Year: <span>2008</span>

Year: 2008

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Bug

Has AutoCAD 2009 eaten your registry lately?

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I’ve had a one-off report from a user of AutoCAD 2009 (actually, it was MDT as part of the Inventor suite pretending to be AutoCAD 2009, which isn’t exactly the same thing) and I’d like to know if anyone else has seen the same thing. His AutoCAD self-destructed and a little investigation showed that the section of the Registry that contains all the settings for that particular release had vanished without trace. This happened again later, but this time he had a backup of the Registry section handy and was able to avoid a second reinstall.  No Registry cleaners were …

Fun, Pictures

Faster, Stronger, Higher, Bluer, Blooper

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I always find it amusing when extensively rehearsed and expensive presentations go wrong, except of course when they are my own. Anyway, presentations don’t get any more extensively rehearsed or expensive than the opening ceremony of the Olympics. So when a technical glitch occurs like Cathy Freeman having to stand around waiting for recalcitrant machinery to start moving, this amuses my sad little mind. It’s funnier for me when the glitch has a computing feel to it, as described in this story of the Olympic BSoD. When XP does this to you, perhaps you could try Li Ning on the …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Other Products, Tip

Look out for Update 1 for AutoCAD 2009-based verticals

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If you have Communications Center disabled (this is quite common, it seems) or you’re not currently using your 2009-based vertical product, you may be unaware that Autodesk has released versions of Update 1 (formerly known as SP1) for the architectural and civil variants of AutoCAD 2009. Expect the other verticals to follow soon. A visit to the Autodesk site and search for “Update 1” currently returns 18 results. As usual, read the Readme first and exercise caution (or even paranoia) before installing.

Autodesk, Other Products

Two “new” Autodesk products

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Autodesk has announced two “new” products, Stitcher Unlimited 2009 and ImageModeler 2009. Stitcher Unlimited (US$350, Windows and Mac) is for patching photographs to generate panoramic images that can be used in rendering and other virtual-world applications. ImageModeler ($US995, Windows only) generates 3D models from 2D images. Both products are carry-overs from Autodesk’s purchase of REALVIZ. Neither product is released yet; both are scheduled for October. Autodesk claims a wide range of enhancements for the 2009 releases, but if you’re desperate there’s nothing to stop you ordering the current releases on-line from the REALVIZ site right now. I have seen neither …

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Polls

How long should the AutoCAD release cycle be?

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I’ve just added a poll asking this question. Actually, the poll question is rather longer than that, because I want to make it as unambiguous as possible. Other polls I’ve seen on this subject, including ones by Autodesk and Cadalyst, have always left room for speculation about what a given answer would actually mean. Sometimes, the question has been so ambiguous that the results have been completely meaningless. I’ve tried hard to avoid that, and if that means the question is rather long, so be it. In my poll, you’re being asked to consider a scenario where over a long period …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Polls

What you like best about AutoCAD 2009

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I’ve closed the poll asking you to choose the top three things you like about AutoCAD 2009. For some reason it wasn’t getting many votes. Only 37 people participated, rather less than many other polls here, and I’ve now put it out of its misery. The small sample size makes the results of dubious value, but here are AutoCAD 2009’s “best things”, as voted by at least five of you. Spell checking in text editor (30%, 11 Votes) ViewCube (22%, 8 Votes) Action Recorder (19%, 7 Votes) Modeless layer interface (19%, 7 Votes) Improvements available only in vertical products (16%, …

Other Blogs

CAD history book

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In case you missed it on WorldCAD Access, Dave Weisberg has released a history of CAD as a free book on-line. It is called The Engineering Design Revolution and subtitled The People, Companies and Computer Systems That Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering. I don’t like regurgitating things from other blogs, but this is an exception for two reasons. First, I find it very interesting. Second, it’s in a good cause and deserves all the publicity it can get. Access to the book in PDF form is free, but Dave is asking for voluntary contributions to the Cancer League of …

AutoCAD, Interoperability, Polls

How much do you exchange data with non-Windows users?

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A discussion I’ve been having elsewhere has prompted me to add two new polls (see right). I know that most of you, being AutoCAD users, are also Windows users. I’m interested to know how often you exchange data (e.g. DWG, DXF, DWF, PDF, etc) with users of other operating systems, specifically Linux and Mac users. If you don’t exchange data with anyone then please leave the polls alone, but if you do exchange data but never with non-Windows users, please join in and say so!

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009

When is a Service Pack not a Service Pack?

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When it’s an Update. This year, Service Packs are called Updates, and the first one for AutoCAD is out now. The 32-bit version is here and the 64-bit version is here. The Update includes LT, but there is no news yet about Updates for any of the vertical AutoCAD variants. As usual, read the Readme first. Also, as this Update has had a considerably shorter gestation period than the traditional six-month wait for the first AutoCAD Service Pack, you may be wise to exercise more paranoia than normal. Save and export your AutoCAD profiles, save your workspaces, make backups of …

Autodesk, Bentley, Interoperability

Autodesk and Bentley – kiss, kiss!

