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Archive for March, 2009

What’s New in Autodesk Inventor 2010

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Introducing Autodesk Inventor 2010. Over the last few months I have been working with Autodesk Inventor 2010 and I can honestly say that this release is huge. It contains many enhancements that will make you more productive. A few of my favorite enhancements include:

· Ribbon Interface - The user interface now uses a ribbon similar to Office 2007. With a little bit of experience I have found the ribbon interface to be much easier to navigate.

· Sketch blocks – a great way to do 2D layouts and you can convert these blocks to part files.

· Multi-Body solids – You can now model multiple solids in one part or break a part into multiple bodies and then exports the solids to individual part files.

· Plastic features – You can easily create plastic features such as grills, bosses and lips. If you create plastic parts this is a must see.

· Shrinkwrap – guides you through the process of removing detail from an assembly. A great tool to help protect your intellectual property for files that are sent outside your company.

· Sheet metal – now supports lofted shapes and contour rolls.

· Bill of Materials – functions more like Excel

· Inventor Professional now supports FEA at the assembly level.

To see What’s New in Autodesk Inventor 2010 software please attend one of our launch seminars in late April / early May at the following locations.

  • Tuesday, April 21st – Waukesha, WI
  • Wednesday, April 22nd – Madison, WI
  • Thursday, April 23rd – Minneapolis, MN
  • Tuesday, April 28th – Rolling Meadows, IL
  • Wednesday, April 29th – Green Bay, WI
  • Thursday, April 30th – Wausau, WI
  • Wednesday, May 6th – La Crosse, WI

To register for one of these free events go to: www.mastergraphics.com/launch

Hope to see you at one of our events.

Dan Banach

Posted in Manufacturing | No Comments »

Standards and Layers Made Easy

Friday, March 27th, 2009

-by Colleen Klein

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could add dimensions, hatch, centerline, viewports and other objects without having to change layers? I know you can do it with customizing but what about right out of the box?

 What if no one in my company had to maintain it, and update it, and it was just simply there?

It is.  AutoCAD Mechanical is built on the basic premise of when the user is busy working the standards should already be built in for them.  I would use AutoCAD Mechanical for just the automatic layer automation if for nothing else. Not to say that there isn’t more, much more. AutoCAD Mechanical has an entire smorgasbord of fantastic tools for the mechanical users.

Mechanical or not, the built in layers and standards are a tool that can be used by anyone.  It’s as easy as just changing the layer names or assigning your layers.

Posted in General, Manufacturing | No Comments »

Fielding Title Blocks in AutoCAD

Friday, March 27th, 2009

-by Colleen Klein

When making title blocks I find that I no longer want to depend entirely on the old attribute methods. Attributes alone are so manual and tedious to enter, especially when I don’t have to do it.

Now, I use FIELDS. They came into play in AutoCAD 2005 and has been making a positive impact for companies who embrace it. FIELDS can be used with attributes or with text inside of a title block.

FIELDS provide more control in title blocks. The best example of this is that when a FIELD is used in text inside the title block, the users can’t double click on it to edit it. That results in users being less likely to accidently over-write information.

A FIELD is smart text that you place into your drawing that can automatically read information about your drawing. The cool thing about it is that when you change the drawing information the text is automatically updated. I love automatic stuff because it saves time and improves accuracy.

Here are the types of smart information that can be directly read from the FIELD:

  • Date information: you can add the current date, or add a dynamically changing date of when it was last plotted or the date that it was last saved.
  • Document information: include the file name and location so you can further identify it. Add the file size, subject line, or drawing title. You can take any of the FIELDS taken directly from the Properties Dialog box.
  • Object information: you can add Information about named objects or objects in the drawing such as the size, length, or total area.
  • System variables, Hyperlinks and Equations can be added with FIELDS.
  • Plot information: you can make your own plot stamp using the page setup name, login name, paper size and orientation. If you modify it, the information will always stay current.
  • Sheet Set information can be included but you don’t have to use Sheet Sets in order to use FIELDS.

There are other reasons I’m using FIELDS in title blocks. FIELDS can help prepare drawings for a smoother workflow into the document management world or other file tracking programs.

The last great reason to consider using FIELDS in title block is the use of FILEDS across multiple tabs, and in multiple title blocks.  Your users can change the information once in the Properties Dialog box and have it read everywhere you placed the FIELD.

