RobiNZ CAD Blog

Autodesk Ecotect?!

The Green Building Studio announcement was expected but I was surprised to see* news of the Ecotect acquisition. Apart from a couple of sessions at AU2007 I haven’t seen much of Ecotect. I haven’t used it but those I know who have are struck by it’s impressive visualisation.

To date my role in building energy studies has been as a modeller (using Revit MEP) with the analysis left to those best qualified to interpret the data. However the audience for all this was a building owner/operator. With the sophisticated modelling available communicating the results seemed more of a challenge than generating them.

Since the whole business of building performance modelling is new to many anything that helps create better solutions AND communicate them is welcomed. It will be interesting to see these develop as they are merged into the Autodesk BIM family. A “green post” to match my current, coincidental, green banner image.

Autodesk Enhances Sustainable Design Capabilities With Acquisitions of Ecotect and Green Building Studio Analysis Tools - Autodesk - Press Releases

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As part of its on-going commitment to support the practice of sustainable design and green building in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries, Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced two acquisitions to improve building performance analysis in the building information modeling (BIM) process.

Autodesk announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets related to the Ecotect software tools for conceptual building performance analysis from both Square One Research Ltd. and Dr. Andrew Marsh. Autodesk also announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of Green Building Studio, Inc., a provider of web-based whole building energy, water and carbon-emission analysis software…

Related Links: 

• Sid Thoo’s introduction to Ecotect at AECbytes
• Autodesk Green Building Studio - www.autodesk.com/greenbuildingstudio
• Autodesk Ecotect is currently at www.squ1.com
• GreenBuild New Zealand – www.greenbuild.co.nz/

* I read this first at TenLinks.com

Tags: ecotect

My problems with CTRL+CLICK selection in scripted web applications cured!

Do you run NVIDIA graphics drivers and have a problem CTRL selecting multiple items in scripted web applications?

This is used for multiple categories in the TypePad Compose Category pop-up and had me stumped. I couldn’t select them and trying just triggered a new browser window. Single click selection or SHIFT+Selection of a range worked as expected.

I mucked around for ages with scripting settings in the Browser & ZoneAlarm with no joy. Then I found this suggestion from Dan on the IE Discussion Group and it worked. I’ve made a graphic version for those not familiar with msconfig. Thanks Dan!

CTRL CLICK Problem in IE7 microsoft.public.internetexplorer.general
Oh, I did find one reference to this occurring even with all add-ons disabled in respect of using multiple monitors with an nVidia graphics card, it seems that the nVidia drivers hook the Ctrl+left click handling to deal with allowing windows to be opened on a different monitor than the one IE is on. You can disable this by removing the following line in the system startup using msconfig.exe

rundll32.exe nview.dll,nViewLoadHook

However, this will disable all nVidia key shortcuts.
Dan

Tags: TypePad

A word cloud resume?

I took the “About” page from my blog and pasted it into Wordle - http://wordle.net/. It creates word clouds which give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently.

I must admit some of the results surprised me! Maybe it’s the ultimate graphic for my two link resume

AutoCAD Architecture or MEP disappears when opening project?

Ever had AutoCAD Architecture/MEP just "disappear" when opening project? It’s not a fatal error, not a crash, but the main window and task bar button is gone. Floating toolbars, Palettes and other UI items may still be displayed and work normally (even the command line). The reason is a valid acad.exe process is still visible in Task Manager. It’s gone, but it’s there, but it’s gone!

From my investigation this happens in ACA/AMEP 2008/2009 (see this Discussion Group thread) and the cause seems to be corrupt Project Profile settings. If you shutdown the application and delete the problem config file normal behaviour is restored.

You can shut down with the command line, using "exit", if it’s still visible and you'll be prompted to save any unsaved work. If the command line not visible select something which is, to give the invisible application focus, then try Control+Q to exit AutoCAD. If none of that works right click and end acad.exe in Task Manager (CTRL+Shift+Esc).

Delete your personal ProjectProfiles .aws file. These are re-built after deletion but you will loose project specific customisation. Open this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\[LOGON]\Application Data\Autodesk\[APPLICATION_NAME]\enu\Support\Profiles\ProjectProfiles

You can delete all or just delete the problem project.aws. To find that open them with Notepad. The "Name=" section shows which project has generated the .aws. Once that’s done launch ACA/AMEP with a full user interface again!

