RobiNZ CAD Blog

May, a month full of Revit & BIM events!

It’s a busy time for Revit related events. Just a reminder of those coming up this month in addition to the usual RUGAKL Meetup on Wed 15th May.

Revit Technology Conference on-line registration deadlines looming & AUGI offer:

There is only about a week left for On-line Revit Technology Conference Australasia 2013 registration (available until May 10th). You can register on-site from 11th until the start date but at a slightly higher price. I have also been told there are “only a handful” of conference/accommodation package deals available if you want to stay at the venue at conference rates.

Autodesk User Group International (AUGI) is a Gold Sponsor of RTC Australasia 2013 and is giving AUGI members the chance to win a conference pass and 4 nights' accommodation! If you are an AUGI member all you need to do is register by end of day Wednesday 8 May. If you are the lucky winner you will then receive the registration package complimentary (and be refunded as applicable).

Event: Thursday, 16 May, 2013 - Saturday, 18 May, 2013, The Langham, Auckland

Details and register at RTC Australasia 2013 – www.rtcevents.com/rtc2013au/

Info about AUGI at www.AUGI.com

CADPRO Discover the Autodesk 2014 Software Portfolio (Auckland)

Includes Manufacturing and AEC Presentations

Tuesday 7 May, Aotea Centre, Auckland, 3:30 - 7:45pm

Details and register at www.cadpro.co.nz

A2K BIM and Legal Responsibilities Breakfast Presentation

Wednesday 15th May, Rendezvous Grand Hotel, Auckland, 7:30am - 9:30am

Details and register at www.a2ktechnologies.co.nz/

The new Autodesk.com and 2014 products revealed

Autodesk have unveiled a new look Autodesk.com and announced their 2014 product updates. The new look Autodesk, hinted at earlier this month, comes with updates to existing products, new applications, revised industry specific Design Suites and Autodesk 360 Cloud Services.

Check out the announcement below and details at http://www.autodesk.com/ 

I’ve had a peak a some of the 2014 line-up and will be posting about the release product when they are available.

Autodesk gets a new look

Since I’ve been a customer I can only remember a couple of changes in Autodesk branding. They recently they announced a new logo so it is goodbye to the old:

Hello to the new:

Autodesk, autodesk, Autodesk, AUTODESK?

I like the new logo but wonder about the uppercase text. There was a brief flirtation with lowercase in the early part of this century (see photo below) but now ‘Autodesk’ has become, the little bit shouty, ‘AUTODESK’.

I’m glad this seems to be confined to the logo unlike some brands which carry their case sensitivity into normal text use. I’m thinking about you Mini, mini, I mean MINI. That said AUTODESK would have been a trivial change to one ActiveWord for me. I just type, or scrawl on a tablet pc, ‘adesk’ and ActiveWords does the rest!

Not my Father’s Autodesk?

The title of this post, by Chris Bradshaw, introducing the new look made me smile:

Not Your Father’s Autodesk - In The Fold

by Chris Bradshaw, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Autodesk

Our new brand made its public debut today at this year’s TED held in Long Beach, Calif., where thinkers from around the world gathered to brainstorm and spread ideas. We could not think of a better place to unveil Autodesk’s new look than the premier conference about technology, entertainment and design…

My, can I say here?, 70+some year old my Dad is a — supposed to be retired but keeps on working — Printing Engineer with an interest in CNC machining, a PC and an iPad. He is a ‘maker’, mostly machine parts & stuff for his yacht, but his fabrication is physical rather than digital. I didn’t inherit this ability as can create things in the computer, but am hopeless at real world making. He can build anything with precision in the real world but consults me about computer stuff!

Perhaps easy to use consumer focused digital design solutions like 123Dapp.com means it really is more My Father’s Autodesk!

A rebrand closer to home

As I write Autodesk.com is still showing the old logo. I’m not surprised as a change like this is a huge transition. My employer The Warehouse is in the midst of a pretty subtle rebranding exercise; the second in its 30 year history. In 2005 the original 1980s logo was modernised:

The current change is removal of yellow from logo and, where it has much more impact, customer level signage, ticketing etc. for a much cleaner simpler look. Amazing to see how even a subtle change impacts perception — customers do notice — but also how much work is involved.

Time update my ‘Autodesk Sign photo’?

