After a year of negotiations, Penton Publishing has acquired A/E/C Systems International as part of its trade show and conference division. Mike Hough and George Borkovich say, "Business as usual but better" and will remain to run the A/E/C Systems shows. Penton Publishing is known for 'Computer-Aided Engineering' and other magazines. More info at http://www.penton.com
In an unrelated move, MFI (publisher of 'Cadence' magazine) declined to re-bid on Autodesk University. MFI continues to host MechanCAD. This year, MFI will open it up to other CAD packages (SolidWorks, Solid Edge, etc.) in the exhibit area and in classes.
The January, 1997, issue of 'Upside' magazine reports on The Yankee Group's selection of "upside" and "downside" design automation software vendors:
Upside
Downside
More info at http://www.upside.com
According to WAVE ezine, "We often get asked the question, what is the best selling 3D program or class of 3D programs? Without a doubt it is 3D Home Design programs. We estimate that the unit quantities could be as high as one million units/year." More info at http://www.fourthwave.com/wave
Die deutsche Ausgabe wird uebersetzt von Christian Immler. Um die deutsche Ausgabe zu abonnieren, senden Sie eine eMail mit dem Inhalt 'subscribe upfront' an christian@fs1.arch.fh-hannover.de Alle alten deutschen Ausgaben sind in naechster Zeit auf der Web-Seite http://home.pages.de/~clic/ zu finden. Kommentare sind erwuenscht!
The German-language Edition of upFront.eZine is now available from Christian Immler. To subscribe, send the message 'subscribe upfront' as email to christian@fs1.arch.fh-hannover.de All back issues of the the German-language editions are available from http://home.pages.de/~clic/
As measured by PC-Meter Sweeps, the top 3 Web sites are:
Intergraph has already deployed Microsoft Internet Explorer on 5,000 desktops and plans to extend that coverage to all of its 8,000 employees in 30 countries.
According to our European source, last week Autodesk instigated a pay and recruitment freeze in Europe.
Autodesk's new consumer software, Picture This Home! Kitchen, is the first of easy-to-use consumer home- remodeling software that'll include bathroom, landscaping and the entire home. Features include:
According to the Autodesk press release, "the world's leading supplier of PC design software and multimedia tools is creating consumer software products to continue its ongoing mission of diversification and leadership of new design markets." CEO Carol Bartz said, "Launching a series of consumer design products is a natural for Autodesk. We revolutionized the commercial design market 15 years ago and plan to do the same for the consumer design market." Could it be that the CEO forgot four years ago she dismantled Autodesk's first attempt at the home CAD market, the Home series based on Generic CADD? More info at http://www.autodesk.com
ADDA: National Design Drafting Week, March 9 - 15, 1997. More info at http://www.adda.org
Artbeats: Two CD-ROMs with 80 - 90 high-resolution, seamless textures of building exteriors and city surfaces. "Excellent surface maps for 3D rendering and VRML." US$149 each. More info at facts@artbeats.com
Ashlar: New Vellum v3.0 is now in beta and adds surface construction and automatic hidden line removal. Upon shipping, v3 will cost US$2,995.00; upgrades US$495.00 first 60 days after release. More info at +1 (408) 487-9800.
Bentley Systems: The 1997 Executive Geoengineering Summit will be held April 12 - 13 in Keystone CO USA. The conference will focus on how best to take advantage of Web- enabled geoengineering technology. More info from jennifer.mcwilliams@bentley.com
Conceptual Product Development: Learn about modern rapid prototyping processes with "Doctor Walt's Product Development Tools," a 204-page book by Walter Silva; US$37.95. More info from +1 (201) 731-0642.
DigiRule: Digitize almost anything flat with the RAT, a portable 2D digitizer that looks like a 16-button digitizing puck with a pair of grit wheels added. More info at http://www.digirule.com
OpenGIS Consortium: Bentley delivers CORBA and Java-based GIS interoperability for Open GIS Consortium. Autodesk joins the consortium.
Visio: New Visio Technical v4.5 (US$299; US$49 upgrade) and Visio Professional v4.5 (US$349) now shipping. More info at http://www.visio.com
Further to the previous issue of upFront.eZine, we quickly found the source of the adulterated text. Reports a subscriber: "As a courtesy, I forward your newsletter intact to our committee for IT facilities. It seems that one of them edited the bulletin for items of interest to her co-workers, modifying the text to protect the source, or so she thought. The headers were not changed, nor was my SIG nor it seems the Reply-To field!! [which is how XYZ Publishing received its copy]. "Please be sure that I gave a short lesson in copyright law (and ethics) to our colleague. The editing was utterly innocent and [the word] 'competitor' was arbitrarily chosen."
AX~CESS COMPUTER is looking for excess, obsolete, surplus, new or used, end-of-file, overstocked -- any computer- related inventories. The company is interested in all technology-driven hardware, from PCs to mainframes, hard drives to modems, keyboards to motherboards. More info from Brian Schuster at axcess@microsys.net
In conjunction with Amazon.Com, you can purchase the following books direct -- simply find out more info -- by using the URL we provide:
"Learn AutoCAD LT for Windows 95 in a Day" by Ralph Grabowski List price: US$19.95 (paperback with diskette); published by Wordware Publishing.
According to Computer Intelligence and Claritas, this is what the typical computer user is:
The typical computer user does not:
From David Mussaw <DMUSSAW@Cerritos.edu>:
Q. Can I use AutoCAD 3D models with VRML?
A. Yes, but there is no direct DWG-to-VRML translator. When I asked Autodesk about this, they said they would not provide the translator since there was no demand for it.
Q. Do I have to convert them to some other file format? If so how?
A. 'WRL' is the filename extension for VRML files. There are several indirect translators available. If you have 3D Studio, then you can export the drawing from AutoCAD to 3D Studio, then use Kinetix's free VRML translator. Other translators work with DXF files generated by AutoCAD Release 12 and earlier. Another alternative is to use one of the VRML modeling packages. They typically read a variety of file formats, such as DXF, and output VRM (WRL). MicroStation 95 (Bentley) and Trispectives (3D/Eye) are two such products. For more information on translators and modelers, check out the VRML resource page at http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/
At the Universal City Studios Web site, it is illegal to access the site with a Web browser (notice the prohibition on "DOWNLOADING"):
"TM and Copyright 1996 Universal City Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All materials on this site, including, but not limited to images, illustrations, audio clips, and video clips (collectively the "Material") are protected by copyrights owned or controlled by Universal City Studios, Inc. These materials are only for personal and noncommercial usage. UNAUTHORIZED COPYING, REPRODUCTION, REPUBLISHING, UPLOADING, DOWNLOADING, POSTING, TRANSMITTING OR DUPLICATING OF ANY OF THE MATERIAL IS PROHIBITED." I
n short, if you can read it, you've broken their copyright <g>.
"The peculiarity of new devices on the Internet is that you've got a double acceleration: First, there's Moore's Law, that fact that the number of processors on a chip -- and thus computer power -- keeps doubling every 18 months, decade after decade. Then, there's Metcalfe's Law: the value of a net goes up as the square of the number of people on that net. You've got a double-runaway phenomenon. The Internet is a major social event. Culture's got to change."
-- Steward Brand, quoted in 'Upside' magazine, Jan '97.