Beyond the Paper

Autodesk Design Review 2011 - Using 2D Measurements

Autodesk Design Review 2011 enables you to measure a drawings published objects. In this video, I'll review the available 2D measurement tools.

Please share any feedback you may have.

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Autodesk Design Review 2011 — Using and Sharing Workspaces

With Autodesk Design Review 2011, workspaces can be set up for any workflow. In this video I'll show you how to use workspaces and share them with your team.

Please share any feedback you may have.

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Autodesk Design Review 2011 - Enhanced 3D Lighting & Field of View

Autodesk Design Review 2011 has once again improved the 3D viewing experience. In this video, I'll show you how 3D lighting has been improved, as well as how to use the new Field of View tool.

Please share any feedback you may have with us.

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Autodesk Design Review 2011 — Using and Sharing Custom Symbols

Using and sharing symbols is a great way to customize Autodesk Design Review 2011. In this video, we'll show you how to use and share custom symbols.

Please share any feedback you may have.

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Thick Lines in DWF Files?

I have seen a number of discussion group posts talking about this issue now. Users open a DWG using Autodesk Design Review 2010 and some, if not all, lines are showing up with a thick line width.

AutoCAD or AutoCAD based applications provide users with an option to create layouts in the DWG. Within the layouts decisions can be made as to "how thick" the lines should be or what line width they would like to apply. It also provides an option for the paper size settings. These DWG layouts are turning into sheets within DWF files. As a result of this - DWF files can have one sheet for DWG model space and none, one, or more sheets for the DWG layouts.

It should also be noted that Autodesk Design Review makes use of DWG True View, when loading a DWG and effectively converting the DWG to DWF. As a general rule - the default settings for model space or the layouts are such that the lines come out really thick.

The issue can be resolved by choosing the same size lines on a bigger piece of paper or thinner lines on the same size piece of paper. Changes have to be applied to the DWG. User who do not have access to AutoCAD or the AutoCAD based application can use DWG True View.

Note: DWG True View is a viewer and does not apply changes to DWG files permanently. As such, it should only be considered a temporary workaround.

Steps Needed Are:

1. Load the DWG into DWG True View.
2. Make the changes as outlined in http://dwf.blogs.com/beyond_the_paper/2006/12/common_dwf_publ_1.html.
3. Publish the DWF.
4, Load the DWF in Design Review.

Thank you.

Autodesk Design Review 2010 Fails to Launch

We now had several customers who experienced and subsequently reported the following.

Autodesk Design Review 2010 does not start at all. The timer appears for a second when double clicking  the icon or executable, but nothing else. Users also noted that the DesignReview.exe does not appear in the process list of the Windows task manager.

Oddly enough, the problem came down to a conflict with Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended and it's feature "Capture CAD Modules".

All customers that did have both, Autodesk Design Review 2010 as well as Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended installed could resolve the issue using these steps:

• Go to the Windows Control Panel
• Select the Uninstall feature
• Choose Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended
• Select Modify
• Expand Adobe 3D
• Choose "Capture CAD Modules"
• Select "This feature will not be available"

Please let us know should you be affected by the above, meet the criteria but cannot resolve the issue by using the outlined steps.

Thank you.

Autodesk Design Review 2010 Won't Open

Recently, a customer reported that after upgrading from Design Review 2009 to Design Review 2010, launching Design Review 2010 didn't seem to launch, even though DesignReview.exe appeared in the Task Manager's Processes tab. Design Review Lead Engineer Dony Chen suggested that there may be an application compatibility issue in the registry.

Here’s the solution he provided to the customer:

1. Open the Windows Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
2. Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers". *
3. In the Registry Editor's right pane, locate and delete Explorer.exe and DesignReview.exe. (If necessary, click Yes to confirm each deletion.)
4. Next, navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers".
5. In the Registry Editor's right pane, again, locate and delete Explorer.exe and DesignReview.exe. (If necessary, click Yes to confirm each deletion.)
6. Exit the Registry Editor.
7. Restart the computer.

*Note: If the keys are not in the registry, application compatibility isn’t the issue.

Warning!

Problems caused by improperly editing the Windows registry could render your computer operating system unusable. Microsoft has provided a wealth of critical information you need to know about the registry in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support.

Use the Microsoft® Registry Editor only at your own risk and only after backing up the registry as well as the system.dat and user.dat files as outlined in ARTICLE-ID: Q132332 "How to Back Up the Registry" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. Additional information about the registry is also contained in the Help topics in the Microsoft Registry Editor.

Disable AutoUpdate - Autodesk Design Review 2010

Some customers chose to disable the AutoUpdate functionality in previous releases. This was a workaround if the product started up very slow, initially or even locked up.

We did take note of that when finalizing Autodesk Design Review 2010, unfortunately we did not have enough time to implement a solution for both, standalone and network deployments. In the end, only network deployments did benefit from an update.

To summarize, the AutoUpdate functionality is disabled by default in Autodesk Design Review 2010, once the application has been deployed - however, it still exists when installed as standalone application.

Users can, once more, workaround the issue by setting the following values:

• InitialCheck  1
• DoNotShowAgain  1

Different registry locations are applicable, so we have listed the most common ones here:

Windows XP 32bit

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate

Windows XP 64bit

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6423Node\Autodesk\Designreview\Settings\AutoUpdate
• HKEY_CURRENR_USER\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate

Windows Vista 32bit

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AppDataLow\Software\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate

Windows Vista 64bit

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AppDataLow\Software\Autodesk\Design Review\Settings\AutoUpdate

Note: It is recommended that you start the application at least once, else there is a good chance that the values of InitialCheck and DoNotShowAgain have not been created yet. If you decide to edit the registry prior to starting Autodesk Design Review 2010, you will have to create those keys manually.

Warning!
Problems caused by improperly editing the Windows registry could render your computer operating system unusable. Microsoft has provided a wealth of critical information you need to know about the registry in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support.

Use the Microsoft® Registry Editor only at your own risk and only after backing up the registry as well as the system.dat and user.dat files as outlined in ARTICLE-ID: Q132332 "How to Back Up the Registry" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. Additional information about the registry is also contained in the Help topics in the Microsoft Registry Editor.

Thank you.

Autodesk Design Review 2010 & Windows Server 2003

Many of our customers have and are attempting to run Autodesk Design Review 2010 on the Windows Server 2003 platform.

Few customers have been successful and many are experiencing an unresponsive application or one that simply terminates early. As a matter of fact, this specific problem is one of the most reported CER problems to date.

Autodesk Design Review 2010 is not designed, nor has it been tested for the Windows Server 2003 platform. Please see the system requirements for information as to what platforms are supported for this particular application.

Please let us know should you have any follow up questions to this particular subject.

Thank you.

Autodesk Design Review 2010 - Hotfix 2

Some users have noticed that Autodesk Design Review 2010 closed unexpectedly during startup.

The hotfix takes care of this issue and can be downloaded here.

Please note that this solution only applies to Autodesk Design Review 2010 and should only be applied after Autodesk Design Review 2010 has been installed.

Please let us know should you have any questions, comments or suggestions.

Thank you.