From the Editor: Actrix Translation
Over the years I sometimes receive requests from readers to help them translate drawings they made using Autodesk's long-abandoned "Visio Killer" Actrix Technical software. I last week found the CD and successfully installed Actrix 2000 on a Windows 7 workstation. Technically, my 18-month-old granddaughter found it, randomly pulling CDs out of my massive collection of yesteryear software.
Contract [email protected] should you have AXD files needing translation to DWG, etc. |
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DrawingSearcher from Docupoint
by Ralph Grabowski |
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It was upon the occasion of the 2015 release of DrawingSearcher that the folks at Docupoint called me up for a chat -- president David Hughs and head of BizDev, Brad Bishop. New to the software is support for Microstation DGN files.
DrawingSearcher works by searching CAD files for text. Not just properties or file names, but every piece of text stored, including attributes in AutoCADdrawing files and database links. Among CAD formats, it reads MicroStation and AutoCAD files, along with quite a few Office formats, PDF, OCR'ed TIFF and CALS files, and document managements systems like Autodesk Vault, Microsoft Sharepoint, and Cyco Blue Cielo. (Seehttp://www.docupoint.com/silver-vs-gold/ for the full list.) Note that the Silver Edition handles DWG, DXF, and DWF files only ($1,240); the Gold edition is needed for all the other formats ($1,475).
Following installation on one computer within an organization's data center and inside its firewalls, DrawingSearcher indexes all files on the network automatically based on installation settings, and then makes them available to users in DWF or PDF formats through any Web interface, who can then view and print the found files. Docupoint says indexing takes 3-12 seconds per file and runs as a background task. The Web interface is customizable by system administrators, as it is built from open HTML files. As an alternative, it can be integrated with Autodesk's free Design Review software.
Figure 1Search results being returned by DocupointDoccpoint is fond of stating that its system is Google-like, and the interface certainly is, with a single input field, along with a button for Advanced Search. (See figure 1.) You can try out the software online, as well as download a demo version of the software from http://www.docupoint.com/projects.
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Tailor Made Software
by Ralph Grabowski |
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While in Prague, I met up with Scott Taylor of Tailor Made Software. Even though in North America we live two hours apart, we happened at the same conference in Europe. He wanted to show me the latest of what his software company is working on. As you can probably tell from the name, he specializes in writing software customized for clients.
"Java is dying," he told me, "and since our CD Viewer software is based on Java, we are working on a non-Java viewer. Everyone has to look for an alternative to Java, and in our opinion it is HTML5. We use SVG, however, for displaying graphics and JavaScript for programming. JavaScript is fantastic for this, because it is interpretive Java, and it has become a lot more popular recently in client-server cases."
"We didn't like the accuracy of the HTML5 canvas [where HTML does its drawing in the Web page], so we went with SVG [XML-based scalable vector graphics]. SVG has the accuracy CAD needs and can do both raster and vector.
"One of our clients does intelligent lighting systems for office buildings. Our software lets him visualize heat from occupancy. We can take any drawing source, such as CAD drawings or PDF, then convert them to bitmaps -- well, bitmaps in this case because that's what the client wanted. Normally a CAD file would convert to a vector SVG. If the file size is not too large, then PNG can be used. For a given size, raster is more efficient than vector for complex drawings, but vector allows you to zoom in better where needed.
"From the drawings, we identify the locations of sensors, and then we make them hot spots. The users click on sensor locations to get information about them. They can draw on top of the drawings, and so add data as new elements. Users can control lighting in each room by moving a software switch, and can set up lighting scenes [groups of lights according to time of day].
"The user is anyone who is an administrator in charge of lighting controls. They can even use an iPhone to change their lighting settings remotely.
"The sensors detect movement, which shows occupancy: how many seconds ago someone moved within the realm of the sensor. Our system is updated in real time, so users can watch as people arrive at work and go home.
"A single sensor measures heat, movement, and amount of power used by each electrical outlet. Heat sensors indicate which rooms are warmer than others. The shape of the sensor is a cone, and can be wide (7') or narrow (3'). Some rooms have multiple sensors, such as conference rooms.
"This [our] application is a visual aid for helping control intelligent lighting, but the framework can be used for any other type of business. The front-end software is a lightweight viewer that runs in any browser -- Android, iOS, any browser, even on older versions of browsers. It is a graphical canvas that at the back end allows us to import bitmaps, PDFs, and CAD files to show whatever is needed.
http://www.tailormade.com |
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Remember Business Advantage? They're the research agency out of London and San Francisco who provided those eye-opening survey results I reported on in "The State of the MCAD Industry in 2015," upFront.Zine #874. They are now conducting their next global CAD trends survey.
To start the survey, click http://5.79.25.7/Surveys/0009/0009_Survey.php. The survey takes 10 minutes. Business Advantage offers to provide a summary of the results for all those who take part in the survey (CAD vendor staff excluded). You are entered for a prize draw and a chance to win an iPad mini. |
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Read the blog at WorldCAD Access as I write more about the CAD industry, and give tips on using hardware and software. You can also keep up with the blog through RSS feeds and email alerts.
I'm also on Twitter at @upfrontezine throughout the day with late-breaking CAD news and wry commentary, such as....
