MasterGraphics Weblog

Archive for August, 2009

Software, Software and more Software

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Autodesk has been rather busy this month with updates and releases across the board for the M&E world.

This month we received new releases of many packages like Maya 2010, Mudbox 2010, and MotionBuilder 2010. All of these products have received a variety of updates ranging from a new look to the interface to powerful new tools. Maya sports an enhanced interface for working with compositing workflows found commonly through out the visualization and media industries and is now even available bundled with Toxik, an Autodesk compositing package. (This of course leaves all of the 3ds Max users envious as we’d love to get our hands on Toxik as well). Autodesk also announced new releases to Softimage XSi that will be available later this year. For those on subscription, the software ships automatically or if you are in a hurry, you can download it from the Autodesk subscription website.

Speaking of subscription, everyone always wants to know what makes it worthwhile. Last January, subscribers were treated to a free download of CAT for 3ds Max, a character animation plugin originally from the folks at Softimage (now Autodesk). The tool was very well received and provides a lot of functionality that was not present before as well as making the tools easier and more powerful. Not to be outdone by themselves, Autodesk has released another tool for 3ds Max subscribers, the Connection Extension.

The Connection Extension offers three areas of enhancement; enchanced OpenEXRs, SketchUp imports and Step (.sat) support. The enhancements to OpenEXRs allows us to open images with unlimited layers for more control and better compositing results. This will strongly appeal to anyone hip deep in the compositing of rendered images and I think it will become more broadly used across the visualization industry as more people become familiar with the technology and how it can improve the workflow. The inclusion of the SketchUp importer is one of those “about time” moments. Now artists can re-use the designers data instead of re-building it and the importer can even help eliminate all of those co-planar faces that we all love to hate. And last is the Step importer. This is in all reality the Npower translator that allows us to directly open .sat files. This is extremely useful in the visualization world as almost every CAD and design package worth its weight can read and write .sat. No more translators for SolidWorks, ProE or Catia files. Not only does Max now open Step format files, it can retain the intelligence inside the software and allow us to export out models that can be then manipulated in CAD. This is a huge benefit for anyone involved in the design and visualization industries, allowing us to import CAD models, change them and then export them back out for the engineers to use with our changes intact.

Just to make sure you didn’t think they were letting the development teams sit around, Autodesk also release SP1 to 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design. It fixed a number of annoying bugs and has helped with some of the speed issues people were experiencing. I’ve been running it for about 3 weeks now with no problems and I’d say load it up if you haven’t already.

Lastly, for those of you on subscription, the Autodesk subscription site now has downloadable full versions of ImageModeler and MatchMover. ImageModeler helps you build a 3D model of existing structures from photographs and is very useful for doing design studies and presentations of urban environments. MatchMover is used to match video motion for compositing renderings into live footage. This is rather useful for anyone in the media or architectural visualization worlds for compositing drive bys and fly overs.

Well, that was the month of August in software terms from 20k feet and it was indeed a busy one of that. I’ll catch you later, I’ve got new software to load and learn!

Stephen

Posted in General | No Comments »

M&E in the Education Market

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

This has been a very busy summer in the M&E world with an MG record breaking 5 classes in July alone. I’ve been teaching a lot of Max and even Maya this summer with some people from the industry but the bulk came from the Milwaukee Public School district. The adminstration has put an emphasis on the renderind and animation programs at the schools and the teachers that attended did very well in class and asked a host of great questions.

With classes in both applications under their belts, the teachers had some interesting insights regarding the software. The found both packages to be extremely powerful, limited more by your imagination than what you could or could not do with the software. In general, they found 3ds Max was easier to learn and use out of the box than Maya was. This is a reflection of Maya being a pipeline based software where many tools are written based on specific requirements of the project.

It was interesting as well to work with teachers from different areas. Typically, we only see teachers from the CAD end of the curriculum but in these classes, we had teachers from the arts end of the curriculum as well. I think this is important because this software is so much more than just design visualization and gives the user the ability to freely express themselves.

