CAD-a-Blog: November 2012

Monday, November 26, 2012

Contest Results - The Winners are...

CAD-a-Blog held it's first ever contest. To enter, readers had to like Infinite Skills on Facebook and either follow CAD-a-Blog on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or sign up for our email alerts. You could have also tweeted or posted on Google+ about the contest with the hash-tag #CADaBlogDVD2013.

Many of you did these things multiple times. In fact we had thousands of entries and picked up many new followers. Thank you. I love you all. Dearly. Here is what the three winners (you are all winners just for reading posts here on this blog or for following us in your social media client of your choice) will receive:

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

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GIS Day

November 14th is GIS Day around the world. GIS Day is an international forum of geographic information systems technology users. This day is set aside each year for those users to get the word out about their industry.

If you work with GIS or in the field in some way you may want to participate in GIS Day (which is today by the way.) Many of us use GIS related information every day and don’t even know it. It’s how we get to work or school. It’s used by Police and paramedics to find you faster. Politicians used it in the recent election. Utility companies, governments, health officials, distributors engineers, environmentalists, television companies, car manufacturers, candy bar makers, UPS, the Post Office, schools, NASA, soccer coaches, boaters, moms and dads all use GIS and the information this field creates, organizes, and provides. Our modern world would not exist without GIS.

Check out eh official GIS Day website and see what you can do to celebrate.

http://www.gisday.com

Make sure to check out the Discover GIS site.
http://www.gisday.com/discover.html

Recently Added or Updated items on the Autodesk Knowledge Base for November 12, 2012

Support Updates
Support-related information recently added or updated on the Autodesk knowledge base.

November 12, 2012

Updated Solutions
How to combine license files for multiple Autodesk products
How to Transfer Stand-Alone Licenses Online
Smoke: Deleting projects without using the application
Who is eligible to join the Autodesk Education Community?
Windows 8 Support for Autodesk products

Updates & Service Packs
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 Product Update 12
Autodesk Fabrication CADmep 2013 Service Pack 2
Autodesk Fabrication CAMduct 2013 Service Pack 2
Autodesk Fabrication ESTmep 2013 Service Pack 2
Autodesk Fabrication FABmep 2013 Service Pack 2
Autodesk Fabrication RemoteEntry 2013 Service Pack 2
Autodesk MASSPROP Hotfix
Inventor Localization Hotfix—Network Sharing Library

Tools
Autodesk 360 Infrastructure Modeler for Web

Monday, November 12, 2012

Win an AutoCAD 2013 Training DVD Bundle!

Who wants to be a winner? There are two way for you to be a winner! One is to buy my AutoCAD 2013 training DVD and skyrocket your skill set above all others! The other way is take part in CAD-a-Blog’s first ever contest and win a copy of my AutoCAD 2013 Training DVD!!

AutoCAD WS now Supports AutoCAD Civil 3D Drawings!

According to the AutoCAD WS Blog (http://www.autocadws.com/blog), Autodesk’s mobile CAD program, AutoCAD WS, now supports Civil3D drawings. According to the blog, all AutoCAD WS platforms, web, mobile, and mac, support Civil3D drawings.

The AutoCAD WS web platform doesn't seem to be handling my Civil3D drawings yet.

I’m waiting to hear back from Autodesk with more information. I will let you know when I hear more.

UPDATE:
Everything seems to be working after further testing. I had to upload all reference files and data source files first. User error there on my part. If you have any more difficulty viewing the files make sure the setting PROXYGRAPHICS is set to "1" which turns it on. In the mobile app platforms of AutoCAD WS you can change your viewing settings to 3D solids. This displays the Civil3D objects quite well. Especially any surfaces that you may have.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Contest Time!! - Well...all most

CAD-a-Blog.com is about to have its very first contest! I am still working out the details so please stand by. It looks like I will have something up here on Monday.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Autodesk’s List of Officially Supported Products (so far) for Windows 8

Autodesk has provided a list of their products that they have officially tested to run on Windows 8. It’s a short list but here it is:

Autodesk 3ds Max 2013
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2013
Autodesk Maya 2013
Autodesk MotionBuilder 2013
Autodesk Mudbox 2013
Autodesk Softimage 2013
Autodesk SketchBook Designer 2013

10 Things You Should Know About AutoCAD 2013

AutoCAD 2013 comes with many great new features and tools to help you get the most out of the software. In this post we’ll go over 10 new features and upgrades that you should know about in AutoCAD 2013.

3D Free-Form Design Tools
AutoCAD 2013 gives you the power to create designs in nearly any shape or form you can imagine. By pushing and pulling on faces, edges and vertices you can model extremely complex objects and modify the smoothing of surfaces. You can select 2d and 3d curves for quick and easy press-pull operation.

Upgrading to AutoCAD 2013? Is Your Hardware Good Enough?

If you are upgrading to AutoCAD 2013, I hope you take the time to see if your current hardware can handle Autodesk's latest version of their flagship software. If you aren't sure, then you are in luck. I wrote a four part series for CADspeed on this very topic.

Here are links to the four articles:

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 1: Can Your Current Workstation Handle The Upgrade?

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 2: Current and Future Needs

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 3: Review Recommended Hardware

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 4: Processor, Video Card, RAM and Hard Drive

I hope this helps. I know I learned quite a bit researching the topic.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Some Cool Stuff Coming to CAD-a-Blog Tomorrow!

Tomorrow will bring some really cool things to CAD-a-Blog.com. Here are a few hints:

Announcement
Guest Post
DVD
Giveaway!

Stay tuned!!!

3Dconnexion's New Windows Driver Released

3Dconnexion, maker of several 3D mice, has released a new version of its Windows driver. This updated driver has the following highlights:

Official support for Windows 8, SolidWorks 2013, NX 8.5 and Solid Edge ST5
Performance and stability improvements in plug-ins for: 3ds Max, 3ds Max Design, Maya, Softimage, SolidWorks, NX, Solid Edge and Photoshop
Advanced button configuration in Sketch Mode in NX

Users can download the new driver here.