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Issue #508 : : March 6, 2007 |
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In this Issue: CAD Vendors: Is Your XML Ready? |
Write the editor. Make him smile. Through Paypal, consider donating $25 in support of upFront.eZine. Or else. We're trendy. We have a Weblog: WorldCAD Access. < Previous Issue < > This Issue < > Next Issue > |
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CAD Vendors: Is Your XML Ready? Several American states are proposing legislation requiring all documents be in XML format. Think this excludes CAD? Definition of all documents: "...all documents, including, but not limited to, text, spreadsheets, and presentations, produced by any state agency...." And not just any XML. It has to be based on eXtended Markup Language that meets these criteria:
I don't think any CAD vendor is any where near the requirements proposed by California, Texas, and Minnesota. Dassault's 3DXML, for example, is neither fully published nor controlled by an open industry organization. Autodesk dabbled in DesignXML at one time, but then yanked it from AutoCAD 2004. You can learn more about this topic from Andy Updegrove at 'The Standards Blog': www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070228080638136
CAD Users: Is Your Software DST Ready? Bentley Systems reminds us through their BE Newsletter that your CAD software probably will not be affected by the change to an earlier daylight savings time this coming Sunday, March 11 (and again in November) in Canada. Oh, and also in the USA. Bentley explains that "...the logging, journaling, and restart operations of Bentley software products are based upon either Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or the host operating system's timekeeping functionality." GMT is unaffected by DST [I wish all time zones were unaffected by DST], and Microsoft has DST patches for Windows at www.microsoft.com/windows/timezone/dst2007.mspx
I got hurt on a construction job as an electrician, so my union put me out to pasture before my time. During my partial recovery I became interested in MCAD, AEC, CAE, CAM, and whatever else is out there that I didn't know about. I also wanted to teach young minds in the ways of architects, engineers, and designers and their special language that they use to collaborate and cooperate with one another on projects. I met a young lad of twelve years of age who showed a remarkable ability to know how to build something. His abilities made me proactive in his education. In the parking lot of his school, we built a solar oven that produced temperatures close to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. I drew it up in SolidWorks, and sent it in to Marie Planchard in the education department of SolidWorks. She awarded my mentee his own student version of the software. I was elated, and started to find him a school computer to run it on. After many attempts to put together a powerful enough computer from an ancient assortment of old classroom computers and parts, I finally gave up. We had to try another route. I wrote letters to Dell, HP, and others with no reply. My guess is that they get those requests all the time. Anyway, they boy's grandmother mentioned the problem to the people she cleans house for. There are some great people in this world, because they wanted to buy him a computer that the software would run on. Now we were going to get a computer that could run the software. I drew up the specs, and the benefactors sent them to the IT person in their company. He approved all I had configured, and sent in the order for the Dell XPS priced at $1,400. The IT person brought the computer to my house so I could install the software. We unpacked the big box and put it on a table, and hooked up everything and turned it on. The screen lit up and up came Vista. I almost screamed. I had ordered Windows XP Professional. The IT man explained that Dell did not give him any choice in this matter, because it was not an option. We tried every trick we have come to know, including using DOS to reformat the hard drive and install XP on it. Perhaps the BIOS is set up only for Vista, because it would not accept Windows XP as an OS. So we tried to do a dual boot install using a partitioning application, but after going through the setup, Vista would not allow this. Where once we had the software program but no computer, now we had a computer but no software that was able to run well on it. Had the order been done just a little bit sooner -- by a few days -- this would not be an issue now. I have one very disappointed young man now. An amazing chain of events. One more strike against Microsoft and their pursuit in conquering the world. I do applaud them for getting a standard of sorts set forth, so this industry could be stabilized in order to take hold, but now I'm not sure that they should go on without a credible rival.
CADalytic Media releases their SpecifiCAD plug-in for the latest rev of Bentley Architecture. More at www.cadalytic.com/index.php?dir=company&subdir=press&content=070305 The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium announces IntelliCAD v6.3. I like the way they put it: "latest version of its cooperatively-developed CAD engine." Improvements include support for AutoCAD 2007, improved PDF export, 4x faster image handling, and support for Vista. www.intellicad.org Cadsoft Envisioneer 4.0 integrates its project estimation to Priority One Plus software, offering design, presentation, production drafting, takeoff and complete estimating and project management. www.cadsoft.com and www.priosoft.com/contractor.htm Informatix Software International pre-announces version 5 of Piranesi 3D painting software that converts hard CAD models to soft non-photorealistic images. The new populate tool adds lots of trees and people, while the new light tool re-illuminates scenes. www.informatix.co.uk Delcam launches "design-only" versions of its ArtCAM Pro and ArtCAM JewelSmith software that leaves out the machining capabilities, and lowers the price. www.delcam.com No surprise here that CoCreate extends the deadline for free copies of its CoCreate OneSpace Modeling Personal Edition. The new deadline for registering and downloading is June 30 at www.cocreate.com/free EVOQE announces a new plug-in for solidThinking
7.5 with a direct interface to Maxwell Render, the Light
Simulator. www.maxwellrender.com
Avolve Software announces that their new version of ProjectDox supports the NavisWorks NWD file format and the NavisWorks JetStream Freedom viewer. This combines 3D visualization with workflow processes. www.avolvesoftware.com Mike Payne's SpaceClaim is set to launch mid-month with its non-parametric 3D design software running on patent-pending geometric inference engine. www.spaceclaim.com - - - These news items were posted during the last week at the WorldCAD Access blog <worldcadaccess.typepad.com>:
And at the Gizmos Grabowski <worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos/> Weblog:
Hardware News Z Corporation's ZPrinter 450 is the first color 3D printer to break the $40,000 price point. At US$39,900, however, I'm not sure I can agree with their claim of making "...high-definition color 3D printing available to the masses." www.zcorp.com
Seminars & Conferences Cyco Americas User & Reseller Conference 2007 is June 3-5 in Coral Gables FL USA. www.cyco.com/conference Seventh International Symposium on Tools and Methods of Competitive Engineering (TMCE 2008) takes place April 21-2, 2008 in Kusadasi Turkey. tmce08.confmaster.net/pages/login.php?Conf=TMCE08
Magazine/eZine/Weblog Updates Sheet Metal Guy posts two calculators on the Web to help sheetmetal designers develop transitions and cones. The calculators create DXF files of the model in 3D wireframe and in flat pattern. Free. http://www.sheetmetalguy.com/transition.htm The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium changes the design of its Web site: http://www.intellicad.org
Redo "Duckie, doesn't PMI stand for 'Product Manufacturing information'?