Back in 2004 when I visited, first met other than virtually, Shaan Hurley at Autodesk he took this photo. The logo, and both of us, have changed a bit since then! Perhaps its time for another trip to San Francisco (my favourite US city of the few I’ve visited) for a reshoot!

Revit Technology Conference Australasia 2013 — See you there?

RTC is coming to Auckland, New Zealand. I’ve just registered and look forward to meeting you there.

RTC Australasia 2013 – www.rtcevents.com/rtc2013au/

The ninth Australasian Revit Technology Conference will be held at the Langham Hotel Auckland on 16 – 18 May 2013.

• Learn from some of the world's top instructors and industry experts.
• Share ideas and insights with an international community of your peers.
• Explore the latest trends and technologies
• Network with your peers
• Cultivate important business and professional contacts that can benefit your company and your career.
• Come to learn from the experts and leave with a wealth of knowledge, practical methods, and new ideas.
• See how Revit and related applications drive ESD analysis and simulation.
• Unlock the potential of BIM to streamline the building procurement and construction process.
• Overview of new features
• Best Practice methods
• Tips and tricks from experts
• CPD formal and informal points

ASUS TAICHI: The UltraBookLet for Business/CAD/BIM?

Ok, so 1.2 kg isn’t going to make it an iPad competitor but I don’t want an iPad. So far this is the closest I have seen to my “My Perfect Computer”. You’re not going to do full on design on the road but an i7, decent SSD and the versatile configuration (with digital ink) means it sure looks like a nice mobile design/presentation device.

ASUS TAICHI - http://taichi.asus.com

The Incredible Fusion of Notebook and Tablet

This video shows the potential with design media. I’m the dude with the tube…

UPDATE 2013-01-13: Or, if you don’t need two screens perhaps consider their Transformer book but it appears (by no mention) that ASUS have not included the pressure sensitive pen input seen on the Taichi. That’s a major omission for a full Windows tablet experience

ASUS Transformer  Book - transformerbook.asus.com

Real BIM on a Tablet

I found this video via an Aussie Tablet PC Blog, A demo showing Tekla BIMSight running on a Motion Tablet.

Motion F5t Tablet – BIM Demonstration(Building Information Modelling) | Tablet PC Blog

As demonstrated in the video below, the really awesome thing about a Windows tablet (Windows 7 or Windows 8) is having a full operating system that can run full Windows programs with all of their power and complexity in a mobile form factor.

The video shows the Motion F5t running Tekla BIMSight and as you’ll see the Motion F5t is built to handle the complex 3D modelling in the program with ease…

No escaping the BIM, even on holiday

Several years ago I blogged about finding Cadman Rd in Auckland & wondered if there were any place names with BIM (Building Information Model). Google maps showed just one in New Zealand: Bims Rd in a fairly isolated part of the South Island near Nelson Lakes.

By chance I had been there and even taken a photo, perhaps not a surprise given the number I shoot on holiday, of the valley while on a cycle tour. Yesterday the cycle tour I’ve just finished  passed by there again so I just had to stop and get a real photo.

Bims Road is a small forest access road, by coincidence, just a few kilometres from ‘Robin Road’!

BIM is everywhere!

64 Bit Stability for Revit and AutoCAD

Shopping for a laptop (not for me!) recently it was good to see 64 bit OS installed on all but entry level products. Given that level of acceptance in the consumer space I find it surprising to find some dedicated CAD workstations are still running the 32 bit flavour of Windows. I thought Windows 8 would be all 64 bit but it seems Microsoft are still going to offer an 32-bit (x86) flavour.

So, why 64 bit for CAD?

If you have any doubt 64 bits are better take a look at this post from Revit Clinic:

64 Bit Revit and Stability - revitclinic.typepad.com        
“In general, 64 bit operating systems running 64 bit Revit are about twice as stable as 32 bit operating systems running 32 bit Revit. Our Customer Error Reports (CER) and Customer Involvement Program (CIP) help confirm this.”

Not just for Revit!

I’ve seen AutoCAD happily consume gigabytes of RAM when the system has it on offer.

Our AutoCAD Architecture fitting layouts are typically 6–10MB .dwg files. Before using a 64 bit OS “out of memory” was the most frequent cause of crashes.

