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#353
9 September 2003
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a l k i n g a b o u t c a d
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issue
#353
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Contents Seminar
Report: Under
the Radar - - - Donate Write - - -
(ADVERTISMENT) Updated and Expanded for AutoCAD 2004! Tailoring AutoCAD 2004 is the first book for AutoCAD 2004. Download as a 204-page e-book in PDF format (US$24.95) or on CD ($29.95). Covers all areas of customization, from changing the user interface to writing toolbar macros and LISP routines. Click here to sample preview pages and place your order. - - -
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Seminar Report: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 5:41:40 -- On a whim, EduCAD co-owner Robyn Stables sends an email, asking if I'm interested in speaking at a series of seminars in New Zealand <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/Piha.jpg>. Mon, 9 Jun 2003 6:12:00 -- My reply: "I would love to visit New Zealand, and would enjoy speaking on CAD management. What sort of arrangement did you have in mind?" - - - Little do we know the exhausting adventure upon which we are embarking. A further 296 emails follow this initial exchange as we negotiate the dates (I want mid-August, Robyn prefers later), the itinerary (an early idea is Queenstown to take in some skiing), and the seminar content, titled "Mastering Your CAD System: Breaking Through CAD Barriers." Erin, my long-time travel agent at Menno Travel, works at finding air fares to New Zealand -- the cheapest possible, because I've decided to bring along my family. Within a couple of days, she discovers an unpublished seat sale that lowers the price to around US$1,000 for Vancouver - Honolulu - Auckland and return. My ticket is more complex: Vancouver - Honolulu - Auckland - Christchurch - Wellington - Auckland - Melbourne - Brisbane - Sydney - Honolulu - Vancouver. To keep the air fare low, the tickets must be paid by week's end. Robyn takes a deep breath, and emails her credit card to Erin to pay my ticket. "Done. VISA number sent -- if I don't sleep tonight I'll know why -- this is it. Very exciting now," Robyn reports. I take somewhat less of a deep breath, and pay the other four tickets. We're committed. - - - In parallel, we develop the seminar outline. Robyn's first rough draft: "CAD Standards and how they should be utilitised... Surprisingly (or not), that first draft largely establishes the final seminar content. A major change is the addition of a lawyer, who speaks on the legal aspects of sharing drawings. Along the way, variations are thought up, then discarded, such as a second day specific to AutoCAD 2004. And then there is the issue of the work visa. My "job" doesn't fit any categories at www.immigration.govt.nz/work/, so I leave a message with the embassy in Ottawa. Some days later, they confirm I don't need the visa, normally costing NZ$230. "Cool bananas," Robyn responds. Seminar locations are booked, and we are well underway firming up the day-long seminar content, when Robyn starts reporting a series of bad news. A mailing contractor screws up, failing to distribute 7,000 brochures on time. Registrations from Australia aren't coming through (just four sign up). In speaking with other seminar organizers, Robyn finds there's no market on the other side of the Tasman Sea. The hard decision is made: we're cutting Australia. For my travel agent, the work gets harder: re-booking my return flight with less than three weeks is a no-go, initialy. "This puts a spanner in now," Robyn says. Working on her days off, tracking down the options, and pleading my case, Erin finally convinces a special panel at Air Canada to grant me a seat on the same airplane as my family. Would Travelocity.com do the same for you? - - - Meanwhile, my wife is suffering a near nervous breakdown after surfing the Web and discovering the expense of traveling around New Zealand. A one-day bus tour is NZ$640. (Friends in New Zealand later tell us it's cheaper for them to fly to Australia than within New Zealand.) My daughters are disappointed that the "Land of 'The Lord of the Rings'" is but a hollow shell: everything related to the movie has been torn out, but a family can still pay NZ$225 to see empty holes in the ground at Hobbiton ("returned to its natural state"). Would my family be stuck in Auckland for the entire two weeks? "Remember, it's winter here," email several upFront.eZine readers from New Zealand. "There must be a cheaper way!" I declare, somewhat grimly. Things start to look up. My wife's Kiwi friend, a travel agent, finds us a brand-new, reasonably-priced apartment hotel on the edge of Parnell, a cute shopping and restaurant district in Auckland. Instead of the $640 bus tour, she rents a minivan for $100 and gets her husband to drive us to the Glow Worm Caves in Waitomo -- I am too freaked out to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. On the Internet, I discover the TranzScenic railroad has a "Winter Special" -- everyone pays the child rate. I book the Overlander train to Wellington, capital of New Zealand. Fuller's ferry service to the islands in Auckland's massive harbour has 1/2-price and family specials; we get tickets to hike to the top of Rangitoto, the landmark volcano island, <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/Rangitoto.jpg> and a day in quaint Devonport <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/devonport.jpg> - - - "I