Beyond the Paper

Autodesk Design Review 2008 Now Available

After hours of tireless effort working on the Nile project, Autodesk Design Review 2008 is now available for download from the Autodesk web site.

http://www.autodesk.com/designreview

There are optional plug-ins that can be downloaded as well. These include Batch Printing, JT Import, and DGN Import. These are also available from the Autodesk web site:

http://www.autodesk.com/dwf-plugins

If you wish to download these installers once and then deploy them across your company, you can run the silent installers in succession with a BAT file or similar process that does:

1. start /wait SetupDesignReview.exe /s /v/qn
2. start /wait BatchPrint_DesignReview2008.exe /s /v/qn
3. start /wait JTImporter_DesignReview2008.exe /s /v/qn
4. start /wait DGNImporter_DesignReview2008.exe /s /v/qn

So not only should you come and get them, you should get them all and then spread them across your organization. We have been looking forward to this day. It's been a long time and a long way to go.

Boaters on the Nile river - image courtesy of Nile Beta Project Manager, Volker Joseph. It is fitting that we announce our product and end our project with the image that began customer involvement. Without customers, DWF would not go beyond the paper.

DWF and the Deathly Hallows: Why did Autodesk abandon RML?

A Mr. Harry Potter from Fort Lee, New Jersey writes in an asks:

Why did Autodesk abandon the use of RML files in favor of DWF?

Autodesk View was the first Autodesk product to provide a redline capability. When this application got combined with WHIP! to form Volo View, the markup information was saved in what was called a redline markup language (RML) file. To keep file sizes small, the RML file contained just the markup information. The design author and reviewer were both assumed to have the original drawing file. The RML file contained the name of the drawing that the markup applied to. This allowed Volo View to load the drawing when the RML file was loaded.

Having just the drawing file name in the RML file proved problematic in that the RML file did not identify which version of a drawing had been used. In many cases, the drawing had changed between the time it was marked up and the time that the recipient of the RML wanted to respond to a reviewer's comments. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the markup was done based on all of what the user could see when viewed in Volo View. This included XREFs and other files, but none of the names of the XREF references appeared in the RML file. So if an XREF had been added or dropped since the markup was created, there was no way to tell.

So rather than produce an RML file that just contained the markup and have to try to determine what it had been created against, we went the other direction. We decided to capture what was being viewed (source, XREFs, and all) in addition to the markup. We used a DWF file which captured the original drawing and allowed Autodesk Design Review to add markup information to that DWF file. It actually adds the markup information at the end - leaving the original DWF file in tact. For updating the original drawing file, we created a round trip process where the markup information could be culled from the DWF file and aligned with the source drawing. This removed all doubt as to what a drawing looked like when it was marked up but still allowed the markup to be viewed against the latest version of a drawing.

The markup information in a DWF is actually a combination of XML, an industry standard, and typical DWF geometry. The RML format predated XML and was proprietary.

One of the benefits of the RML file was that Volo View loaded it as an XREF against the original drawing. Thus you could load more than one reviewer's comments at the same time. This is also possible with Autodesk Design Review. Using Autodesk Design Review, you can combine multiple marked up sheets from several DWF files into one DWF file. You then load the combined DWF file in the Markup Set Manager of AutoCAD. The duplicated DWF geometry is ignored and only the markup items are shown. The result is that you see all of the reviewers comments against the original geometry in the drawing.

DWG to DWF to Email: One Fell Swoop

I have AutoCAD 2007. Let's say I need to get a copy of my drawing to someone who doesn't have AutoCAD. Let's say I am in a hurry. I can browse folders for my drawing, select it, and right click:

This will invoke AutoCAD which will publish the DWF, invoke my email reader, create a new message, start drafting the email by inserting a subject and some message text, attach the DWF, and set me up me to edit the message. Although this functionality exists within Autodesk Design Review today, with the free Autodesk Design Review 2008, the message will look like:

Now wasn't that easy?