The paradox of ActiveWords

Today, wanting to find some info on an application, I tapped 3dmn into my computer. To my annoyance my browser did not launch, it did not navigate to the Autodesk 3ds Max site ready for action.

The reason was rather obvious… until recently I only used Viz so hadn’t set up any ActiveWords for Max yet!

That could be fixed in a few seconds. I got the permalink* – http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax – from the Autodesk site (source these links from the alphabetical product list), made a “Navigate” ActiveWord. While I was there I made a “3ds Max” word, 3dmf, and that permalink is just 3dmu. I’ll never type “3ds Max”, manually browse to the Max site or have to find & copy/paste that URL ever again!

Tonight I came across a link to this post, by Martin L. Korn MD, on how this “simple little program” transforms your computing experience. ActiveWords is so integral to mine I only notice when it’s not there!

ActiveWords – A Paradox of Excellence – Systems11 Consulting

“In the exploding information age, all professions and businesses are faced with the task of accessing and integrating as much data and information as quickly as possible. ActiveWords clearly can help enormously in this regard.”

Via buzznovation

* The only reason I had to copy paste the Autodesk URL is they never use it on their site. The permalinks alway link to a regional content management URL which can change when the site changes.

What do you think?

I’ve made a couple of changes to the site & wonder if anyone has noticed?

• Navigation Bar: TypePad have added the “Navigation Bar” which sits below the banner. I’ve currently got links to my other blogs, photos etc.
• Have you noticed, have you used it?
• Talkr audio: Talkr was turning my posts into an audio feed by machine reading them. It appears to have vanished which is a pity as it did a remarkable job.
• Was anyone using them, should I bother setting up another “machine read podcast” feed?
• I suppose I could read them myself but most of the world wouldn’t understand Nu Zild*.

* Kiwis do speak English but I’ve been told it’s a slurred rounded vowel rapid mumble often mis-understood by other English speakers. Even by our nearest neighbours, Aussie, who speak something like English think we have a strange accent, bizarre eh!

Tags: talkr, TypePad

A known issues blog for TypePad

OK, this post for me and other readers with TypePad blogs. There is a blog (and feed) with “TypePad Known Issues”(and resolutions) to refer to before you report unknown issues!.

Known Issues for TypePad - http://everything.typepad.com/knownissues/
Updates from the TypePad team about bugs and open issues that affect a large number of TypePad accounts

Six Apart are/have been doing some major infrastructure work on TypePad which must be fun when you have a large user base, always live*. It hasn’t been without problems but, hopefully, will result in a better TypePad. My tip for any blog platform is to use an off-line post editor as it insulates you from many performance hiccups. Should anything go wrong while posting you have a local copy to repost with just a click.

All this talk of known and unknown reminds me of Donald Rumsfeld’s:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

— Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing  – via Slate, where there are more!

* Our IT team have been virtualising servers. Today they helped change the license server for CAD and a few related applications so transitioning “live” systems has been on my mind too!

Italdesign @ 33

Automotive.com have a great article celebrating Italdesign’s 33^rd Anniversary. They feature a range of concept and production cars, both exotic and everyday. Italdesign excel at both, as seen in my photo below! 

Italdesign Giugiaro | European Car Magazine Article at Automotive.com
Thirty years marks a generation. For most of us, that's how long it takes just to grow up, tame our wild oats, settle down and start doing something productive. Few of us make much of a mark in so little time. Giorgio Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani, on the other hand, have made an indelible mark on our automotive generation--first separately, then together as Italdesign, all in the 33 years since the company was born in 1968…

Tags: italdesign

Did you notice, I didn't!

Since it likely happened while I was at work I had no hint of any TypePad problems today. I found an email, as per the post below, I in my Inbox tonight. If you experienced any hiccups today, sorry!

Everything TypePad: Update from TypePad's CEO
This morning you may have experienced some downtime on TypePad. We know you rely on us to provide superior service and performance, and this morning we let you down. …

Posted from a cloud

I’m trying  as part of my blog authoring process and so far it’s working fine!

Welcome To Live Mesh - The Live Mesh Blog

Tags: live+mesh

SnagIt 9 - the ribbon edition!

When I saw Betsy’s post this morning I just had to try the new SnagIt. Although only about 20mb it took a couple of hours to download which either meant our net connection was sluggish (most likely) or the TechSmith servers were very busy!