The machine many have had free memory but a single 32 bit process can only use about 2 GB and shaded 3D views caused AutoCAD to hit that limit.

With a 64 bit OS you frequently see ACAD.exe gobbling upwards of 6GB ram, on its own, to display these views. No wonder it struggled to fit into the 32 bit limit.

How much RAM is enough?

I have found 8-16GB Ram generally is sufficient for most AutoCAD/AutoCAD Architecture users, 16-32 for Revit. With Windows 7, and 8, 64 you can access up to 192GB RAM and you can never have too much!

Should You Install Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit? - TechSpot Guides

On paper, the 64-bit architecture can address 16 exabytes of memory (2^64), or more than 4 billion times that of its precursor. Consumer editions of Windows Vista permit from 8GB to 128GB of physical memory to be accessed, depending on the version. Windows 7 bumps that up to 192GB with the Professional version and above...

Register to see Autodesk’s “Lead The Way” Virtual Event, while I’m on my bike!

In late March I’m off to tour Northland — the north of NZ’s North Island — with a bunch of similarly crazy cyclists. Ten days of cycling a mainly coastal circuit around the beautiful Northland scenery. I just hope some summer weather we haven’t had yet arrives really late!

The area is very familiar, unlike previous South Island & Vietnam cycle trips, Most of it is within a (long) days drive of my Auckland home and the location for many childhood family holidays. I have cycled most the route before but that was long ago (I was 17!). In those days it was ‘proper’ cycle touring pedalling a bike laden with camping equipment and all the gear required to exist on the road.

This trip is not quite as intrepid. It’s a supported tour — bags in a bus, restaurant meals and motel/hotel accommodation — hosted by my favourite cycle tour company: Adventure South (who do the North too!). This will be my eighth trip with them and the group is made up of returning clients, several from my from previous trips. At least Bas, our esteemed guide, will not be able fool me about the terrain this time. He has been known to class the Southern Alps, as “a bit of an undulation”. Northland does not have the South Island’s majestic peaks but there is more than enough up & down to test my puny legs.

Anyway, there is something else happening that week. It doesn’t require you to pedal 690km (now wish I hadn’t totalled up those seemingly achievable daily rides!) and can be enjoyed from anywhere with a web connection. (Un)Fortunately a bicycle on the back roads of Northland is unlikely to provide that facility!

More details on what Autodesk have planned below and registration at:

Lead The Way Virtual Event | Autodesk

Join us for this free Autodesk Virtual Event on March 29, 2012 [9am US PT is NZDT Friday, 30 March 2012 at 5am]. See how the latest Autodesk software can help you lead the way in bringing your ideas to life and transforming your business.

Take the lead in working smarter and faster with the latest versions of Autodesk^® software. No matter what you design, there’s a software solution built to work the way you do, with customized features for building, infrastructure, product, plant, and factory design.

And now you can hear about the latest releases straight from Autodesk executives—including Lynn Allen, Technical Evangelist—and learn more about the latest Autodesk software, Autodesk suites, and more!

On Shaan’s 14 Years at Autodesk

Seeing Shaan’s post & photo montage celebrating his Autodesk anniversary also brought back many memories for me. Curiously I’ve also been at TWL about 14 years, also having previously spent 3 years max in a role, so can relate to how that feels.

14 Years 98 in Dog Years - Between the Lines

Today marks my 14th year with Autodesk. I really never thought when joining Autodesk back in 1998 I would be here 14 years later…

I don’t remember when I first ‘met’, virtually, Shaan but it must have been a not long after he started at Autodesk through his beta role. I suspect many outside that world really got to know Shaan after he started blogging in 2003. My blogging was inspired by Shaan and many of my bloggie experiences have been supported by him. For that, and the chance to meet him in person, I’m truly grateful. Of my many Shaan photos I think this captures his mix of dedication, adventure and geekness:

This is not your typical tourist - RobiNZ CAD Blog (2006)

If you visit the world famous (in New Zealand) Huka Falls you’ll see lots of tourists. Typically they will have a camera, maybe a camcorder, but it’s rather unlikely they will also be blogging with a Blackberry…

I spent the weekend showing Shaan Hurley, Autodesk Blogger, part of the North Island (between Auckland – Taupo) and snapped him blogging from Huka Falls.

Congratulations on the anniversary Shaan, may there be many more.