You have 'maintenance' in this week's newsletter." The editor explains: "I had both, and forgot to edit out the second, wrong one before sending out the newsletter."
Brand New CAD Books/eBooks "What's Inside? AutoCAD 2008"
WorthWhile Web http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/02/14/raid_recovery/page2.html
http://bokardo.com/archives/five-principles-to-design-by/
Letters to the Editor Re: Decimate "I find this word to be mis-used a lot. It literally means
to 'reduce by 1/10th'. However, we see it used all to often to refer
to complete and total destruction. If the 3D models processed by
Roland's LPX-60 3D laser scanner are 1/10 the size of the original
model then indeed they are decimated." - - - Re: ADT + REvit "Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I recall when Inventor came out it was bundled (at no extra cost) with MDT in an effort to move MDT users over: that's a software company that believes in the superiority of a replacement product! "I don't understand your comment: '...never getting modeling'. ACA [nee ADT] employs facet modeling, so I guess the statement must mean that ADT will never become a solid modeler like Revit? What I really think is that this is just part of an expanding campaign to equate ACA with 2D AutoCAD -- whatever." "The really sad part about Architectural Studio was that it was far more elegant than SketchUp. Unlike most other Autodesk products, its GUI was really attractive. It's too bad that Revit didn't inherit ArchStudio's type of GUI. "It's odd that the death of VizRender wasn't mentioned,
because I don't think the new native AutoCAD rendering tools come
close to what VizRender offered." The editor replies: "Software companies tend to not hold public funerals for failed and discarded software products -- such as CAD\camera, Generic CADD, Actrix, and many more."
"You said that ACA will distinguish itself from Revit by
never getting modeling. ????. What the h**l does this mean anyway?
Could you please translate this into English?" The editor explains: "Autodesk wants to continue selling both ADT and Revit, but needs to distinguish them in some manner. Thus, Revit will continue to be a parametric modeler, while ADT will ever be. My analogy is with Proctor&Gamble selling two kinds of laundry detergent, Tide and Bold."
"In the AEC market, I know of several firms using Inventor for structural modeling, because it's far more capable at the detail level than are ADT or Revit Structure. Indeed, I spoke to one of Autodesk's building division heads a year or two ago about this: when I was asked what I wanted to see in Revit Structure, my top suggestion was the ability to model in more detail (and hence go head-to-head against Xsteel, Strucad etc). "The civil structural market is different from the building structural market in this respect: we care about the bolts, stiffeners and minor bits of metalwork in a way that the buildings guys normally don't. "In short, integration of Inventor and Revit responds to
a need already well-articulated by customers!" The editor responds: "Some firms also use SolidWorks and CATIA for architecture and structural design." - - - Re: The Last Users of AutoCAD "That's not true, unless you prepare nothing but mortgage surveys, because when you get beyond the tax collector's office, the entirety of your survey is about exposing elevation changes. Witness the contour map, topo-survey and anything that you plan to bulldoze, grade, or dig a ditch through. "It may be more accurate to say that surveyors present data
in 2D through the use of contours, triangles, profiles, and sections
-- until someone realized that it was transformable into 3D data
and let the software do that part. Talk to any state DOT CADD manager
and you're going to find someone who's deeply vested in 3D and would
give a rich spanking to a surveyor that came in with strictly 2D
data." The editor responds: "I stand duly spanked." - - - Re: CAD for Cheap "Sorry to trouble you with this request, but the following
Web site has AutoCAD at an extremely low price. Do you know if they
can be trusted? " The editor responds: "No. You can tell because they only provide downloaded software, not CDs in original boxes. If you are looking for low cost legal versions, try the educational versions." - - - Re: That Mysterious CAD Package "May I ask if the CAD vendor announced the release of the
AutoCAD-compatible alternative software yet? We urgently need to
propose a Landscape Design software for the education market here,
which may or may not be AutoCAD-based." The editor responds: "Yah, I was wondering about that too. But it sounds like it has been massively delayed; now they're talking about end of this year. Best not to wait on it!" - - - "Thanks for all the interesting articles, esp. spin doctor
and notable quotables :-)"
Notable Quotable "Snake oil doesn't scale."
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