On install the most striking feature is the “ribboned” Fluent UI, seen below*, which makes extensive use of tabs & galleries. It appears,like AutoCAD 2009 but unlike Office 2007, it’s any colour you like as long as it’s black/grey!

I’ve only used it for a couple of hours but I’m already finding the most useful new feature is how it auto-saves captures and allows you to retrieve them from the library (panel on the right) in a click. Combined with the new “multi-capture” feature –  work on or combine several snags at once – it greatly simplifies working on more complex composite images.

If you’re an existing user there are upgrade offers at the SnagIt site, they’ve already sold one! 

Meet SnagIt 9 - New Release! (Visual Lounge)

Try SnagIt for free or upgrade to SnagIt 9 – http://www.techsmith.com/snagit

* If you're wondering how I captured SnagIt which disappears when you print screen? It's a SnagIt capture of a Camtasia recording of SnagIt doing a capture!

What time is it, not subscription time?

Having just wasted some money on the new(er) toy I arrived home to an email warning my CAD subscription was expiring soon. I read it thinking “They send that early, it’s not for months!” until I saw the date: 9^th July!

I know time flies, it’s June already, but surely it’s not subscription time? Why hadn’t Outlook or Quicken popped up the reminders I’ve set in them?

Then I remembered, it’s a US date*, 9^th September… that’s better, not so soon!

* New Zealand uses dd/mm/yyyy format

SnagIt for software support

SnagIt is a great tool for authoring support documents, a screen capture is worth a zillion words, but it’s also a useful tool for capturing software problems for analysis. To coin a term(?), SnagIT Support!.

Last week I had a problem with MindManager’s synchronise to Outlook Tasks failing on one topic/task (of about 450). It’s a vital part of  how I use MindManager & Outlook so I needed a fix. MindManager displays the task names as they synchronise but too rapidly to read. The tasks are blurred in the Camtasia capture below but the speed is real-time!

If I could see which task failed I’d be able to check the map topic & maybe resolve the problem. I captured the sync, with the SnagIt video mode, then stepped frame by frame to the last topic. Looking at it in the map I found a corrupted date (somehow I’d made a start after due) which was the probable cause. To be safe I removed and re-added all the task related data on the topic. This resolved the problem and now sync'ing is working fine. Without Snagit tracking down that error and resolving it would have been near impossible!

I thought this might make a great “how to” post but Kathy Jacobs, and Betsy, beat me to it! Click through Kathy’s post for brilliant instructions on how it’s done: 

I <3 SnagIt - Do you? - VitaminCH – PowerPoint and OneNote MVP Kathy Jacobs shares how she uses SnagIt timed captures

Revit User Group of New Zealand - Notice of June Meeting

The next RUGNZ meeting is to be held from 17:30 on June 18^th.at Jasmax's Offices - Level 4, 65 Upper Queen Street.

The agenda includes a presentation on Design Options & Phasing, discussion and a chance to share your work (if you wish).

Full details & RSVP at http://www.rugnz.co.nz/

Cool Auto Design, Thanks to Pulse...

While I have many CAD/BIM/Design RSS feeds in my reader it’s always good to find new ones. In this case I found Car Body Design.com via Franco’s “Novedge Pulse” aggregator.

It has some brilliant “behind the scenes” stories on Auto design, including the tiny Fiat Phylla concept, and links to many tutorials/demonstrations for 2D & 3D Design software (including Photoshop, 3DS Max, Maya & Alias).

 Car Body Design.com Tutorials - www.carbodydesign.com

Car Body Design.com - Fiat Phylla Concept

Steve interviews the man behind the AutoCAD Ribbon

The AutoCAD Ribbon, like others, seems to evoke only strong reactions. You either love or hate the major component in the biggest AutoCAD interface overhaul since the shift from DOS to Windows. From what I’ve seen it’s responsible for a mixed reception for AutoCAD 2009 but, since it’s hardly seen in AutoCAD Architecture 2009, I’m rather ambivalent about it. I wouldn’t install 2009 just for the ribbon but I wouldn’t avoid it because of it.

There’s a whole team working on the “AutoCAD User Experience” but Matt Stein, Senior Product Designer, has stepped forward to become the public face of “The Ribbon”. Although we’re not supposed to discuss the beta process I’m going to say Matt was awesome in responding to the, sometimes “vigorous”, ribbon debate which started well before 2009 became public.

