The next version of Autodesk's DWF viewer will be usable on the MAC operating system, so you will be able to share your models and drawing data with your MAC colleagues. The next DWF print engine will allow you to append Word and Excel documents to your CAD plot as well as create drawing packages, so you can simulate the same drawing package you now send out using Fed Ex and San Jose Blue entirely with an email with an automated DWF attachment. A great time and cost savings.

Carl Bass, Autodesk VP, promised during the keynote address that we will see integrated analysis solutions in future releases of Autodesk software. The goal, he states, is "to start with it digital and keep it digital throughout the life cycle" of the product or design. John Clauson, AUGI's president, chuckled when Carl proclaimed that one of Autodesk's design goals in new releases would be to adhere to the "principle of least astonishment" as many users can relate to the experience of clicking a button and not getting the expected or desired results.

Scott Boudin, Autodesk's Chief Technology Officer, gave the audience a lesson on PLM, BLM, and ILM, admitting that most people he speaks with have no idea what the acronyms mean or how they should be applied. That said, he explained that as draftspeople we create and control data; data being defined as a collection of facts. The problem is to take the data and turn into information, a repository of facts that are actually used. How much documentation do you create every year that is filed and never accessed once it hits the file cabinet? As we all suffer from information overload, Scott's concern is to allow the data that resides in our drawings and turn it into information that can be used - making us more valuable to our companies.

I was a little perturbed by Autodesk's self- promotion of the DWF vehicle, they showed a stop- action animation on DWF that featured PDF getting the boot. In my notes at the event, I wrote "Autodesk suffers from the inability to see past a single solution." As an engineer, I have to be able to look at the big picture and weigh multiple options and various solutions. DWF is a single solution, a great tool- yes, but it is not the only solution. Autodesk needs to step back, take a deep breath, and realize that they will alienate their user base if they continue to push a "single solution" on people who have been trained to resist single solution answers.

On Tuesday, when the conference opened, I was delighted - as were many others, to discover a wireless lounge had been set up for us on the first floor near the registration area. If you had a wireless enabled PDA or laptop, you could lounge in comfy easy chairs or bean bags on a shag rug and catch up on your email for FREE. Imagine our dismay on Wednesday when the wireless network was shut down because of a virus, and, yes, most of us had indeed been infected. At the AUGI board meeting on Tuesday, Dave Kingsley passed around an infected CD to four other board members, before we realized Dave had caught a virus (we didn't know he had been infected by Autodesk's wireless network until the following day.) Yoshi Honda was particularly appreciative as he watched his virus scanner take it's sweet time disinfecting his heavily loaded laptop. I was especially amused by the medical lab coats and stethoscopes sported by Autodesk's Professional Services team in the Autodesk booth. I thought it was a spoof on the network virus problem, but one of the team members told me - no, it was so they would not be confused with the other "professional services" one might find in Vegas.

This year, the number of attendees meant we had actually outgrown the building for meals (can you imagine a group so large it can't be fed at the largest conference hotel in North America?) So, Autodesk - being the master of innovation- had a giant circus tent set up outside and that is where we had breakfast, lunch and dinner most days. Believe it or not, everyone I spoke with loved it - there were more buffet lines, so people got their food faster, the tables were more spread out, so people didn't feel so crowded, the tent cushioned the echo, so the noise level was more comfortable...in every way, it was a superior solution. Kudos for that winner of an idea!

Send the AUGI Dog to the Pound - that was pretty much the unanimous opinion of the audience when the AUGI board brought an AUGI member dressed up as a dog with a cape as the Top DAUG mascot onto the stage for the annual beer bust. Most people said that it was "stupid", geared for kids and they are NOT kids. Frankly, as a BOD member, I hadn't thought too much about it one way or another. The negative reaction seemed stronger than warranted, but I guess the crowd was in Vegas and they wanted more Vegas and less Disney from the AUGI BOD.

I attended the industry session for mechanical to hear what Buzz Kross, VP of the Manufacturing Solutions Division, had to say. He reports that Autodesk has sold 110,887 seats of AutoCAD, MDT, AutoCAD Mechanical and Inventor into the marketplace. In comparison, Dassault has 55,307 seats and PTC has 14,300 seats. These numbers are for the seats sold over the 2003. Obviously, there are more seats total for all of these vendors as a lot of people are still working on previous releases.

