Yesterday, last Thursday, a couple of weeks ago * I spent the day at an Autodesk Solutions 2009 event. Over the day most of the 2010 product range was presented by industry specific resellers and a few customer presentations. The venue, Novotel Hotel - Ellerslie, was great with free parking and, for Auckland, easy access. I thought it was better than the typical city locations. Arriving early, thanks to lighter than expected traffic, meant I could sit in on a Civil 3D session I hadn't registered for.
Civil in the morning
Robert Gadbaw, Team Blue22, took the first session of the day demonstrating Civil 3D 2010 to a full room. I'm not a civil user, although quite polite, but seeing the survey, surface, piping, alignments and intersections created, changed, regenerated in minutes was pretty impressive. Robert got through a lot of content in the 45 minutes allocated but it really was just a glimpse of this sophisticated product. It was also the first time I'd seen Civil 3D with a ribboned interface. Like the other ribbon applications it makes extensive use of context sensitive tabs, even stacking several at times, but seemed pretty logical. I was also interested to see the .adsk file format used to import a Revit Model into Civil 3D. It's a pity Civil models can't use the .adsk format to go the other way. Team Blue22 also announced they are planning a multi-day "Civil 3D University" later in the year for more in-depth sessions. I will post details when confirmed.
The Autodesk beat?
After morning tea, for me much needed coffee, it was into the main session. Finding a length of plastic tube, a variety of colours & lengths, on each seat was a little perplexing and then a drum beat started. Human Rhythms, coordinating entirely by mime, took the arriving audience through a short interactive percussion session. “The Tubes” started with simple beat sequences & built to the Autodesk theme, some captured in the video below. It was a pretty cool way to kick off the main session and certainly got peoples attention!
Time to make them work?
The first section, the Autodesk corporate session, introduced the day, sponsors and the mentioned the economic context. The main themes were that industry solutions, but not platform specific, and digital prototyping can resolve design problems and aid process rather than just documenting design. That extended from components in Inventor, Revit Building Information Models to Civil Infrastructure and Digital Cities.There was also much talk of recessionary times being an opportunity to up-skill and the value/benefits of subscription was rather heavily promoted throughout the day. I suspect the recent sales results had something to do with that...
Paul Arthur, Channels Business Manager, surprised me with a presentation that challenged customers to demand more value from Autodesk and the dealer network. He suggested taking a look at the business problems and opportunities that design solutions can assist with then challenge Autodesk to provide solutions. It was an interesting approach and reflects Autodesk's apparent evolution from 'industry platforms" to mixed platform solutions. It may be a cunning plan to sell more boxes into the current customer base or perhaps reflects the reality that no single platform is the complete solution for a given task. In the AEC space I seem to remember a time when Revit was touted as the single database, single platform solution for all Architectural Design. While it currently is the best candidate to create and manage the project split databases (Arch/MEP/Structure etc) and the new .adsk format to share data means you can look to the best solution for a given part of the process. With linked Revit models, platform data sharing and tools like Navisworks merging multiple model formats "BIM" becomes a more complete solution to modelling all aspects of a building project than a single platform approach.
AutoCAD 2010, all meshy and dynamic!
Gary Page, Salesoft CAD Solutions, demonstrated AutoCAD 2010 with the focus on the new parametric features, incorporated with dynamic blocks, and mesh modelling engine. It was a convincing display of how parametric constraints can save a lot of drafting and how you can replace multiple legacy blocks with one smart, if only 2D, dynamic block. I know one part of the demo where multiple parameter/name settings were seamlessly copied from a spreadsheet catalog to the Dynamic Block got peoples attention. The mesh modelling, below, is fun to use and Gary clearly enjoyed demonstrating it. There was also a link to the following Revit demonstration with the AutoCAD mesh model being passed on to Revit.
Revit 2010, inspired by a tortoise?
I'm wondering if that heading will get a comment about ribbon performance but it's actually refers to a building. Rich, Salesoft CAD Solutions, showed the new Revit User Interface, Modelling engine, profile and pattern tools using a building shell inspired by a tortoise. It also incorporated an ex-AutoCAD mesh model column and, via .adsk import, door hardware from Inventor. Apart from a PowerPoint mention there was no sign of Revit MEP or Structure. That probably reflects the, UI aside, lightweight changes they had this time around. Although Revit is pretty established in New Zealand for Architecture the services seem slower to adopt it so it was a pity not to see it in action.
Inventor 2010, in the fast lane;
Perhaps it's my Product Design background that make the Inventor sessions of interest even though I don't currently use it. Greg Heeley, CAD Pro Systems Ltd, showcased Inventor 2010 with a rapid fire demo of the sheet metal, F.E.A, plastic and mold flow tools and design accelerators for frames and bolted connections. I was impressed to see Alias data incorporated in an Inventor model, with the Inventor model and it's additional added features changing to reflect Alias updates. It was also interesting to see extensive use of Vault with Inventor and AutoCAD Electrical but has me wondering why the AEC platforms don't use it to manage database/project/drawing versioning.
Steve Riddell, Aspex, presented the first of two customer sessions. He shared how Digital Prototyping and Production with Inventor, Vault and CNC technology enables them to design and manufacture of industrial automation equipment and machinery. It was good to hear how DWF, Autodesk Design Review, enables that process of model sharing to extend to the client, for free. In response to a few questions he also explained how Vault helps control the flow of design data within the business ensuring each stage is working with valid, current data. It was a good insight of how previously "enterprise scale systems" can now help a small scale manufacturing business.