In Part One of this Cadalyst interview, by Steve Johnson, he discusses the Ribbon, it’s features and why it was adopted. Even if you hate it, and have reverted to classic mode, it’s well worth reading to see why the change was deemed necessary. I’m already looking forward to Part Two!

The Ribbon Man, Part 1 - Cadalyst.com
An interview with Autodesk's Matt Stein about the much-discussed ribbon interface in AutoCAD 2009…

The Ribbon Man, Part 2 - CAD Management (added 2008–06–10)

Its AUGI CAD/Design/Architecture/Engineering Salary Survey time

It’s time to help out AUGI and give The Mistress, who compiles it all, something to do by contributing to their annual salary survey*. Only takes a few minutes  and it’s confidential as detailed in the post linked below. The results may you some ammunition for that next salary review or, maybe not, depending how your current salary ranks!

Mistress of the Dorkness: CAD/Design/Architecture/Engineering Salary Survey

AUGI is currently running the 2008 Annual Salary Survey!
Which means that your peers need YOU to log in and report your views.

* It’s not just for the US, I convert the results with the “Big Mac Index” for international comparison.

Walt Disney World in Google Earth

Disney have just released a remarkable 3D model collection on Google Earth covering the massive Walt Disney World® Resort, Orlando. The level of detail is incredible to the as you can see in the comparison below. It shows Google Earth and a photo I took at Autodesk University 2005 – the photo is on the left, no it’s on the right!

You can explore all the parks and many of the surrounding resorts. It does take a while for some of the more complex models to download, even with broadband, but it’s quicker than the days it takes to see it all in the real world!

Official Google Blog: Explore Walt Disney World^® Resort in 3D

This revolutionary project features 3D models of our four Orlando theme parks and more than 20 of Disney’s Resort hotels. Incredible in scope -- containing over 1,500 3D models -- Walt Disney World Resort in 3D is the most detailed 3D rendering undertaken on Google Earth to date. 

Architechure - A blog by Phil Read (yes that Phil Read)

A long time ago, OK so it was sometime in 2001, a guy called Phil Read came to our office with this software he reckoned was the best thing ever for AEC design. It would, he said, make CAD obsolete.

I was rather skeptical but the application he showed, although rather raw, justified his enthusiasm. Over the years Revit has become a platform which made that prophecy a reality.

In 2001 Phil was a Revit implementation wizard, later an Autodesk Revit implementation wizard, but now he’s back in the trenches as Vice President - Director of Technology for HNTB Architecture. He’s also a Revit User with a blog. Having seen what he’s done with Revit, at AU and other places, it’s one to keep an eye on!

Architechure - architechure.blogspot.com
Design + Technology

via Steve & AUGI
* Photo borrowed from his profile without permission, copyright P Read!

An Aussie AutoCAD Architecture Blog!

Nathan has just gone public with his Australian, Aussie, AutoCAD Architecture Blog. It’s already got a bunch of great content so go & read it now! I’ve subscribed!

Aussie ACA (ADT) - ausaca.blogspot.com
Hi Aussie's, Kiwi's and any other metric users from around the world who hopefully will feel welcome to drop in and provide some great tips. I am intending to use this site to promote specifically content relative to what I know of the Aus market place and also to discuss the current state of ACA in Australia…

The CIO who can't write an Excel macro...

CIO NZ have a interview with Warehouse CIO Owen McCall. In his time the IS systems have grown to cope with a growing General Merchandise business and the new “Extra” Supermarket offer.

It’s not until I talk to other CAD Managers that I realise how much infrastructure, and support, the IS team supply leaving me just to deal with the CAD stuff. The fact that they leave me to deal with that allows a degree of freedom which makes my role a whole lot easier.

I also think it’s kinda cool he can admit; “The closest I’ve got to programming is I wrote a macro in Excel once that didn’t work”.

Perhaps it’s time for me to admit: “I’m a CAD manager who can’t write LISP”

CIO > 'Two steps forward, two steps sideways, one step back' –
By Chris Bell | Monday, June 02 2008

Owen McCall, CIO of The Warehouse Group, understands the importance of learning to walk before you run. Cost-effectiveness hinges on system dependability, and he says IT will not be valued by the business until it provides firm foundations…