Adding FIELDS to a title block is simple, powerful, and it’s easy to use. The end user simply fills in the Drawing Properties and saves the file.  

It’s so easy that even I can do it!

Posted in General | No Comments »

Rendering in Revit MEP 2009

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Speaking with some electrical engineering clients within the past year, a few issues have come up during the rendering process in Revit MEP 2009.  These problems are more prevalent when an electrical engineer has linked in the architectural model, rather than opening the archtiectural model in Revit MEP (linking in the architectural model is the recommended process).   

When the client places a light fixture, the fixture is brought in upside down.  This completely removes the ability to render the model.  Clients can repair this dilemma in two ways:

  1. Make sure Web Update #3 has been downloaded. 
  2. Verify with the architect that they are using compound ceilings, not basic ceilings. 

I also tested different light fixtures within the rendering process.  I used 2×4 Light Fixtures, Downlights and Wall Sconces.  I grouped each Light Fixture Type together.  I turned off each Light Group and rendered the room 3 different times.  The end result?  At this time, Downlights will not cut through a linked in ceiling; the rendering will be incorrect.  The other two types work correctly.  Autodesk development is looking into the situation.

-Adrianna Slusarenko

Posted in Building / AEC | No Comments »

Autodesk Launches Ecotect Analysis

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Did you know, in the United States, buildings cotribute to almost 40% of the total greenhouse gas emissions?  Autodesk is dedicated to assisting architects and engineers in creating sustainable buildings, providing the ability to produce more efficient and earth friendly structures to imrove our world’s carbon footprint. 

Autodesk has just launched its sustainable design analysis solution, Autodesk Ecotect Anaysis 2010.  Using both a desktop and web-service platform, create more efficient building designs with lower lifetime energy costs.  The web-service is only available if the client is on subscription, using Green Building Studios. 

To learn more, including Frequently Asked Questions, a list of Features, or Subsciption benefits, visit Autodesk’s website on Ecotect Analysis. 

If you simply want to learn a bit more about the workflow of the solution, select the link below to watch a video created by Autodesk:

Carbon Neutral Design

-Adrianna Slusarenko

Posted in Building / AEC | No Comments »

Inventor Models in 3ds Max

Friday, March 27th, 2009

I spend quite a bit of time working with Inventor files in 3ds Max and it is truly a love/ disappointment relationship.  I love the overall quality of models that I can import and the ease with which I can handle them and produce high quality renderings.  But, I’m disappointed at some of the aspects of handling them. The Architectural materials are poor and operations that I can normally do with ease in 3ds Max just cannot be done with models imported from Inventor, things like Boolean or ProBoolean operations.

The reason for these problems stem from the way that 3ds Max imports the Inventor model.  Upon import, you are left with an editable mesh object.  This is not necessarily bad, but most of us use editable poly because it has more powerful tools.  It is a quick and simple fix to convert them to editable poly to gain the power of that toolset.  In either format, a little examination reveals that each distinct feature from Inventor comes through as its own element within 3ds Max.  This is great because you can then quickly select a bunch of elements and apply materials to them.  It is also a drag if you decide to use the Split command to get around being unable to Boolean a part as you now have to split each individual element.  The work around, of course, is to weld all of the vertices.  Just remember to set the weld threshold very low, around .001” or so, and be aware that you’ll have to redo your smoothing when you are done with the welding.  Once you have split it, you can use the border selection with the Cap command to heal the holes, but only if you are using an editable poly.

As mentioned earlier, the Architectural materials aren’t very good and they also weren’t designed to work with mental ray.  In addition to the materials coming through as Architectural, you also get a copy of each material for each part, leaving you with a ton of duplicates.  This could number into the hundreds depending on the number of parts in the assembly.  First, you need to widow out the duplicates to get the materials down to a reasonable number.  The next step is to convert them to a more usable type, like Arch & Design, ProMaterial or the Car Paint Shader.   You can do this manually, material by material, or you can get Zap Anderson’s script to do this for you.  Either way, you’ll still end up tweaking the material.

In general, I think the import process is pretty good although there a few things I’d like to see improved, such as better control over hole and tapped hole features and removing the material by part duplicity.  For now, these are just annoyances and not likely to stop anyone from fully developing a model into  a rendered image.

