proper tools into the next version of AutoCAD!

Follow this link to get to the survey: “Transparency in AutoCAD” Survey

The Survey will be active: May 6-15, 2009.

Check it out and voice your professional opinion on the matter.

AutoCAD 2010 - 3D Free Form Modeling Resource

AutoCAD 2010 has really amped up AutoCAD's 3D modeling abilities. There are several new gizmos, tools, and abilities. You can create meshes, creases, and well so much more.

With all of the new features it may be difficult to get a hold on them. Well there is a new blog from Autodesk. It is called "What a Mesh." What a Mesh is managed by Guillermo Melantoni, an AutoCAD Project Manager. His work with AutoCAD mainly focuses on the 3D aspects, and he is an architect. His blog focuses on using the 3D tools in AutoCAD, and he is quite good at it. The image of the towers on the AutoCAD 2010 box was made in AutoCAD (bet you didn't think AutoCAD could do that did ya?) by Guillermo.

Check out his blog, see what AutoCAD 2010 can offer. Oh, if you'd rather, What a Mesh has a Spanish version too!

Autodesk University Class Voting Begins!

It’s that time of year again; time to cast your votes for the classes that will be made available for this year’s Autodesk University in December. Follow this link and login to cast your votes. The voting system seems a little awkward to me this year, but so what right?

Once you log in, use the filters to find the types of classes you want to take. Click the link given to each class. Scroll down to the bottom of that page and click the SUBMIT button. As far as I can tell this will cast your vote for the class.

Voting ends at midnight, May 8^th PDT.

There are four classes in particular that I think you will enjoy.

Create, Implement, and Maintain a CAD Standards Manual

Applying Parametric/Geometric Constraints in Dynamic Blocks with AutoCAD 2010

Applying AutoCAD 2010 Parametrics in Daily Designs

Two-Handed CAD: Do less work to get more finished.

All four classes were proposed by ME! Ok, so I am a little bit biased, but that’s ok. If you don’t want to vote for them that’s ok. It will let me know that you are not interested in this type of class. I would hope that you will be able to know what the class is about by its title. The CAD Manual class will discuss reasons to create a CAD Manual, methods of creating it, implementation, and maintenance. I don’t care about text formatting, or anything like that, just the reasons behind it. Why do you need a standards manual? How do you make it? When to make it? How to make sure people are following, and so on.

I proposed two different classes in the new Parametric Constraints introduced to AutoCAD 2010. One deals with using them in a design drawing, while the other focuses on using them in Dynamic Blocks. I feel that these are two different subjects because you apply the constraints differently in either use. Blocks are a finite system and it is much easier to apply constraints. Design drawings are much more complex so it is more difficult to apply them. There are methods that we can use with these new tools that will make using them much easier, especially for those that use our files after we’ve constrained them.

And my favorite class proposal, “Two-Handed CAD: Do less work to get more finished.” This title might not be as obvious as the others, so I will explain. Two-Handed CAD is a topic that I have discussed here on CAD-a-Blog several times (check out my How to be more Efficient in AutoCAD Series). It is a method of using AutoCAD whose purpose is to increase efficiency. So this is an efficiency class. The Two-Handed CAD method has the users take advantage of using both hands to draw. One uses the keyboard while the other uses the mouse. It focuses on mouse and keyboard input, not icons or menus (with exception of course.) The theory proposes that doing less work will increase drawing speed. For example; It is quicker to input keyboard commands while moving the mouse rather than moving the mouse back and forth across the screen to initiate commands, then draw. There’s more to it than just keyboard and mouse input. This class will look at using tool pallets, the Ribbon, fields, sheet sets, and other tools in AutoCAD design to automatically complete tasks for you. If the computer does the work for you, you will have less work to do, therefore you will get done quicker!

Let’s say there are 10 tasks to do in revising a drawing and that each task takes about the same amount of time to do. If I can get the computer to do 5 of those for me, then I will get the work done in half of the time. If it takes me 10 minutes for each task, that’s 100 minutes of work. Not if AutoCAD does it for me. Now it’s 50 minutes of work. This may be an over simplification of the idea, but I want it to be clear. Draw with both hands and automate functions.

Regardless of what you are looking for, go and vote for your classes. It is but yet another way Autodesk can hear from you. Tell them the types of things you want to learn about.