Autodesk Design Review 2008: Lighting Effects

In a previous blog article, I provided an overview of new features in Autodesk Design Review 2008. This posting is a follow up that provides additional information for the new lighting options. The content in this blog posting is a "mutation" of the information you will find in the Autodesk Design Review 2008 help file created by Chris Blocher, Jonathan Geary, and Kim Schaefer of the Technical Publications group at our Ithaca, New York office.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison invented the concept of the light bulb. What a guy. Autodesk Design Review has predefined lighting schemes that offer variations in color and intensity. Selecting a different lighting option makes it easier to discern darker objects in a 3D model where the settings at the time the DWF was created were optimized for the user working in the publishing application. To determine the current lighting effect, you place the mouse pointer over the Lighting Effects button () on the Canvas Pane Toolbar. A tool tip displays the current selection.

Menu	Lighting Effect	Description
	Headlamp	A single bright light from the front. This is the default effect unless Published Lights exist.
	Bright	Employs two lights and provides increased ambient brightness.
	Daylight	A single intense light from above with slight bluish tint from the side and below.
	Night Time	Three lights in blues and purples to darken the model on the canvas.
	Primary	Three opposed lights in primary colors.
	Blue	A single intense blue light.
	Red	A single intense red light.
	Engineering	A single cool-white light from the front with less intense fill light from the side. Ambient light is increased to avoid pure black spaces.
	Published Lights	Enables lighting effects created in the authoring application. This is the default effect, if the DWF file was generated with Published Lights.

From these descriptions. you are probably curious as to what these look like. A picture is worth a thousand words:

1. Headlamp
   

2. Bright
   

3. Daylight
   

4. Night Time
   

5. Primary
   

6. Blue
   

7. Red
   

8. Engineering
   

9. Published Lights
   

Lighting effects persist only as long as the DWF file is open in Design Review. If you exit Design Review and reopen the same file, or open the same file in a separate instance, you will have to reapply your preferred lighting effect. You can, however, save a view with applied lighting effects using My Views, or by creating a markup. When printing the DWF file or the currently loaded sheet, any lighting effect applied during the current session will be applied to the printed output.

In addition to these lighting effects, shadows can be turned on () or off () from the Toolbar.

Having one file format that can house all of your project data, in one file, for all of your project members, that can be shared across the entire life cycle of your project offers advantages for the mechanical industry. The ability to light this data to suit the recipient's, not the sender's, needs allows DWF to go beyond the paper.

Autodesk Design Review 2008: Updated Help File

Autodesk Design Review 2008 will be released in April. To celebrate, Senior Technical Writer for Autodesk Design Review, Chris Blocher, sent me an URL the other day:

Design your own temporary tattoos

Chris suggested that we all get DWF ball tattoos. The ones you create as described in the URL are only temporary. How about a permanent one? Now that would reflect some serious dedication to the call of duty. Luckily our Technical Publications department allows their words to speak louder than their actions. The help file for Autodesk Design Review 2008 has been much improved. The index has been expanded and scrubbed. Chris Blocher, Jonathan Geary, and Kim Schaefer have also restructured the content.

If you compare the 2008 and 2007 Help files, you’ll notice that they reorganized the content and have expanded the Using Design Review chapter by promoting content that was previously buried further down. There’s also a new section specifically for the Options Dialog (Changing Design Review Options). There’s another called Quick Reference Guide that includes a Learning Resources page.

So check out the Autodesk Design Review help when you can. It is chock full of great information. Even with a casual read, the information will become permanently etched in your mind - if not your arm.

Autodesk Revit 2008 a.k.a. DWF BIM Capturer

If AutoCAD is lovingly referred to as DWF Creator and Vault is referred to as DWF On-Demand Publisher, then I guess Revit must be DWF BIM Capturer. Yes this is the DWF blog.

In previous articles I have recommended that DWF files be created from Revit. AutoCAD has 25 years of printer driver honing when it comes to producing plot files. Revit is not as seasoned in this regard. Hence I have recommended that Autodesk customers create DWF files to send to commercial reprographic shops.

Revit 2008 has some things to offer in terms of DWF.