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Nov 20: "Autodesk Faces Topline Trouble in Earnings" -- 24/7WallSt. I predicted this a year ago due to ADSK's intolerance of perpetual licenses.
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Nov 20: The more Autodesk cuts customers from perpetual licenses, the lower their revenue. Everyone who wants a subscription already has one.
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Nov 20: Carl Bass: "Traditional P&L metrics like revenue...were driven by slightly more perpetual license sales than expected." OTOH... ..."Metrics like billings and total subscription additions were below our expectations [for Q3]."
upFront.eZine (@upFronteZine) Nov 20: "As a reminder, we'll stop selling new perpetual licenses for individual products on Feb 1 & most of the rest of the products August 1st." |
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Or you can mail a cheque (US$ or CDN$ only, please) to upFront.eZine Publishing, Ltd., 34486 Donlyn Avenue, Abbotsford BC, V2S 4W7, Canada |
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Re: When the Result of CAD is Failure
Reading your posts and articles I came to a conclusion that you would be a guy who can put some dents in certain subjects that all of us, who are using CAD software, have been thinking about or having problems with.
From almost day one I had many problems with hatching using AutoCAD. And from 90s till today there are still problems and errors, glitches. I am not sure how come that Autodesk never came out with a good hatching tool for all these years. I have no such problems when I use Bricscad and that just makes me more frustrating when I go back to AutoCAD.
Anyhow, that is what I wanted to say -- and I feel a little better now. Cheers!
- Neb Radojkovic
The editor replies: Hatching manually used to be the toughest drafting job, even worse than lettering. Sad when a computer does it more poorly than us with our straightedges!
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BCAD USA @bcadusa Nov 23: CAD is a great tool but engineers still need to THINK! Another thoughtful post by RG. @bricscad
- via Twitter
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You said, 'It is unwise to upgrade CAD systems during projects; always keep using the old system until the deliverables are complete'.
During the keynote address at SolidWorks World several years ago, it was blithely announced that a future release of SolidWorks would not be available as a stand-alone installation, but would only be available through Web servers, with a big advantage being that users would always be running the current release without having to go through the hassles of installing updates.
The silence from the audience was deafening. During one-on-one interviews later with company executives, they asked me why users didn't like this. My answer was almost word-for-word the same as your quote.
I went on to suggest that users would not want to arrive at work a day or three before the final delivery date of a major design project, only to be faced with a new interface and new file format.
- Bill Fane
The editor replies: I read an another CAD exec (I don't recall who) excitedly say the same thing. He's looking forward to all his CAD users being on the same release, because that would make things (like support and patches) so much easier for his company.
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The first example of the smoke exhaust has nothing to do with CAD and everything to do with engineering. The second example doesn’t make sense because making a radius larger will shorten the length of the wire, will it not? The third example with Saw Stop has nothing to do with CAD failing; many people have bought those so they can keep their fingers. I looked on Design Engineering’s website to see if the original article had more information but I could not find the article on their site.
- Kent Elrod
The editor replies: I consider simulation as part of CAD. As for Design Engineering, they had a change of ownership recently, and so things may be falling through the cracks.
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I think that's backwards: greater bend radius requires less actual length. But not really important.
As for aircraft drawings being readable for 50 years, this doesn't only apply to aircraft. It applies to anything that has a longer half-life than a cellphone. For my money, it applies to anything with a longer half-life than a tuna sandwich. There is a lot of machinery in the world that is expected to last decades.
We publish all of our drawings in PDF format, which we hope will be readable forever. We WISH we could count on CAD data being useable for decades, but don't have much hope of that actually happening.
- Jess Davis
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KnowledgeSmart @KnowledgeSmart Nov 24: Loving this article from Ralph Grabowski @upFronteZine on when the result of #CAD is failure:http://tiny.cc/9qsp6x
- via Twitter
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Very interesting read. Thanx! IMO (from an end-user perspective), the element of CAD software which is at the heart of most of my errors is data management. By data management, I mean the way the developers manage every piece of meta data (or fail to do so).
By the time my projects reach completion, there's so much meta data invested into each and every file, that it requires a good program to manage it without the user having to go back to the beginning and re-check every piece of data to ensure it's all correct. This is especially true when changes are made after drawings are released.
Just think about it: If you change one part in a 1000-part general assembly, you have to track backwards every relationship of that ome part to the whole, and to every part/subassembly in between, which requires an enormous amount of extra work. Then you have to update your drawings to suit. WAY too much work. WAY big waste of time.
The more expensive programs do all that for you (like TEKLA does). That is what Autodesk and Solidworks should be doing. So, if software developers would focus on making their CAD products able to manage any piece of meta data, in any area it's used, with the same basic tools, which DO NOT require the CAD operator to have programming skills, I think a substantial % of errors would disappear.
There are many of these pesky little details which daily eat-up our lives, yet none of the mid-range modeler developers seem to care about fixing them.
- Chris
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What a FANTASTIC article! I have shared this all over the office and we are already beginning to look at what we need to do to move to a neutral output format for our [aircraft carrier] models and 2D drawings. Keep up the great work!
- Paul Hamor
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"You're a team player? That's nice. Do you have anything less generic?"
- @managerspeak on Twitter |
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