June 29, 2004
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#392
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- - - C
O N T E N T S Where
Are They Now? Below
the Radar Write - - - Donate - - - Look for additional,
nearly-daily CAD commentary at our Weblog: (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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We have now available some copies of our first AutoCAD 2005 book, "The Illustrated AutoCAD 2005 Quick Reference" (Autodesk Press). If you'd like an autographed copy, send a donation of US$25 to www.paypal.com or our mailing address listed at the end of the e-newsletter. - - - GMail is offering free email with 1GB storage. Yahoo followed with 100MB free and 2GB not-free. Microsoft is offering a 250MB. How much do you need? To find out, we checked the \Eudora folder on one of our computers. (We've saved nearly all our email, except spam, since first getting an Internet email account just under ten years ago.) The folder has 400MB of email messages, not including attachments. Average size of email is 4.4KB. We get a lot of email, what with press releases and responses to upFront.eZine. So, it would take about 250 years to fill up 1GB with email. Naturally, having 1GB of online storage is useful for things other than email. Off-site storage of files, for example. 'Cept then 1GB suddenly becomes tiny compared to the nearly 60GB of personal and work files we back up. Where
Are They Now? Prime began as a designer of mainframe computers in 1972. One of the original partners later formed Apollo Computer, which became Sun's biggest competitor in the 1980s, and was later purchased by HP. (More recently, HP resurrected the Apollo name for its very cheapest line of printers.) Cambridge Interactive Systems (CIS) of England developed the Medusa software. It was primarily a 2D drafter, but had a 3D modeler available, as well as links to NC machines. This was a time when CAD hardware and software cost between $100,000 and $500,000 per seat. (Former employee Richard Green describes the Cambridge building out of which CIS operated: "Condensation was running down the walls, there was an electricity sub-station buzzing away next door, and come the evenings we could hear everyone having a good time outside." <www.bagnall.co.uk/cv/cis_office.gif>) In 1981, Prime got the exclusive worldwide marketing rights to Medusa, except for Western Europe (those rights were held by Applied Graphics System). A year later, Computervision acquired CIS. With sales of mini-computers eclipsing mainframes, in 1988 Prime bought Computervision, whose CADDS software ran on mini-computers. The company also purchased the Calma from General Electric. To get into the fast-growing PC CAD market, Prime bought VersaCAD from T&W Systems. Prime went private to avoid a hostile takeover, and continued to design failed CPUs until 1993. Prime was purchased by Parametric Technology in 1997. In 2001 PTC planned to use Medusa as the basis of a 2D drafting add-on to its Pro/Engineer software; the project was called "Project Pegasus." In 2002, German systems vendor CAD Schroer purchased Medusa and Project Pegasus from PTC. They kept the Medusa name, but renamed Project Pegasus as STHENO/PRO. The software is still available from them. Wierd names? Stheno is one of three Greek-myth sisters -- Stheno, Medusa, and Euryales. Pegasus arose from Medusa's body as she was beheaded. Sources: www.malch.com/prime/primefaq.htm
BricsCad IntelliCAD gets a new name, "BricsCad V5 (powered by IntelliCAD)," and a new release. New features include full print and plot, and export to DWF. Other new features include:
A comparison table with AutoCAD is available at http://www.bricscad.com/about/solutions/design/intellicad/features.jsp Below the Radar A summary of CAD industry news you may not have read elsewhere, or that we found interesting: - - - Bentley Systems announces ProjectWise V8 2004 Edition collaboration server. New features include local caching and enhanced digital security. www.bentley.com Mobilite is Dr. DWG's PDA-based drawing viewing software for Windows CE.Net and 2003. www.drdwg.com GiveMePower ships PowerCAD Pro 6, compatible with AutoCAD 2005 files, as well as VoiceNOTE audio note keeping, digital photo management, inspection lists, freehand redlining, unattended batch plotting, and DWF export. www.givemepower.com ART VPS has an interface that makes hardware-accelerated ray tracing available to CATIA V5 and ENOVIA V5 users -- 35x faster than software