• Revit 2008 is using the 7.3 version of the DWF Toolkit. This features several defect corrections with regard to what's in your DWF files.
• For Revit 2008, the File/Export DWF menu option has been changed to File/Publish DWF.
• Revit 2008 processes markup comments from multisheet DWF files in a more optimal fashion.
• Revit 2008 produces files that can be measured using the area tool of Autodesk Design Review.
• Revit 2008 produces smaller DWF files in that non-relevant model data is not included.
• Revit 2008 automatically defaults to the paper size exported if exporting a sheet to a 2D DWF. The default zoom setting (on the Print Setup dialog) is now Fit To Page. This setting avoids the (usually) undesired result of getting a cropped portion of the 2D view in the DWF file. In addition, you can now define custom page sizes for DWF publishing.
• Revit 2008 allows linked Revit files to be exported to 3D DWF properly.
• Revit 2008 can publish DWF files to Buzzsaw.

Do you know what it's like?
All revved up with no place to go.
Jim Steinman from the Meat Loaf song "All Revved Up With No Place To Go"

Actually I don't. With Revit, I'm all rev'd up with someplace to go! Revit captures more than just the graphics from a design. The metadata from the building information model (BIM) is captured in the DWF and helps DWF go beyond the paper. That's why I refer to it as DWF BIM Capturer. It's a term of endearment. Revit 2008 is another step in DWF's evolution to go beyond the paper.

CAD Application Development: Revit 2008 API: Import/Export of DWG/DWF/Image

Director of Software Development at Avatech Solutions, Matt Mason, notes that the Revit 2008 API has expanded to allow for DWF export:

Revit 2008 API: Import/Export of DWG/DWF/Image

Now customers can automate the publishing of DWF files from building information models. It can happen during off hours just like it did in the children's story about the cobbler who had elves repair shoes while he slept. Check it out.

Autodesk Design Review 2008 Silent Install

The free Autodesk Design Review 2008 can be installed silently via the following:

start /wait SetupDesignReview.exe /s /v/qn

The /s indicates silent mode. The /v/qn indicates that arguments should be passed to the msiexec module. There should be no UI even in the case of an error. Note: The Autodesk Design Review help information has an extra space between the /v and /qn. The proper command line invocation is /v/qn. With the extra space, the silent installation does not work.

In a similar fashion, the Batch Print capability can also be silently installed:

start /wait BatchPrint_DesignReview2008.exe /s /v/qn

The silent install process is particularly useful when installing Autodesk Design Review 2008 company-wide network deploy using SMS. These two EXE files can be used the same way the 2007 MSI file was used.

Unlike the original Autodesk Design Review 2007 which required a serial number and recommended registration, neither is required for Autodesk Design Review 2008. You can easily install Autodesk Design Review 2008 across your entire organization. Company wide adoption of Autodesk Design Review helps DWF go beyond the paper.

Autodesk: Experience it before it's real

Our marketing department created a new company video:

Download ADSK400.wmv (31484.0K)

As an Autodesk employee, it makes me proud. It will only take 3 minutes of your time. Check it out.

How do I find items on this blog?

In its first year, there were 473 posts to this blog. When you navigate to http://dwf.blogs.com, you see the most recent 10 posts. A common question I get is, "Since I can only see the most recent 10 posts, how do I see the older posts?"

There are several ways you can do this.

