Beyond the Paper

Season's Greetings and Best Wishes!

Season's Greetings and my Best Wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year!

--Volker

CONSTRUCTECH - Searching for CAD Files

Autodesk Inc., www.autodesk.com, San Rafael, Calif., announced leading search engines such as Microsoft Live Search and Google now offer the ability to search, index, and retrieve hundreds of thousands of drawings, maps, 3D models, and other CAD (computer-aided design) documents and information.

Wider access to these files, says Autodesk, enables designers, their project teams, and the general public to save time searching for relevant information they can reference and re-use for better design decisions and related tasks.

The technology provider explains when engineers and architects using AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, or Revit software products to create drawings and models, the complexity and file size can make it difficult to share them with those outside of the engineering department. Many engineers and architects therefore choose to make drawings and models more accessible by publishing compact DWF versions of their designs and sharing them online.

Read the complete article here.

--Volker

Save custom views in DWF using Autodesk Design Review

Ever wondered how you could switch off selected layers and save the DWF file in that state? For instance, you want to send on the file to somebody else, with specific layers turned off.

You can create a custom view and save the DWF with the custom view.  Setup your layers, open the views palette and through the right-click menu on My Views, you can create a view.  Ask the recipient of the files to open the custom view and they will see the layer states you intended.

Here is how it works step by step:

1. Arrange the items on the canvas and set the view the way you want it to be saved.
   Important: Saving to My Views is the only way to save Layer, Move and Rotate, and Cross Section views.
2. On the Views palette title bar, click the Palette Options button   and choose Save View.
   The selected view will be saved under My Views as My View 1. Additional views will be saved as My View 2, My View 3, and so on.

You can rename saved views as desired.

--Volker

Autodesk Design Review and Hyperlinks

A discussion group participant recently asked us as to whether he could hyperlink from a DWF file to a Microsoft Excel file.

One of our *new* Product Designers, mark Anderson replied with the following: "Autodesk Design Review can retain published hyperlinks created in authoring applications such as AutoCAD. However, Autodesk Design Review cannot be used to create new hyperlinks in DWF files.

So, if you are an AutoCAD user or a user of another authoring application, you can create the hyperlink there, then publish to DWF. One way to do this is to create a field, then in the properties of that field, select Hyperlink and add your link.

The path of the hyperlink depends on where the Microsoft Excel file will be. For example, if you are linking to filename.xls on the desktop of your machine, the link might be C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop\filename.xls.

If you do not have an authoring application, you may add a text markup with the hyperlink path, but other users will have to copy and paste the link into an Internet browser or Windows Explorer."

--Volker

Inventor File Types to DWF Conversion Reference

Have you ever wondered about the difference you see when publishing different file types from Inventor?

Inventor creates different types of files for different purposes. Based on the type of file you work in, you can publish different content into a DWF.

Enclosed is an easy reference table that will provide you with a better understanding as to what can be published to DWF from which Inventor file type.

--Volker

Autodesk Design Review 2008 - Tips and Tricks

Once more, the Autodesk Design Review Tips and Tricks booklet turned out to be a great hit during AU2007. So much, that we ran out of material before the show ended.

I figured it would be great to allow for further distribution and I have attached an electronic version of the booklet to this post. Feel free to download and distribute it at will.

The booklet covers the following content:

Publish

• Increase the precision of Drawing Measurement from AutoCAD
• Publish Block Attributes from AutoCAD
• Pass It On: Publish (DWF) and Email Directly from Windows Explorer
• Publish DWFx Files for No-Install Viewing and Printing
• Combine Project Information
• Publish from Microsoft Office Documents

View and Print

• Quickly Zoom and Pan
• Rotate 3D Models
• Pull a 3D Model Apart
• Create 3D Cross Sections
• Access Design Intelligence
• Use the View Cube Features
• View without Installing Software
• Use Flexible Printing Options
• Manage Design Review in Autodesk Buzzsaw

Review, Measure and Mark Up

• Measure Accurately
• Compare Drawings
• Work with Advanced Mark Ups
• Use Custom Symbols and Stamps
• Import Mark Ups into Design Applications
• Manage your Project Information in One Place

Advanced Tips

• Install Across Your Company
• Embed Autodesk Design Review in HTML Documents
• Save DWF Files that You View
• Use APIs to Customize and Extend Functionality

You can download a copy of the booklet here.

--Volker

Autodesk Freewheel Developer Contest

Ready....set.....get coding! If you've got what it takes, you'll win an awesome prize. We're giving away a "Dream 3D System" for the Most Innovative Application that uses Autodesk Freewheel.

What's a "Dream 3D System", you ask? Well, we think you'll like it...

All you need to do is use some or all of the Freewheel web services within an application. It can be a brand new application or an extension of an existing application. We'll be judging the apps on a variety of critera:

• Innovation, originality and creativity
• Potential for long-term success
• Effectiveness at solving a need in the marketplace
• And visual design, appeal, and usability.....so it's got to look good!

Details on how to enter the contest can be found here.

--Volker