All of the teachers were interested in more resources and most were already on the Autodesk Student Portal. We discussed the creation of a group oriented specifically to educators in the rendering and animation field and we will hopefully see something come to fruition this fall. Connected to this topic, we discussed the creation of an inter-school competition on animation to give the students who want more the opportunity to explore a project from cradle to grave.

It was indeed an interesting and busy summer here but it was also a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to seeing how far the school system carries their new programs.

Stephen Gabriel

Senior Application Engineer - M&E

Posted in Visualization | No Comments »

Autodesk Inventor 2010 Service Pack 1

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

By, Dan Banach
Service pack 1 for Autodesk Inventor 2010 is available at: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13713884&linkID=9242019
There is a readme file on the site that describes the issues that this service pack addresses.
Make sure to download the correct version - 32 bit or 64 bit.

Posted in Manufacturing | No Comments »

AutoCAD 2010 Service Pack 1 Available

Monday, August 24th, 2009

By: Dwane Lindsey

The first service pack for AutoCAD 2010 was released on Aug. 19. You can download the service pack HERE .

Make sure to read the Readme and also make sure you download the correct exe file as there is one for 32bit installs (autocad2010update1.exe) and one for 64bit installs (autocad2010update1×64.exe).

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3DConnexion Device Can Cause Inventor to Crash

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

By, Dan Banach

If you are running a version of Autodesk Inventor 2010 and 3DConnexion device you may experience intermittent crashes. After you’ve actively used the 3D mouse for a period of 10 to 20 minutes, moving the 2D mouse over the Ribbon can cause Inventor to terminate. Learn more about this issue at:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=13647537&linkID=9242018

The issue can be fixed by installing an updated 3DConnexion driver located at:
http://3dconnexion.com/support/downloads.php

Posted in Manufacturing | No Comments »

Autodesk Trial Periods Vary with Products

Monday, August 10th, 2009

By: Dwane Lindsey

Over the past few months, especially when the new products come out, we always get people asking how long the trial period is for the product they just installed. And too many times, we get the call that "my trial has ended, can I extend it?!". Well, the extension can’t be done. You can however install the trial on as many computers as you would like…once. As soon as the trial period is up, that’s all you get.

As for the length, well that varies between products. For the most part, the majority of the Autodesk products are 30 days from installation. This includes AutoCAD based products (AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD Electrical, Civil 3D, etc.), Inventor products, Navisworks products and many of the Visualization products like 3ds Max, Maya and Mudbox. (Combustion however, is a 15 day trial after install.)

The Revit line however is a little different…it’s still 30 days, but not from install. It’s not even 30 days on the calendar. Revit products work in the manner of 30 "days" of usage. What this really means is that if you open Revit for the first time on Aug. 10, that counts as 1 day no matter if you open it once or 10 times that day. If you don’t open the product again until Aug. 14, that only counts as 2 days…again, no matter how many times you open it on that day. So if you rarely open the product, that 30 days could last you quite a while.

If you have any questions on the length of a trial, please don’t hesitate giving your account manager at MasterGraphics a call. Or, give our support line a call at 1-800-377-6364.

Posted in Building / AEC, Civil, General, Manufacturing, Visualization | 2 Comments »

Civil 3D 2010 Service Pack 1

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Civil 3D 2010 Service Pack 1 that has been released. I’ve been impressed with how solid Civil 3D 2010 has been on its own, but this will address a lot of minor issues. Of course, those issues aren’t minor when you run into them! You might want to peruse the readme file before installing. That’s always a good idea to know what you are getting.

I did want to point out something about the service pack page at Autodesk’s website. While the link posted here goes directly to the proper update page, if you were to browse out manually you may get a confusing result. There is now a product called Civil (notice no “3D” suffix). This is a stripped down version of Civil 3D, missing the Map tools, and Hydraflow extensions. The service packs for Civil appear above the service packs for Civil 3d, but their names are so similar that it is easy to grab the wrong one. If you do attempt to install a service pack and get a message that you don’t have the proper software loaded, check which service pack you downloaded. Pretty easy to do, but pretty easy to fix as well.

I should include the link for those of you who may already be using the Civil 2010 product. Just make sure you click on the right one!

Posted in Building / AEC, Civil | No Comments »