Simon Holt, Triple Eight Racing, was the final presentation but one worth waiting for. Although I'm a race fan I was surprised how much in-house manufacture is done for the Australian V8 Supercars they build, totally modelled in Inventor. He showed how hundreds of pages of sporting regulations are transformed into a race car with much of the physical compliance captured and validated in the model. The level of detail was impressive, the result is race & championship winning cars.
A good day, except for what was missing;
Although a huge amount was covered there was no sign of Max and maybe scope for a bigger event as time pressure was evident. With over 200 attending the turnout was good but many familiar faces were "missing". Given the small community I thought it was pity that, for whatever reason, two solution days were held within a week covering similar material. When the focus of the day I attended heavily emphasised sharing data, cross industry collaboration and breaking barriers it's a pity Autodesk New Zealand couldn't do the same for all it's customers. It's not often such a wide range of industry professionals have a chance to get together and the lunchtime/break sessions are a good chance to make/renew contacts, Hard to do when they are at the other day...
Taking note with MindManager;
You may have seen my agenda MindManager Map posted last week before the meeting. I said it would be defaced with my illegible scrawled notes and a few commented on seeing the work Tablet PC in use. Its nice to use in meetings/presentations as allows seamless note taking that you just can't achieve on a conventional laptop.
MindManager's native inking is fast and the zoom + topic filters effectively gives you infinite paper with none of the 'running out of room" I find happens with paper mind maps. The image right shows the result by the end of the day but most of the time I only had the current branch expanded. It's quite surprising to see how much you can gather over the day but remember this was only a topic, often just a word, every few minutes during several hours of presentations. The best part of inking maps is you can also scribble diagrams that typed input can't match.
Unfortunately MindManager Player, an interactive map in a PDF, doesn't support inked topics so can only share this "all expanded" image view. The full size image (click the thumbnail) doesn't quite match the resolution seen in MindManager itself is but clear enough to see. Sadly it won't help you read my awful writing! 
Download Autodesk_NZ_Solutions_Day_2009.mmap (793.8K) requires MindManager (Note: Trial install becomes a full function viewer when it expires)
* As you can see It took a bit longer than expected to get this post finished.
MindManager's Presentation Mode has a "Transparent Fade Out" option (seen right). This adds a, sometimes too subtle, fade effect to the unselected branches to focus on the selected topic. 
One other bit of time date related sense caught my eye this week. Mindjet sent out a web meeting advisory and had the grace to include a variety of local times & dates in addition to the actual US PST time.
If you're thinking about using MindManager to handle your project data this bundle - which includes MindManager, JCVGantt Pro (integrated Gantt charts & Costing), project templates and training material - might be of interest. It's offered as an upgrade for existing MindManager owners or new users wanting Map and Gantt tools for project management.
Sadly it doesn't work with the Autodesk "clone" ribbon (left) which has a dead area above it's Application Button 
on the Ribbon Tools Tab.
Format Painter tool to clone a topic features from an existing topic in a click. That’s OK on smaller maps but tends to be cumbersome when maps get large. “Painting” topic style overrides to multiple topics means visiting each one with your paintbrush. Surely there’s a better way?
Free Topic Counter?
There’s a huge amount of CAD related information on the web. Finding it once is getting easier thanks to tools like Search and RSS but often finding it a second time becomes a challenge. You’ll read something but weeks, maybe months, later actually need it. While many feed readers allow flagging, or tagging, of posts usually that just captures the title with no context. Search tools will look at all the post content but often the results are not that targeted. Recently I used an article about “CAD training approval” for reference. Google Blog Search returns over 
in IE grabs the URL and Title, adding it to the current map. I added the author name as a callout with a link to his 
It’s taken me a while to blog about 
to pick the non-Microsoft product.
MindManager veterans will experience “Ribbon shock”. The File Menu is gone and replaced by the MindManager Button. It gathers all the things you can do with a document into one place with most accessed via fly-out menus but also has application options (formerly Tools Menu>Options) on display. A bit strange when “Document Properties” is almost hidden in the Prepare fly-out. Took me a while to find that one!
Perhaps my favourite UI change is a tiny regression. The "Click to cycle" through Detail Levels button, last seen in MindManager x5, returns! A keyboard Ctrl+D also does this but I’d got into the habit of repeatedly clicking the button. The MindManager 6 version didn’t respond to that but I still clicked it anyway!
I’ve upgraded to Office 2007 Pro and have been adjusting to the “Office Fluent User Interface”, sometimes known as “the Ribbon”. 
This is my last ever MindManager 6 Pro post 
. It’s sad to say goodbye to a great application but the day had to come. I couldn’t let it go without perhaps the ultimate export to destruction test…
Mindjet have announced the MindManager 7 product range which will be released on May 30:
Regular visitors may have noticed that I mention using MindManager and Camtasia for documentation 
. It’s difficult to share real content here without extensive editing to remove confidential information but this overview may be enough to get an idea of the process.
There was 
Just in time for Christmas Mindjet have released a MindManager service pack. In addition to general fixes it adds support for Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007. I’m not running them yet but I’m interested to hear how they play together. There is more detail and download info at Michaels blog. 
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