Beyond the Paper

Tips from the Insider

Today's "Tips from the Insider" was submitted by Jason Adams, Estimating Manager at Wal-Mart Realty.

"Combining a set of bid documents is really easy with Design review. 

Since things are always changing through the design phase its best that we keep the sheet separated.  We publish each sheet to a DWF.  Once the bid set goes out to the contractor to bid, I like to combine all the sheets into one DWF file.  This makes it easy to flip through multiple pages quickly and ultimately speeding up the review time.  And for those who still print, a singe DWF file allows you to open just one file to send to the printer.  In this day and age we have better things to do than sitting there opening and closing thousands of drawing just to print it out one page at a time.  Design Review has solved that dilemma.  And no, you can’t get that time back that you wasted before Design Review. 

I will show you how to take multiple DWF files and make one file.

i. Open a DWF file.  I like to open the cover page of the bid set and save that file with the job name and the date it was issued for bid.

ii. With the file open that contains the other DWF’s, select all. Ctrl-A

iii. Then drag and drop the files into Contents section of the Navigation pane.

iiii. Now save your work.

There you have it, a complete set of plans in four easy steps."

“Without Design Review, I would not be able to produce quality work with this level of efficiently.  Design Review has truly been a lifesaver.”

Interview with Director of DWF

The Novedge Blog features an interview with our Director of the Extended Design Group, Mary Hope McQuiston.

This is the group in charge of all DWF products including Design Review, Freewheel, and the DWF Toolkit.

She provides an interesting insight into her role, the markets and possible future roles for DWF.

Read the complete article here.

--Volker

DWF goes Green

Another DWF Success Story

"Our reviewers are able to view, measure, and mark up designs and share comments electronically.

Peggy White, Chief Information Officer and Director of the Department of Information Resources, St. Johns River Water Management District

A state agency based in northeast Florida, the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) is charged with implementing a regional strategy to ensure sufficient water is available for users and the environment while protecting water resources within 18 counties. It carries out its mission by developing a water supply plan and through permitting the use of water resources in the region, preserving and restoring wetlands, mapping water resources, and conducting scientific research. With land development booming in the region, issuing water use and environmental resource permits is one of SJRWMDs most important tasks, and the agency grants more than 4,000 permits each year."

Read the complete story here.

--Volker

3D/2D ShareNow Add-in for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit - one click DWF sharing

In my It's Alive in the Lab article on the 3D/2D Share Now Add-in for AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit, I depicted how a design can be easily published to Project Freewheel from AutoCAD, Inventor, and Revit.

This is as simple as one click. With the traditional method of using Project Freewheel, first you need to publish your design to DWF, select a file name, and save it to your local hard drive. Then you invoke your browser, navigate to the Project Freewheel site, click on Freewheel File->Open, and select your local file. With 3D/2D ShareNow: you don’t need to export to a local file; you don’t need to come up with a file name; you don’t need to figure out how to get a published file on a web site. Instead you share designs without emailing big PDF or DWF files. Since the design is stored once on the Project Freewheel web server, only a URL needs to be emailed and shared. Everything about the process is much more efficient.

Once you have uploaded your design to Project Freewheel, it is time to collaborate.

Typically the design application user starts a real time collaboration sharing session. The others join. All see the same view of the design in their browsers. Then the fun begins.

Many of you have used tools like WebEx. Perhaps you have fussed with "who's driving?" with clicking on buttons to transfer session control from one user to another? Project Freewheel is based on a phone conversation model. Both people can talk at the same time but rarely do. People take turns. Such is the case with real-time collaboration sessions with Project Freewheel. Any participant can pan or zoom. Any participant can make a markup. Any participant can delete a markup. We assume people are going to play nice. Is the result chaos? Or ease of use bliss? Please tell us what you think: Labs.Freewheel@autodesk.com.

One click collaboration makes DWF go way beyond the paper.

--Scott

Autodesk Design Review 2008 Service Pack is here!

Autodesk® Design Review 2008 Service Pack 1 is available for download as of August 15th, 2007.

Download

The Autodesk Design Review 2008 Service Pack 1 includes an impressive number of fixes including, but not limited to the following features:

• API
• Canvas/Data Panes and Navigator Palettes
• DWF Compare
• Cross Sections
• DGN Importer
• DWFx
• Embedded
• Georeferenced DWF
• Hyperlinks
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Measure and Markup
• Menus and Toolbars
• Options
• Print
• Pull Apart (Move and Rotate)
• Shadows and Lighting Effects
• Steering Wheels
• Undo/Redo

Please find more details about each of the stated features in the ReadMe of the Service Pack.

--Volker

It's Alive in the Lab: Project Showroom

Scott Sheppard has a posting on what's new in an update to Project Showroom.

Updated Project Showroom Now Available

Check it out.

Customizing the Navigator Palettes in Autodesk Design Review 2008

Sometimes you don’t need or want to have all of the navigator palettes displayed.  If you only use Design Review for viewing 2D DWF files, having the Cross Sections palette getting in your way can be frustrating. Overcome your palette frustration and rid yourself of unused (or little used) palettes by creating or modifying the Design Review Navigator Pane with custom palette layouts.

When you first start Design Review, all palettes are displayed, equally spaced, in the Navigator pane.

If your workflow doesn’t require one or more palettes, you can collapse them by clicking the arrow next to the palette’s name, or you can minimize them to the Navigator Dock by clicking the hide button in the palette’s titlebar. For users who will only ever view a certain kind of file, this type of solution may be  suitable since Design Review will retain the last used layout the next time the program starts.

However, if you view different kinds of files or perform more than one task in the Design Review process, you may need to have multiple Navigator Pane layouts that can be quickly accessed.

Design Review 2008 has three predefined custom layouts built in. For example, when you click the Cross Section tool, or click the Measure or Markup tools, you’ll notice that the layout of the navigator pane changes based on tool selection.

Unfortunately, some users don’t want the Navigator palettes to do anything when they’re sectioning a model, creating markup, or dimensioning geometry in Design Review.

To keep the Navigator Pane layout from changing when you choose different tools

1. Arrrange the palettes according to your preferences.
2. In the Navigator Pane Toolbar,   click the Options button (at the right edge).
3. Choose Save Current Layout to >
4. Select the layout to save the customized view.

Note: The custom layout cannot be renamed.

Now, whenever you choose a different tool in Design Review, your Navigator Pane layout will be displayed according to your customization.

If you determine that a layout you have saved doesn’t serve your needs, you can repeat the process above, or choose Restore Layout Defaults to reset all layouts.

We have also created an AVI of the process and you can download it here.

--Volker