will be very nervous until your feet land on our soil," emails Robyn. Our feet land on New Zealand soil early on August 3. Our Auckland friends meet us at the airport, and wisk us to their home for breakfast. Later, we hike (run, actually) down into the crater of Mount Eden <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/MountEden.jpg>. Mid-week I get together with Robyn and business partner Raewyn Taylor to go over the seminar topics. We figure a morning at EduCAD's office should do it, followed by lunch <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/EduCAD.jpg>. Instead, we wrap up at 5pm, with no lunch. Two new clients wait as Robyn and Raewyn hurry to straihten out the training center. "Are you here to learn, too?" one of them asks me. "Uh, no, I was here for more of a business meeting actually. You here for training?" I ask in return. "We're here to learn computer-aided design." He adds: "AutoCAD." "That's probably a good choice," I agree. - - - The longest place name in the world is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, New Zealand (Maori for "the brow of the hill, where Tamatea, the man with the big knees who slid down, climbed up and swallowed mountains, who is known as the Land Eater, played on his nose flute to his loved one.") - - - Sunday 10 August, and we're off to Christchurch, the closest I'll ever get (probably) to the Antarctic <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/Christchurch.jpg>. It is cold here! As with most homes and older hotels, the Latimer Hotel has no central heating, something not advertized at its Web page. In my freezing-cold room, I turn up the space heater to full, and turn on all lights for added heat. At the bottom of the closet, I eye the pair of red rubber hotwater bottles provided for the comfort of guests. I have a scant two hours to tour Christchurch by foot, a pity because I'm enjoying this very European city. I'm fascinated by the hoards of international young people thronging the downtown, looking as if they are in search of -- something. Upon leaving Christchurch, airport security discovers a pen knife in Raewyn's carry-on bag, a knife missed by security earlier at Auckland airport. Nevertheless, they let her carry it through security, upon her promise to mail it to herself. - - - Wellington is squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the mountains, its streets straying off at odd angles. It's warmer but drizzling. I get lost trying to return to Copthorne Hotel Plimmer Towers, a hotel with no visible entrance <photo: www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/Wellington.jpg>. A passer-by offers to help, but I demur, determined to find my place on the map, a map I later realize is of a different city. Still, I appreciate the friendliness of New Zealanders. That evening, I meet with an upFront.eZine reader. His firm was asked by a local hospital to come up with a layering standard for all subs working on a renovation. He expresses his frustration at the subs reluctance in adopting the standard. The next day at the seminar, I meet one of those upon whom the layer standard is being imposed. "It makes no sense," he complains. (Earlier, while preparing my presentation, I had asked, "Do NZ and Australia have national CAD standards?" To which Robyn had replied: "You've got to be joking -- Kiwis and Aussies standardising??? Something is needed, but no-one is interested in committing.") - - - Back in Auckland, it's sunny and warm. The Carlton Hotel is swarming with police. Protection against terrorists? No, for heads of state from South Pacific islands meeting here. On the weekend, the high level of security continues, this time for members of New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks. In the evening, I meet another upFront.eZine reader. He's wondering about an upgrade strategy that avoids Autodesk products. His yacht design firm faces a $10,000 upgrade bill, as quoted by Autodesk's representative in New Zealand. His idea is to switch to IntelliCAD or perhaps TurboCAD. In part, he is angry at the excessively high price for AutoCAD LT in New Zealand. We spend a hour discussing strategies, drawbacks, and advantages. He leaves with this new thought: maybe he doesn't need to upgrade. - - - Not everything is expensive in New Zealand. The city bus is a reasonable NZ$1.20; the Link bus runs an excellent (for tourists) loop around Auckland. Internet cafes are just NZ$3/hr; three out of the four hotels I stayed at had a free Internet workstation. We quickly learned to do our shopping at The Warehouse, a fast-growing chain of discount stores. Because most stores close at 5:30 everyday, we learned to scout for 7Eleven-like Star Marts after hours. A stress of traveling is finding places to eat. Sadly, we cheat by eating too often at the retro-style Burger Kings. But we highly recommend Tony's Lord Nelson on Victoria, and La Porchetta on Parnell, both in Auckland. And as for the Kiwi burger, well, adding that fried egg and slices of beet doesn't do much for our Canadian tastebuds. An unfortunate end to a lovely trip, Auckland airport provides the worst international departure experience I've had on three continents. After 16 days "down under," I came home with wonderful memories stored on 1,580 photos in my digital camera's MicroDrive memory card. <photo: http://www.upfrontezine.com/Figs/NZ03/Auckland.jpg>. Book Review:
Digital cameras make 1-hour photo labs obsolete. Earlier this year, digital cameras outsold film cameras (excluding single-use cameras) for the first time. In winning first prize in a photo contest, my daughter won a Nikon F55 film camera, which she barely touches, because she: (1) has to pay for the film; (2) can't see the pictures right away; and (3) has to pay for processing. A National Geographic photographer says it takes him five years to get to know a new camera; after two years, I'm still learning about my Canon G1. Many CAD packages read the JPEG and TIFF image files generated by digital cameras, making the technology ideal for getting photos quickly into drawings -- site views, as-completed projects, 3D "scans," and so on. How else can digital cameras be useful to CAD users? Time Lapse. Some cameras take photos automatically, from once every 10 seconds to every 24 hours. This is handy for recording the progress of projects. My old Epson PC800 digital camera takes as many time-lapse pictures as fit on a memory card (roughly 1,700 640x480 photos on a 96MB card), but my newer Canon G1 only does this when hooked up to a computer, and then is limited to a maximum of 100 pix :< Movie Mode. Most cameras take short movies (15 to 60 seconds), which is handy for recording the motion of mechanical devices. Panoramic. When you can't fit the entire object in a single photo, cameras provide panoramic mode, which assists you in taking a sequence of overlapping photos -- vertically, horizontally, or 2x2. Later, with the help of stitching software, the sequence is merged into a single large photo. - - - Digital cameras are consumer items, thus easy to use. Creating excellent photographs, however, takes training. There are numerous courses and books available; Sybex happened to send me 'Shooting Digital' (US$35.00) by Mikkel Aaland. This book is not specific to CAD, but some sections are relevant:
For more info:www.shooting-digital.com/ To purchase at US$24.50: www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782141048/XyzpublishingA People/Companies on the Move Amy Rowell leaves the MCAD Cafe Web site for a position as industry analyst/editor at Cyon Research. Replacing her at MCAD Cafe is Jeffrey Rowe. Tod Weber leaves his position as senior vp at PTC to join Telispark as vp of world wide sales.
Computer News Summaries Professor Keigo Iizuka discovers the Lewiscraft brand of cellophane wrap helps turn LCD screens into 3D displays. One half of the scren is covered with cellophane to change its polarization, which is then viewed with sunglasses with different polarization. - news.com.com/2100-1044_3-5070510.html?tag=fd_top Manufacturers claim CD-Rs last at least ten years under normal conditions. A study by 'PC-Active' found, however, that 3 of 31 CD-R brands had serious errors just two years after being recorded. - www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030904.gtcdsept4/BNStory/Technology/ Only 11% of British companies have migrated to Windows XP since its release two years ago. - www.silicon.com/news/500011-500001/1/5874.html
Market News EDS CEO Michael Jordan says he will eliminate more employees than the 2% announced last June. Another 20,000 positions will be shifted to low-cost countries by the end of next year. The French government is selling its entire 15.74% share of Dassault Systemes. The e580 million revenue will be used to pay down some of the SNCF rail debt of e20 billion. Dassault says it is pleased. Graphisoft will remove its shares from the Frankfurt stock exchange, but continues to be listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange. Privately-held Think3 announces a 65% increase in revenues in Q2 2003 over the same period last year. ICEM says sales of ICEM Surf software increased by 42% in the twelve months since the company became independent from PTC. The upFront.eZine stock index is at www.cadwire.net/to?upfrontezine/stocks
Letters to the Editor Re: Architectural Studio "In my opinion, an Architectural Studio-type program could succeed in the marketplace. The problem I see is that the ArchStudio tools are not developed well enough to be of good value. In addition, architects have not embraced "Direct Draw" (copy write). "I use Wacom's Cintiq 18SX with stylus + SketchUp + Alias SketchBook Pro to get the results I expected from ArchStudio. I often start a 3D form in Sketch Up, and draw on it or color it in Sketch Book Pro. I even send marked up JPGs from SketchUp to my clients. (I do not use paper and pencil, because I am digital from the start.) "I do like Studio's vector drawing tools that look like rasters, but they need to be developed more to give me the sketch rendering capability of a raster drawing tool, such as SketchBook Pro. If I could draw my plans with a vector that acts like a raster, I could easily run a vector recognition program such as Plan Tracer to convert sketches into ADT 3D content. "I believe that ArchStudio needs a new focus based on "Direct
Draw" (copy write)to a Cintiq or much more powerful Tablet
PC. Autodesk has the code for these vector brushes in its Discreet
Combustion product." The editor notes:
Re: What is Inventor Professional? "When I did a stint as a product manager (more or
less), our business partners and key customers were consulted prior
to the project kickoff (when a release's scope and ship date were
set). No surprises, no broken hearts. Yes, I know, my methods
were unconventional."
Spin Doctor of the Moment "The floggings will continue until morale improves."
Notable Quotable "Reporting of news has been subordinated to another goal:
always self-referential to the standards of the media itself."
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