Stephen Gabriel ACI

Senior Application Engineer - Design Visualization

Posted in Visualization | No Comments »

Commands to Know: OSNAPZ and eTransmit

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

If I ever quit my day job to become a rapper, my stage name shall be OSNAPZ. Besides being a fly gangsta’ name, OSNAPZ is an AutoCAD variable which determines whether or not Z is included when using object snaps. When the OSNAPZ variable is set to 0(default) Z is picked up with object snaps. This can be problematic when placing pipe networks in a Civil 3D drawing, since usually you want Z to come from a surface. It also affects 3D Polylines and Feature Line creation. Setting OSNAPZ to 1 will tell AutoCAD to ignore the elevation of the object you are snapping to. It will use the XY location, but Z will be your active CAD elevation (which 99.999% of the time = 0) or in the case of placing pipe networks - it allows Civil 3D to use the surface for the rim elevation of structures.

——————————————————————————–

eTransmit is a beautiful, beautiful command that is shockingly underutilized.

Say, I have a Civil 3D drawing that I want to send to a colleague or a tech support person, and I want that person to see exactly what I see.

eTransmit picks up the drawing, XREFS, attached raster images, color tables and data shortcuts to package up in a neat little zip file. You can even create a transmittal that will automatically explode and save down the civil drawings to an older base AutoCAD format.

In Civil 3D 2009 go to File > eTransmit.

In Civil 3D 2010 go to menu browser Send >
eTransmit.

Happy Transmittals!

-Lou

Posted in Civil, General | No Comments »

Freewheelin’

Friday, March 6th, 2009

Autodesk Labs is a website where end users can see what’s cooking in Autodesk development. Many of the cool/fun/weird things you’ll find in Autodesk Labs ultimately get incorporated into existing products (such as Google Earth extension) while others end up as stand alone tools.

Project Freewheel is a way to view DWF files from your web browser - there’s even a mobile version.

With the ShareNOWplug-in for AutoCAD (or any vertical) you get a button in CAD that will publish your DWF, upload it to the Freewheel website and launch your project in your browser in one fell swoop.

-Louisa “Lou” Holland

Posted in Building / AEC, Civil, General, Manufacturing, Visualization | No Comments »

Visualizing Civil Projects

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

  

For years architects and artists have teamed up to help their clients understand how the building they are designing will look upon completion.  Civil projects often impact more people yet rarely do engineers or designers utilize visualization tools to convey the final aesthetic.

My good friend and colleague Steve Gabriel and I recently had the opportunity to share our work flow for getting Civil 3D data into 3Ds Max.   We presented this video and our experiences at the annual WLIA conference.

First I started out on the Civil 3D side of things.  I had existing contours for my site, a design alignment and an assembly (or typical cross-section).  At first I thought LandXML was the way to go to export data into 3DsMax - however, when Steve imported the LandXML, file the final surface looked “choppy.”  Instead, we opted to export the Civil 3D contours as AutoCAD polylines at elevation. The smaller the contour interval in Civil 3D, the smoother the surface looked in Max. 

The corridor also was not smooth using the LandXML.  There was segmentation caused by the way frequency lines are used to create the corridor in Civil 3D.  Instead, Steve used my alignment and assembly to re-extrude the cross-section along the road.  The result was the smooth, fluid looking corridor that you can see in the video and image above.

Steve created the bridge in base Autocad using 3D solid primitives for the piers, decking, and cables.  After inserting the bridge in the correct location in Max he was ready to make it realistic.

Next, Steve did his magic in 3Ds Max.  He applied materials, added lighting and inserted entourage items such as trees and water.  After the scene was set up, Steve used Max to create several animations.  He created a construction timeline animation and an animation showing what it would be like to cross the bridge in a vehicle.  The final animation for the presentation took more than 30 hours of processing time on the MasterGraphics render farm.   

After several animations and renderings were completed, Steve took the project into Combustion for some final touches.  Here he stitched together the animations and renderings into one, cohesive video. 

Take a look at the fruits of our (mostly Steve’s) labor in this WMV file here. (Requires Windows Media Player)

 Enjoy!

-Louisa “Lou” Holland

 

Posted in Civil, Visualization | No Comments »