If you’re an AutoCAD user, you may have been intrigued by the news about the new way Autodesk is bundling up AutoCAD 2019 with various verticals (perpetual license owners need not apply). This is Autodesk’s latest attempt to promote its subscription model and raise prices again. 7% this time, but much more to come. But never mind that, the main point is that you’re getting a whole lot of stuff, and who could say that’s not a good thing? So it’s most unfortunate for Autodesk that the AutoCAD 2019 rollout has been an unmitigated disaster. My own experiences in trying …
I’ve been setting up a new PC at home and one of the things I struggled with was getting my Wacom Graphire 4 tablet working. This isn’t a CAD tablet (remember those?); instead, I use its pressure-sensitive stylus for image creation and editing. Press harder and you get more ink. Turn the pen over and you automatically erase instead of drawing. Press the eraser harder and you get more erasing. I use PaintShop Pro for my image work, by the way, not Photoshop. You can still buy and optionally upgrade PaintShop Pro perpetual licenses, which is how it should be. …
The second video in the cad nauseam YouTube channel is more typical than the first in that it’s a tips and tricks video. In this case it only applies to BricsCAD and Shape users, but future videos will provide information for AutoCAD and other DWG-based CAD applications.
Brenda is trying to get hold of you, it’s time you renewed your wastewater discharge permit. There may be no Ideas page for AutoCAD, but at least somebody’s found a use for the Fabrication Ideas page. Not renewing things is alive at Autodesk.
I’ve had the pleasure of attending the Bricsys Conference in 2016 (Munich) and 2017 (Paris). This year’s conference will be in another great European city, London, on 23 and 24 October. Other details have not yet been revealed, but will be posted on the Bricsys Conference page as time goes on. You can sign up on that page for email notifications. This is a great opportunity for British companies looking at reducing costs and improving efficiency in their CAD and BIM operations to get an idea of what BricsCAD and related applications can do. If you’re further afield, it’s still …
I’d like to offer my congratulations to Robert Green on his landmark of 400 issues of the CAD Manager’s Newsletter. There’s a interview with Robert here.
As a fellow CAD Manager and Cadalyst contributor, I’ve admired Robert’s work for many years. I finally got to meet Robert last year at the Bricsys Conference 2017 in Paris, and it was a pleasure.
Some of you will already be aware that Robert is a seriously good guitarist, and he did not disappoint at the after-conference party. I look forward to seeing Robert again, and to reading many more of his insightful articles.
One of the things that might initially baffle a CAD Manager or power user when investigating switching from AutoCAD to BricsCAD is how to set up the startup routines. Head over to CAD Panacea for R.K. McSwain’s concise, handy description of how to do it. Due to BricsCAD’s high level of compatibility, you can maintain a common folder or set of folders containing LISP and other custom files for both applications. That way, you don’t need to do double maintenance during the transition period. I’ve done this successfully in a highly complex custom environment. Some code and other adjustments were …
Disclaimer: I’m making money using BLADE. I’m using it on a paying project right now (well, not while I’m typing this, but you get the idea). I’m developing a routine to automate a massively repetitive task for one of my AutoCAD-using clients, and I’m developing it in BricsCAD and BLADE rather than AutoCAD and VLIDE. I can simply develop faster in the more modern environment, and BricsCAD’s significantly quicker start-up time helps with that. So does the fact that the routine runs several times faster in BricsCAD, making testing the large data sets much more efficient. I’m getting paid on …
Some of you may have received an invitation from Autodesk to provide survey feedback. This hints at a possible move towards time based licensing (e.g. hourly), and asks what kind of tools you will need to handle that. Sometimes these questions lead to nothing, other times they are a precursor to inevitable change (desirable or not). If it’s the latter, I can only surmise that Autodesk is concerned that its customers haven’t been thoroughly peed off by anything new in a while and is investigating novel and interesting ways to annoy them. Ask a Bentley customer what annoys them most …
Some things have been mentioned to me privately that have made me curious. Curiosity is like an itch for me, I just have to scratch it. So here goes. If you have been let go, fired, made redundant, discarded, dumped, sacked, had your office closed, encouraged to take a termination offer, sidelined into an untenable position, failed to have your contract renewed or otherwise ceased your employment at Autodesk in a not-entirely-voluntary manner in the last ten years, I’d like to know how old you were at the time. There’s a poll in this post and in the left sidebar. …
For the first video in the new cad nauseam YouTube channel, I’ve had a bit of fun. I unearthed a bunch of my old stuff to show you. Does any of this take you back? Enjoy!
