Beyond the Paper

StressFree: Web Searching of CAD Content

David of StressFree, Open Source Development and Consulting Services, has an article that mentions DWF:

Web Searching of CAD content

Check it out.

Collaborative Project Management Roundtable Series

Buzzsaw is one of the products Autodesk offers in the area of Collaborative Project Management.

There's a scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian movie that goes like this:

• FRANCIS: I think Judith's point of view is very valid, Reg, provided the Movement never forgets that it is the inalienable right of every man--
• STAN: Or woman.
• FRANCIS: Or woman... to rid himself--
• STAN: Or herself.
• FRANCIS: Or herself.
• REG: Agreed.
• FRANCIS: Thank you, brother.
• STAN: Or sister.
• REG: Furthermore, it is the birthright of every man--
• STAN: Or woman.
• REG: Why don't you shut up about women, Stan. You're putting us off.
• STAN: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.
• FRANCIS: Why are you always on about women, Stan?
• STAN: I want to be one.
• REG: What?
• STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me 'Loretta.'
• REG: What?!
• LORETTA: It's my right as a man.
• JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
• LORETTA: I want to have babies.
• REG: You want to have babies?!
• LORETTA: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
• REG: But... you can't have babies.
• LORETTA: Don't you oppress me.

A lot of people ask me, Why are you always on about Buzzsaw, Scott? Well I used to be one. I was the software development manager who took over from Mark Sweat who led the team at the time of its creation. I was the manager for the development during our days at Buzzsaw.com. Old habits die hard.

Senior Marketing Manager, Dawn Wolfe, announced that we have seminars coming up on January 23, 30 and February 6. You can sign up at:

Attend Our Roundtable Series

DWF and Buzzsaw are related in that Buzzsaw provides an organized way to share and record design information via DWF - an no I don't get a cut of the Buzzsaw action. I just mention Buzzsaw in this blog, because it's my right as a man. Don't you oppress me. Check it out!

Another Sample DWF - this time from Viz

For this year's Autodesk University, Technical Evangelist, Brian Pene, created a suite of DWF files to be used in our Autodesk Collaboration Systems booth. Two have been featured in blog postings already:

• Brokk's Candy
• Revit Residential Sample Shows Off DWF Possibilities

Another one of them is a residence published by Autodesk Revit.

Download VizProject3d.DWF (2961.0K)

This sample DWF file features both 3D shaded views published by 3D Studio Viz.

Check it out.

QuadriSpace Publisher3D Publishes 3D DWF files

QuadriSpace has been working with our DWF Toolkit - the source code and specification that we share openly with software developers. As a result, QuadriSpace Publisher3D can import 3D models from various 3D CAD tools and publish 3D DWF models. Publisher3D supports material editing, animated step creation, meta-data editing, creation of memorized views, render style modifications, storyboard creation and more.

Quadrispace DWF

Check it out!

Outside the Box: AutoCAD drawing files: possession is 9/10 of the law?

Owen Wengerd has an interesting article on his Outside the Box blog:

AutoCAD drawing files: possession is 9/10 of the law?

Owen concludes with:

If you are providing electronic files, don't rely on copyright law alone to protect your intellectual property. This case reinforces the 3 C's for protecting AutoCAD DWG files: copyright, contract, and CADLock.

Even with the existence of the DWF Underlay command, sharing low precision DWF files (you can set the vector DPI to 400) instead of the original DWG is an alternative as well. A DWF file is not your source intellectual property. It takes effort for someone to convert it back to a DWG. In this case, the customer who requested the DWG files for "personal use" could probably have used DWF files just as easily,

Project Freewheel: DWF File Caching

A Mr. Richard Feder from Fort Lee, New Jersey writes in:

When I post a new DWF to my company's webpage, Project Freewheel is not finding it. As a test, I renamed an existing DWF to _old and gave the new DWF the existing name to see what would happen. Well, Project Freewheel found the original DWF file. Could someone explain the WHATs and WHYs of what might be happening here?

Software engineer and DWF Technical Evangelist, Ben Cochran, replied:

I am not sure why Project Freewheel could not locate your new file using the new path. When you use the old URL, the Freewheel server is not actually reading the DWF from your site; instead it is reading the file from the Freewheel server cache. In the future the cached file will be checked against what is on the internet to make sure the cache is current, but this has not yet been built.

Project Freewheel is currently a technology preview. This allows us to try technologies out before releasing them. In the case of the first Freewheel implementation, we targeted high risk unknowns like rendering speed, user interaction, and round trip internet latency problems to name a few. Now we are spending time rounding out Freewheel with proper cache management. The problems we are solving now are simpler because the solutions are more textbook, but it still takes time to implement.

The ability to view design data on any platform extends the reach of DWF. This allows DWF to go beyond what can be done with traditional paper.

For the latest information on Project Freewheel, see Scott Sheppard's It's Alive in the Lab blog.

DWF for P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon and Half Marathon

Tomorrow my wife and daughter are running in P.F.Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Half Marathon. Thanks to everyone who donated to the American Liver Foundation in support of their efforts. I scanned in the race route from their handout of materials. I then used Autodesk Design Review to annotate the spots where I will hook up with them to cheer them on.

Download scan.dwf (2912.8K)

Having an image of the map instead of vectors inflated the file size; however, the markup capabilities of Design Review came in quite handy.

To avoid the download of the rather large DWF file, there's always the Project Freewheel Viewer.

cadalyst: Windows Vista implements DWF Support

CAD Central has a DWF article:

Windows Vista Implements DWF Support

Of note, so you're not just hearing it from Autodesk blogs, is that: In addition to Vista, Microsoft will also release a stand-alone XPS Viewer for use in Windows 2000 through Vista. XPS Viewers will also be available for Mac, Linux, and UNIX platforms.

Check it out!

New Support Options for Collaborative Project Management applications that feature DWF

Customer Support Manager, Abel Murietta, reports that the new Autodesk Support Services for Collaborative Project Management (CPM) Page is Now Available on Autodesk.com. Our global help desk will be providing support for Buzzsaw, Constructware, and Streamline in North America, UK, Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan. Other resources are available for Autodesk Design Review. Subscribers to Buzzsaw and Streamline are entitled to a copy of Autodesk Design Review.

• Autodesk Design Review
• Autodesk Buzzsaw
• Autodesk Constructware
• Autodesk Streamline

For Buzzsaw, Constructware, and Streamline, users will notice 3 boxes on the right side of the pages:

• Contact a Support Expert – This allows customers to reach CPM support depending on their geographical location by phone or web support which will directly issue a ticket number upon submission.
• Download the Data Sheet – This is collateral that customers can use to learn more about our support service offerings to new and existing customers.
• Scheduled Maintenance Information – This provides information on the times we conduct maintenance and updates to our servers.

DWF is a key ingredient of the CPM products. A variety of support options are available for them.

Actionair: DWFs in action

Actionair of the United Kingdom makes fan coils and dampers. They show off their products using DWF and PDF.

Check out those file sizes! Their site supports DWF for users with the Autodesk DWF Viewer or Autodesk Design Review by providing links to DWF files. They support users without by using the Project Freewheel Viewer.

http://www.actionair.co.uk/

You can get to the Freewheel section by selecting Products and then Drawings. Action Air also makes the original drawings available via i-Drop.

This is definitely DWF in action.