TeamDWF has RSS feeds

I was almost sure RSS feeds would be added when I found out that Randall Newton and also Martyn Day where behind the new site TeamDWF, "a specialty portal devoted to the use of Autodesk's DWF publishing technology for AEC, GIS, and manufacturing". Thanks to both a comment on RobiNZ CAD Blog and AECnews.com I now know more. Feed now subscribed using RSS Bandit. I'm looking forward to read more about DWF. As of now some older articles have been added so there is already a lot to read.

Technorati: DWF

Open Design Alliance supports DWG 2007

The Open Design Alliance (ODA) now have DWG 2007 (file format used in AutoCAD 2007 based products) support including Trusted DWG functionality. Evan Yares will probably let us know more. I wonder if ADT 2007 objects are supported yet.

Update 2006-09-12 - I read at AECnews.com that DWGdirect is released to all members supporting DWG 2007.

Technorati: Open Design Alliance, DWG, AutoCAD 2007, AutoCAD

Online remote backup service

I'm trying to find an online remote backup service. I found mozy and tried it a few days and so far I'm really happy about it.

It seems to be good priced. 2 GB of 100% free backup space and 30GB - $4.95/month.

Features I like are:

• Open/locked file support - I always have some files locked
• Block-level differential backup - this really speed up the backup transfer
• 128-bit SSL support (to secure your data during transport)
• 448-bit Blowfish encryption (to secure your data on our server)
• Continuous or scheduled backup options - I can have it running the backup several times during the day and no need for backup tapes, CD's or DVD's that I anyway will forget to take
• No restriction on how much to download except that the limited to a few times per month but I don't expect to need my backup that often

 

 

Screenshot of the Mozy configuration window. (click to close)

Please use the referral code VWW637 if you start using mozy and I'll get another 256MB of free backup space.

If you have other alternatives you like and would like to suggest please add a comment including reasons why you like it.

Technorati: backup

LSharp another Lisp alternative for .NET

LSharp is available on http://lsharp.sourceforge.net/

"L Sharp .NET is a powerful Lisp-like scripting language for .NET. It uses a Lisp dialect similar to Arc but tightly integrates with the .NET Framework which provides a rich set of libraries."

Via Rob Blackwell's blog

Technorati: Lisp, .NET, LSharp

ADT 2007 SP1 Beta

Tony Michniewicz at Autodesk confirms in the Discussion Groups "that a beta of the ADT service pack is now available, for details visit myfeedback.autodesk.com". All I can say at this point is that if you want to help out trying the beta for Architectural Desktop 2007 SP1 register at myfeedback.autodesk.com and select that you use ADT.

Technorati: ADT, Architectural Desktop, ADT 2007

More about TeamDWF

A new website TeamDWF has launched according to Beyond the Paper. My first though was, where's the feeds? My second though, if Autodesk is sponsoring, who is behind it. Looked pretty anonymous at first. A quick look and I found Randall Newton as the owner of the site. He is also Editor-In-Chief for AECnews.com. I also recognized some articles like Q&A with Autodesk's Amar Hanspal that was published first in AUGI HotNews. What's your thoughts?

Technorati: DWF

AutoCAD 2007 SP1 released

Now you have hardly no excuse to not install AutoCAD 2007. AutoCAD is now more stable than ever. Based on my experience of SP1 my recommendation is: INSTALL IT.

Via Shaan Hurley, Autodesk.

AutoCAD 2007 Service Pack 1

AutoCAD LT 2007 Service Pack 1

AutoCAD 2007 Service Pack 1 for Autodesk AutoCAD Revit Series 9.x

The problems fixed I like most are:

Intellimouse scrolling with ZOOMWHEEL set to 1 now works as expected when in Orbit modes.

3DORBIT performance has been improved.

Constant reload of relative external references has been resolved.

A number of improvements made to use memory more efficiently.

Sheet Set Manager field evaluation has been improved to allow for significantly faster opening and publishing of the drawings.

Improvements made to allow editing of very large solid models.

Corrupted or zero-byte drawings no longer created when insufficient disk space conditions are detected.

Technorati: AutoCAD 2007

ObjectDCL for AutoCAD is open source

A time ago I mentioned that ObjectDCL (an interactive replacement of the DCL language for developing dialog boxes within AutoCAD using AutoLISP) was about to be open source and now it is.