This post continues my interview with Torsten Moses about BLADE, the new LISP IDE that arrived with BricsCAD V18.2. See here for post 1. Steve: I’ve noted before that BricsCAD execution of AutoLISP and Visual LISP is several times faster than AutoCAD’s. How does the new technology affect that performance? Torsten: All the new BLADE-related stuff doesn’t really affect normal LISP execution outside the IDE and debugger. The connection is made by a few callbacks, which take zero time in normal processing. Therefore there is also no chance of breaking things. The BLADE implementation is very safe, and performance remains …
I’ve been on Twitter for nine years and currently have 903 followers. Sometimes a post strikes a particular chord and it might get a handful of likes. One post, however, has received 1424 likes so far. It’s this one: When I posted that photo, I was expecting maybe a handful of likes. Then my phone started going mad with notifications. What happened was that the popular Twitter account WeRateDogs (@dog_rates, which I had tagged) noticed my post and liked it. That was all it took. 100 likes, 200 likes, as more people liked it, it appeared on more people’s feeds …
Easily the most impressive new feature of BricsCAD V18.2 is the new Visual LISP IDE, BLADE (BricsCAD LISP Advanced Development Environment). The lack of any LISP IDE has been a BricsCAD stumbling block for a while, dissuading CAD Managers from adopting BricsCAD to replace their stagnant and increasingly expensive AutoCADs. As I will relate elsewhere, Bricsys has not just caught up with Autodesk here, but has shot so far ahead it’s unlikely to ever be caught. BricsCAD’s BLADE is so superior to AutoCAD’s VLIDE in so many ways there’s really no comparison. Yet it remains highly compatible. I have personal …
BricsCAD V18.2 for Windows is out. The new stuff in this mid-term update is again showing up Autodesk’s lack of progress with its once-flagship product, AutoCAD. I’m sure Autodesk would love customers to accept that there’s only so much anyone can do with a DWG-based CAD product once it reaches a certain level of maturity. Customers should get used to nothing of significance being added year after year. Diminishing returns, and all that. Pay to continue using the product, but don’t expect it to get better. What a shame for Autodesk, then, that Bricsys exists. By consistently providing a raft …
I recently updated my resume, and I thought it might be relevant to include an episode from my early career. This post is an expansion on what I had to say about that episode. I was managing a tiny CAD training and development company, Educad. Much of my time there was spent developing software called NIDIS (originally called NEEDS), a project that was started in 1987 or 1988 with Nixdorf Computer as the client. It was intended to take over the market among first the home building companies of Western Australia, then Australia, then the World! What’s special about NIDIS …
This post was inspired by a question raised by Jamie Myers in the CAD Managers Unite! Facebook group. Long ago, before CAD was in common use, I was taught technical drawing at school. One of the things I was taught was to follow drafting standards, BS308 at the time. Later, I was expected to follow AS1100. One of the things I was taught was to always use capital letters in text on drawings, using the approved ISO font. Without a machine, without a template. This stuck to me to such an extent that even today I use all caps when …
This post follows on from Why digitally sign your LISP files? and How to obtain a digital signature to sign your LISP files. In the first post, I explained why you might want to digitally sign your LISP files. In the second, I explained how to obtain and install a digital signature. This third and final post in the series assumes you have done all that and now want to sign your files. There are two methods available to you, using a dialog box or command-line interface. Signing LISP using the AcSignApply.exe dialog box Autodesk has provided a utility called …
Here are some pictures of some sights I saw in Gent (Ghent) and Brussels during my visit attending the Bricsys Insights press event in April 2017. I published some of these photos at the time but had to remove the post due to technical difficulties I was having with WordPress galleries.
I agree with Serge Jonnaert in Why every Architect should Visit Gent, except I wouldn’t limit it to architects. It’s a very lovely place, well worth a visit by anyone.
In an earlier post, I explained why you might want to digitally sign your LISP files. If you decide to go ahead with that, then this post explains how you can obtain and install the digital signature you will need to sign your files. This is the most difficult part of the process and it involves spending money. Getting a digital signature Although you can make your own digital signature (there’s an Autodesk Knowledgebase article describing the process), there’s little point in doing this. You can sign your files, sure, but that signature won’t be seen as trusted by software …