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OK, so I’m a long way from being the first to comment on this, but maybe I’ll be the last? Don’t count on it. In the unlikely event that this is the only CAD blog you ever read, you may be unaware that Autodesk and Bentley have decided to swap code so their respective products can make a better job of writing each other’s drawing formats. The MicroStation DWG interface has traditionally been imperfect. (I remember raising the ire of one of the Bentley brothers in person many years ago on the CompuServe ACAD forum when I described Bentley’s DWG/DXF …

Fun, Image manipulation, Music, Video

Video – Deciphered lyrics

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Here’s another video I have done to the music of Swedish metal band Opeth (the first one is here). This band’s latest album, Watershed, does not come with conventional lyrics in the booklet, but rather a page full of rune-type characters. There are actually two different pages in different editions of the album, and in order to work out the lyrics you need to rotate the pages, work out a substitution cipher and combine the two sources. To save you the trouble of doing all that, here are the lyrics of Heir Apparent. This is the only song on the …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Polls

You don’t think much of AutoCAD 2009’s buttons

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I’ve closed the poll about the button images. It’s a general thumbs-down from you on that particular change, albeit not a spectacularly vehement one. I agree with most of you. The images themselves don’t offend me greatly, but their role in making things harder to find means that Autodesk erected another unnecessary barrier to Ribbon acceptance. The images themselves have crisper edges, but are sadly devoid of colour, making them harder to tell apart. One exception is with the object snap buttons, which I consider an improvement over their predecessors. More important than that is the fact that there were …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Polls

What’s the best thing about AutoCAD 2009?

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It’s starting to look a bit negative around here, and it is only going to get more negative when I start describing the details of my still-unresolved Autodesk customer service debacle. So here’s something to provide a bit of balance. What do you like best about AutoCAD 2009? What is better, faster, easier, more cool or just plain fixed when compared with the release you were using previously? I have a few ideas of my own, and will run a poll when I get a few suggestions from you.

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Polls

Autodesk’s 12-month release cycle – Is it harmful?

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I’ve opened a poll asking for your opinion about whether the 12-month release cycle of AutoCAD and its variants is harmful to the quality of the software that Autodesk is providing. I won’t express my own opinion on this subject here yet, but will do so later, once the poll is closed. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your opinions on the subject.

AU2009, AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Polls

AutoCAD 2009 – Top reasons to be Ribbonless

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I’ve closed the poll for those of you who are using 2009 with the Ribbon turned off to show us the reasons why. The top 10 choices were: Tab concept means extra clicks (65%) Uses up too much screen space (64%) No advantage over existing methods (64%) Dislike concept of hiding tools – want buttons to stay visible (60%) Too hard to find things (51%) Using it minimised requires an extra click/hover (47%) Doesn’t make good use of my screen size/shape (45%) Tab switching is too slow (45%) Customising it is too difficult (44%) Ribbon content doesn’t match my needs …

Autodesk, Microsoft, Rant

I like Bill Gates a little more now

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I recently enjoyed reading what appears to be a genuine and not at all atypical internal Microsoft email from Bill Gates. I always enjoy seeing an honest opinion expressed in a way that cuts through the glossy corporate PR image, and this one certainly does that. Actually, it reminds me of the sort of thing I write in MyFeedback when evaluating pre-release versions of AutoCAD. It’s honest, it’s negative or even cutting where it needs to be, it represents a real user’s viewpoint, and most of all, it’s useful. I don’t think this sort of exposure does any harm at …

AutoCAD, AutoCAD 2009, Navel Gazing, Other Blogs, Polls

AutoCAD 2009 – How many people really are using the Ribbon?

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I was interested to see Shaan Hurley reporting the Ribbon usage figures from the Customer Involvement Program (CIP). Shaan’s figures show Ribbon non-users at 46%, my poll results show it as 71%. Why the discrepancy? Is somebody telling fibs? I don’t think so. First, blog nauseam poll respondents represent a biased sample, comprising people who are more interested in AutoCAD than average users. Dare I say more knowledgeable? More likely to be power users or CAD Managers, anyway. They are probably more likely than average users to make changes from the default AutoCAD settings. But Shaan’s CIP users are also …

AutoCAD, Autodesk, Customer Service, Rant

Totally abysmal customer service from Autodesk

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I’ve been dealing with Autodesk in various ways for 23 years and have had a variety of experiences as a result; some good, some bad. The provision of the license codes needed to keep AutoCAD running has historically been pretty good. No longer. I’m currently going through the worst Autodesk customer service experience in my career. I’ve been trying for many weeks to obtain a few codes, without success. I’ll spare you the details for the time being to give Autodesk one last chance to come good. For now I’ll just say that a combination of restrictive policies, inflexibility in …