364 files and 7740KB source code in C++ available right now at http://sourceforge.net/projects/objectdcl/

 

Technorati: AutoCAD, AutoLISP, ObjectDCL

FileDependancy object in AutoCAD

I will give Steve Dunn's free Code Formatter Plugin for Windows Live Writer a try here. This is really a great plugin. One problem I run into is that I'm not able to use the word wrapping. It looked OK in the Normal Layout but in the Web Layout it was not nice. The width was just a hand full characters and could not be resized. Another thing is if editing the code use CTRL+Enter to add a row since Enter will trigger the OK button.

Below is a modified VBA subroutine from AutoCAD developer documentation on the FileDependency object that can be used to see information about file references in a drawing. For example FullFileName will give the absolute path of a relative xref and IsModified will show if the file has been modified.

Sub Example_AcadFileDependencies()
    ' Note!
    ' The drawing has to be saved first to reflect
    '  recent changes to the file dependencies
    ' If you attach an xref and then run this code
    ' without saving the added xref will not show up
    ' If a modified xref has been reloaded and you
    ' run this code without saving it will show as modified
    ' Another way is to use UpdateEntry before as showed

    Dim objFDLCol As AutoCAD.AcadFileDependencies
    Dim objFDL As AutoCAD.AcadFileDependency
    
    Set objFDLCol = ThisDrawing.FileDependencies

    Dim strTemp As String
    For Each objFDL In objFDLCol
        If objFDL.Feature = "Acad:XRef" Then
            objFDLCol.UpdateEntry objFDL.Index
            strTemp = "FileName: " & vbTab & objFDL.FileName
            strTemp = strTemp & vbCrLf & "FileSize: " & vbTab & _
                vbTab & objFDL.FileSize
            strTemp = strTemp & vbCrLf & "FullFileName: " & _
                vbTab & objFDL.FullFileName
            strTemp = strTemp & vbCrLf & "Modified?: " & _
                vbTab & objFDL.IsModified
            MsgBox strTemp
        End If
    Next
End Sub

Update for Steve. Here is an image showing the problem in the Web Layout. The problem also showed up when published. In the normal view it's possible to adjust the width but it's a narrow column when published as well as in the web preview.

2006-08-26 Update again. I found out that "pre" had a fixed width in the blog template that gave this problem. pre{color:maroon;background:#e4e4e4; padding:5px; width:100px; font-size:85%;} When I removed the fixed width the problem disappeared.

tags: Windows+Live+Writer, VBA, AutoCAD, freeware

A new CADMAN+Tussilago cartoon strip

CADMAN+Tussilago home

Interested testing Autodesk Plant P&ID aka GuinnessBeta?

If you are interested testing the Beta for Autodesk Plant P&ID application take a look at Peter's comment in the previous post.

tags: Autodesk+Plant, P&ID

Autodesk Plant soon here

At Autodesk University 2006 there are several classes on Autodesk Plant. Seems like Peter Quinn, Derry Vaughan and the Autodesk team is getting close to a release of this new P&ID application.

PD11-1: Introduction to Autodesk® Plant: The New P&ID Solution from Autodesk

Learn how to use Autodesk Plant to draw intelligent Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) At the end of the session, you will understand how Autodesk Plant leverages standard AutoCAD productivity tools with user-customizable symbols to quickly and easily create and edit drawings in a way not possible using base AutoCAD...

PD12-1: Getting More from Autodesk® Plant: Reports, Leveraging External Databases, & Change Control

Most companies need to reuse and distribute the information on the P&IDs to other departments and engineering disciplines This class will show you how to create company-specific project reports that can be automatically generated from the information contained on the drawings...

PD13-1: Autodesk® Plant P&ID Project Setup and Customization: Managing Projects and Creating New Project Standards

Learn how to customize Autodesk Plant to suit your own company standards You will receive detailed step-by-step instructions on how to configure Autodesk Plant to suit your own company or site standards...

PD25-1L: A Quick Spin on the New Autodesk® Plant

We invite your input to help refine the user experience of Autodesk Plant, Autodesk’s new product for P&IDs...

tags: Autodesk+Plant, P&ID

Update based on Peter's comment below.

Visual Studio NET 2003 Service Pack 1

I'm not using 2003 much nowadays, 2005 is so much better, but I installed SP1 anyway that was recently released.

The extensive list of bugs that are fixed in Visual Studio NET 2003 Service Pack 1.

tags: Visual+Studio

Fractals with Lisp

I've always been interested in fractal theory, math and art so I was happy seeing this AutoLISP code available on TheSwamp to do it in AutoCAD too. CHEN QING JUN at http://autolisper.googlepages.com also have other interesting AutoLISP routines.

tags: AutoLISP, AutoCAD, math