	DWF FAQ: Prior to starting this blog, I maintained a DWF Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document. This blog has replaced that 68 page Word document. The left navigation section of this blog includes a DWF FAQ image that is hyperlinked to a new DWF FAQ HTML page. The HTML page is a set of hyperlinks with answers to frequently asked questions. Many of the questions are hyperlinks to answers that are previous postings to this blog. So if you have a particular question in mind, this is the place to start. The DWF FAQ is organized around: FORMAT RELATED QUESTIONS DWF Usage DWF Security DWF Precision USER INTERFACE CUSTOMER QUESTIONS DWF Publishing DWF Viewing DWF Markup DWF Measurement DWF Compare DWF Text Search DWF Takeoff / Facilities Management DWF Printing REPROGRAPHICS INDUSTRY (bluepinter) QUESTIONS Sending DWF Files to a Shop Processing DWF Files at a Shop APPLICATION PROGRAM INTERFACE (API) SOFTWARE DEVELOPER QUESTIONS DWF Embedding DWF Programming
	Sample Programs: The left navigation section of this blog includes a DWF Samples image that is hyperlinked to a list of sample applications. The samples are available in HTML, JavaScript, Visual Basic, C#, and C++.
	Calendar: Perhaps you are looking for a post and you know on which day it was originally posted. You can select a day of the month and see all postings for that day.
	Search: You can use the Google search engine to find specific text strings in postings on this blog.
	Categories: The categories for this blog are the same as the sections of the DQF FAQ. What a coincidence. :-) So if you are looking for information regarding a particular aspect of DWF, you can view the set of previous postings by these categories. The Weblog category refers to postings about this blog itself (such as this one) or other fun items. Items from other categories also get moved to Weblogs when they become obsolete. They are preserved for historical reference.
	Recent Posts: The posts on this blog sometimes get long. Fear not - most of the time they have pictures that contribute to their length. This section provides hyperlinks to the 10 most recent posts.
	Archives: The archives are a handy way to get most of the site into one document. The archives are organized by month. You can see a whole month's worth of posts with one click of a hyperlink. Using the Internet Explorer File->SaveAs capability allows a complete local copy (including the images) to be saved to your local computer for browsing while not connected to the internet.
	Shortcuts: Before I added the DWF FAQ image at the top of the left navigation section, I created this list of shortcuts. The FAQ used to be one of them. These are now hyperlinks to particular postings that I found the need to revisit often.
	RSS Reader: The goal of this blog is to answer all of your DWF-related needs. First time visitors get a taste of the most recent 10. Regular visitor usually read the last post daily. Other users use methods like RSS feeds to receive posts regularly. I previously used the free RSS Bandit for my RSS feeds. Now I use Internet Explorer 7. The subscribe link appears at the bottom of the left navigation section (FEEDS section).
	My Yahoo!: You can add the RSS feed to your My Yahoo! page. This allows you to read postings as you read other news items of interest on Yahoo!. For your convenience, a link to add Beyond the Paper to your My Yahoo! appears in the FEEDS section.
	Google: You can add the ATOM feed to your Google home page or Google Reader. This allows you to read postings as you read other news items of interest on Google. A link to add Beyond the Paper to Google appears in the FEEDS section.
	Bloglines: You can create a personal Bloglines page loaded with the freshest news about the things you love. An image to add Beyond the Paper to your Bloglines page appears in the FEEDS section.
	FeedBurner: FeedBurner helps bloggers, podcasters, and commercial publishers get more value from the content they create. FeedBurner feed management technology delivers subscription services for publishers large and small so they can grow their reach. The FEEDS section has a hyperlink to take you to http://feeds.feedburner.com/BeyondThePaper.
	MSN Messenger Alerts: You can subscribe and receive summary alerts on Microsoft Instant Messenger. You can also receive an email message if you wish. There is an image with a hyperlink in the FEEDS section.
	Mobile Phone: In minutes, you can set-up a mobile space that's available worldwide on a web-enabled phone, PDA, or desktop PC. Each mobile site is outfitted with easy-to-use mobile channels including chat, blog, mobile feed reader, surveys, journal, forum, calendar, guestbook, bookmarks, email and more. In the FEEDS section, there is an image with a hyperlink to add Beyond the Paper to your WINKsite.
	Email: If you prefer not to use a browser, an RSS reader, or instant messenger to view these blog postings, you can have them sent to you via email. A sign up form is available at the bottom of the FEEDS section. This capability is provided by FeedBlitz. There is a way to unsubscribe if you change your mind later. (No way.)
	Blog Badge: If you are creating your own web site and wish to include an image as a hyperlink to this blog, please see adding a Beyond the Paper badge to your site.

Regardless of how you access Beyond the Paper, this is the place to get answers to your DWF questions. Without informed users, DWF cannot go beyond the paper.