rendering. www.artvps.com/catia Digital Immersion Software launches the Presenter 3D for AutoCAD 2005 beta program to do virtual photos and walk-through animations. www.Presenter3D.com HP launches a new line of desktop computers targeted at the MCAD and GIS markets. The new boxes have a tool-less chassis design -- meaning, most things can be disassembled without a screwdriver. The xw4200 (starts at US$849), xw6200 ($1,399 and up), and xw8200 (US$1,799) models can have as much as 16GB of RAM and 1.5TB of hard disk space. www.hp.com NVIDIA announced four new Quadro professional graphics boards using the PCI Express bus. Also announced: Scalable Link Interface that joins together two PCI Express graphics boards to double the graphics performance. www.nvidia.com D-Cubed updates its 2D DCM variational constraint solver to v46.0 to handle alignment control for tangency constraints, circle inversion, and better control of underdefined sketches. Also updated is PGM v2.0 sketching environment for mechanical CAD systems, with offset spline extensions and constraint reallocation. www.d-cubed.co.uk LightWorks Sketch has been licensed by Nemetschek and is integrated into the latest release of RenderWorks. www.lightworkdesign.com ARCHIBUS releases their FM Web Central 14, a J2EE-based Web solution that brings ARCHIBUS/FM to the Internet. www.archibus.com Seminars & Conference Conference for application developers interested in IntelliCAD is Sept 16-17 in Denver CO USA. [I've been invited to speak at this event.] www.regonline.com/13406 People on the Move Gehry Technologies appoints Malcolm Davies as chief operating officer (COO). Jim Glymph continues in his role as ceo, president, and chairman of the board. Mr Davies is the former senior vp of Rebis, prior to its acquisition by Bentley Systems. Avatech Solutions appoints Christopher Olander as executive vp and general counsel responsible for investor relations, raising capital and mergers and acquisitions. Mr Olander is a former senior attorney at Neuberger Quinn Gielen Rubin & Gibber. WorthWhile Web www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116572,tk,dn062804X,00.asp 'PC World' The Biggest PC Myths Letters to the Editor Re: pdf2vector "The
MIF format you were not familiar with is the native vector graphics
format for Adobe FrameMaker -- Maker Interchange Format. It allows
tech writers to bring PDF and EPS graphics into their Frame docs."
Re: John Goodwin "There
is a simple way to use whatever external word processor you want
in AutoCAD. Go to Tools | Options, and select the Files tab at the
top. Expand out the Text Editor, Dictionary, etc. category and then
Text Editor Application. You will see that Internal is the default,
which is what we all see when we perform an mtext operation. If
you select the Internal and then the Browse button to the left,
you can select whatever text editor you want such as MS Word."
Re: Notable Quotable "Next
time mention is made of any free-swimming orca, would it perhaps
be better to describe it as an "orca whale" rather than
"killer whale"?"
Re: Bentley Research Seminar "I must say, I enjoyed Mr. Hesselgren’s summary of 'A Conceptual Framework for Computational Design' by Robert Aish. All these years I thought I was merely designing and drafting (sometimes modeling and documenting), while it turns out I was actually 'exploring new tectonic possibilities that harness emerging cultural and technological innovations ... concerned with the very practical task of systematically encoding these tectonic possibilities into physically realizable buildings.' "I couldn’t have said it, err -- semantically
articulated -- it better myself! By the way, please accept my utmost
gratitude for imparting superlative journalism and facilitating
the dissemination of CAD Industry knowledge and news." --- "I find the information you post quite
interesting, and I enjoy your editorial comments. Thanks for doing
such a great job of winnowing out the chaff, and providing just
the good kernels of new of the CAD world. Now if the hype writers
and publicity crowd would do the same." "Keep up the good work. Best from all
the old Boston Computer Society types to whom I forward you." Spin Doctor of the Moment "There is no doubt that the way the Denmark-Sweden
game developed shows that the two teams were aiming for a draw.
Of course, proof of that is hard to find." Notable Quotable "Twister touches down in Brandon. Potatoes
sucked out of the ground in Manitoba storm." |
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