Visions.eZine Web site
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Microsoft and the IAI
Microsoft is a member of a little-known organization called
the IAI, short for the International
Alliance for Interoperability. The IAI says of themselves:
"Defining a Universal Language for Collaborative Work in
the Building Industry."
Their mission is to integrate the AEC/FM (architecture, engineering,
construction and facilities management) industry via the IFC (Industry
Foundation Classes) specification.
The IAI was originally launched by Autodesk several years ago
as part of their push into objects. They recognized that the objects
defined in one software program would not be understood by another
program. The IAI has been creating a common set of definition
so that objects can be exchanged between different drawing programs.
"Objects," in this case, are graphical representations
of real-world objects, such as doors, pumps, and walls. The IAI
has defined the following projects for IFC v3:
The IFC spec is something that could be integrated into future
versions of Visio and IntelliCAD. Microsoft's Richard See
is the International Technical Director, and can be contacted
via email at richard.see@ibm.net.
First released in 1994, SmartDraw has been downloaded 4 million
times. SmartDraw Professional Plus v5.0 includes all libraries,
and costs US$198.
PC World
gave its "Best Business Graphics Software" award to
Microsoft Visio 2000 Standard Edition. The magazine's editors
decide the awards based on four criteria: performance, value,
consistency, and innovation. The "Product of the Year"
was AMD's Athlon CPU. PC World no longer recognizes CAD
software.
Similarly, Winmag.com placed Visio 2000 on its Win100
Awards list. The editors of Winmag.com say they "review
hundreds of products every year. Each product reviewed is compared
to previous products in its category. The best make it to the
Win100 Awards. Product of the year was awarded to Compaq NeoServer
150.
d-tools,
Inc. is a software-development firm that specializes in
the design of Microsoft-based applications for custom electronics
systems integrators, such as home electronics design. The company's
system design software is available through Visio or through a
list of parts stored in the interactive Matrix environment. Component
data is dynamically linked, stored and maintained for use in configuration,
estimation, bid production and documentation.
Information Exchange, a division of
Inso, announced that Quick
View Plus Enterprise Edition v6 includes file compression
and file management of more than 225 different file types. It
includes specialty file formats, such as Microsoft Project, Visio,
and AutoCAD.
Perhaps not entirely by coincidence, Jasc Software released
of Jasc
Quick View Plus 6.0 (US$59) just a week or so later. This
product is claimed to "opens almost any file and email attachment"
(even viruses, I wonder?). The product adds support for Visio,
Office 2000, WordPerfect Office 2000, Kodak FlashPix, CorelDRAW
6-8, AutoCAD DXF,and Outlook. It boasts seamless integration with
Internet Explorer 5, Netscape Navigator 4, Outlook 2000, Outlook
Express 5, and Adobe Acrobat 4.
Mark Slosberg of EpicEdge says "I'm forced
to use Windows, even though I might not want to, for a variety
of reasons, and one of them is Visio. Visio is a great program.
It's drag-and-drop graphics for the rest of us, and it got swallowed
by Microsoft. Where is the Visio application -- that critical
application -- that launches Linux into the marketplace? Can someone
create something like Visio for Linux? Sure. But we're talking
about a well-developed product that has evolved over several years.
You don't wave your arms and come up with a Visio-level product."
- Inter@ctive Week
Design-Drawing.Com is closing
down with its June issue. The Webzine began two years ago as a
Visio-only online publication. It later broadened its coverage
to include Autodesk Actrix, Intergraph SmartSketch, and Micrografx
iGrafix. Revenue was insufficient to keep the site going. The
editorial content will be merged with parent CADinfo.Net.
Over the last 12 months, three Visio-related publication have
shut down -- Technical Design Solutions (High Mountain
Press); SmartPages (Visio Corp); and Design-Drawing.Com
(Digital Business Media)
-- leaving Visions.eZine as the sole Visio publication.
Microsoft last week announced its plans for the next
one, two, three years hence. The corporation is adding .NET to
the names of its software and services. The primary difference
is that you will rent software on a monthly basis (Microsoft hopes),
instead of purchasing a lifetime license, plus upgrade licenses.
Once Microsoft.Net gets up and going over the next few years,
it'll allow a variety of devices to display Microsoft software.
According to PC World, "the first applications and services
supporting this initiative will be rolled out next year."
There is no mention of Visio at the Windows.Net
Web site. Similarly, no mention of Visio in Microsoft Office
2001 Macintosh Edition, which is due to ship "later this
year." Not that I was expecting it so soon, but with the
Microsoft.Net initiative, we should expect to see Macintosh and
PocketPC versions of Visio sometime in the next three years.
Oasis, a nonprofit group that includes IBM, Sun Microsystems and Oracle, has created an online warehouse for XML (Extensible Markup Language) technology. The new online service on Oasis' Web portal site -- http://www.XML.org -- will serve as a library for XML vocabularies, "or schemas," developed by specific industries, such as insurance, health care, and any other industry grappling with data exchange and e-commerce. Oasis' hopes to connect its library of XML vocabularies with other libraries being developed by companies, such as Microsoft's biztalk.com. - CNET
British Telecommunications (BT) claims it owns the patent
to hyperlinks and wants ISPs in the US to cough up hard cash for
the privilege of using them. The monster telco believes a patent
filed in 1976 -- and granted in 1989 (USP #4,873,662) -- proves
it owns the intellectual property rights to those natty little
devices that link Web content together.
Says Donavon J Pfeiffer Jr: "I and my cyberbuddies will then
launch a class action suit against BT for every broken link we've
ever had to deal with using product liability as the basis for
the suit."- The Register.
Rights in areas outside the United States expired in 1998, but
the
U.S. patent doesn't expire until October, 2006.
Tip #35: "We're using V2K to
diagram our tradeshows for internal use. I save the files as HTML
and either push them to the Web as-is, or just extract the GIF
file and put it on a regular Web page, adding a little HTML for
navigation.
"So far, this has been OK for my use with only 20-30 booths,
but now we want to put the whole 300-booth map online. Is there
any way to make this easily interactive inside of Visio?"
- Joe Stoddard
A: Visio 2000 supports image maps. You add them, as follows:
Step 1. Attach a hyperlink to each booth with Ctrl+K.
Step 2. Export the drawing with the Save As command, using
HTML format. Visio will generate about a half-dozen files: the
GIF image, some javascript (needed only for mutli-page drawings,
can be ignored otherwise), several HTML files (one is a master
HTML that ties the other files together) including one HTML that
includes the imagemap code.
Step 3. View the HTML file in Netscape or Opera (oops,
did I forget Explorer? <g>) to test the imagemap.
Puzzled about Visio? Got an idea on how to make Visio work better? Send your questions and tips to ralphg@xyzpress.com .
The editor replies: "The IntelliCAD 2000 source code is freely available from http://www.intellicad.org. There are a couple of guys looking into porting ICAD to Linux. Contact suryas@cadopia.com or visit his Web site at http://www.cadopia.com/"
"I am looking for a CAD application that can import Visio
drawings under Linux. Are you aware of this?"
- Stuart Donaldson
The editor replies: "As far as I know, no software
is able to import VSD files created by Visio. When I have investigated
software that claims to do this, it turns out they just display
the preview image that Visio stores in the file (probably in BMP
format).
"The (imperfect) alternative is to have Visio export the
drawing in another format. DXF would be the most commonly accepted
format for CAD programs. The problem is that the DXF representation
will not perfectly reflect the original VSD drawing. I recommend
you check the before and after results to see what has changed."