Buzz announced that following the release of Inventor R9 due sometime in Q2 2004, Autodesk will move to an annual release of Inventor every spring. Let the rejoicing begin as I think we all are tired of the semi-annual upgrades of Inventor - especially since they often also require hardware upgrades.

	The AU Party with John Cleese
After last year's controversy, the Autodesk AU organizers scrambled to come up with a party theme that would offend the least number of attendees. They came up with "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and a face to face with John Cleese. A crowd of over 2,000 (out of the 3,200+ attendees) showed up to pound their coconuts in appreciation of the movie and Cleese's wit. Following the movie screening, Cleese answered questions from the audience which touched on his career, his views on humor and the differences between Brits and Americans. My favorite question of the evening was the female attendee who asked Cleese to "Please sign my coconuts." He graciously did so to the delight of the audience. Later, I spotted the woman getting her picture taken next to the event marquis, holding the coconuts in a strategic position, so that the autograph would be seen. In typical Monty Python fashion, the flash on her friend's camera failed to operate. Attendees who had fantasies of being kids in a candy shop were more than satiated by the movie theatre candy displays that allowed them to take as many Reeses, Snickers, Cracker Jacks, and all other standard fare, as they desired. I saw more than one person stuffing his AU bag with goodies for the long plane ride home. The dinner featured all manner of spam-inspired entrees. This was problematic for me as I keep kosher. Luckily, Michael Perry, candidate for the AUGI BOD, also has a distaste for all things spam. He treated me to a buffet dinner at the MGM and it was lovely. Next issue - tips and lessons learned from AU

	Vote for the AUGI Board
If you are an AUGI member, you need to go to the AUGI website and vote for the candidates of your choice. Your vote does make a difference. The AUGI Board od Directors decides which programs AUGI will support and fund. For example, the board recently decided to eliminate the guilds and replace them with the forums. The forums will be phased out over the first six months of 2004. The ATP (Autodesk Training Program), a free on-line distance learning program for users world-wide has it's funding from the board. How many classes, how often, etc. is all decided by the board. NFRS distributed to LUGs is also controlled by the board. The AUGI Wishlist, product input, etc. all these are managed by the AUGI Board of Directors. The AUGI board has a lot of control in terms of what services and products you see from Autodesk. The BOD meets with Autodesk execs twice a year and provides input on things like subscription, product bundling, and even new features. The slate will be going up on the AUGI website the week of 12/8. You can vote from 12/8 to 12/19. Read the candidate statements, email a candidate and ask questions, if you like, and cast your vote! Cast your vote... »

	CADalog.com gets a Makeover
CADalog recently revamped their site. CADalog.com had started out as a shareware site with tutorials and tidbits for the serious CAD user. It is now more geared as a distributor for low-cost CAD add-on software With IMSI having recently acquired CADalog, changes are afoot. The freebie stuff has been moved to a new site called freecadapps.com. I somehow acquired a lifetime CADalog membership. This allowed me to download the premium lisp routines for free. This was very cool. I have experienced with previous corporate takeovers that my lifetime subscription/membership was no longer valid. However to IMSI's credit, they are still honoring those memberships. It is obvious that they are working very hard to keep a good relationship with CADalog customers and clients. Check it out... »

	Beware of Plaxo and Cometzone!
Plaxo provides software to keep your address book organized, but David Kingsley, a fellow AUGI Board Director, tells me that Plaxo harvests the email addresses from their unsuspecting customers and then sells them to spammers - a violation of their own privacy statement. Cometzone is similar. They provide a free cursor add- on which you can install on your webpages. The cursor add-on then harvests the emaill addresses of people who visit your website. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, the saying goes. It's hard to know if the free or low-cost software you install is actually taking advantage of you and sometimes even asking directly does not protect you. The best you can hope for is to try and be informed and share information when you get conned.

	Clean out Your Drawings?
Ever get drawings from outside sources that are full of layer filters, page setups or layerstates? What about the junk you can't see, like registered applications? You might be surprised at the amount of "leftovers" a third party program may leave behind. CDG Purge will purge items that the standard AutoCAD command won't - including: Registered applications Named layer filters Layer States Page Setups Download it here... »

	The Analyze Faces tool in Inventor
The Analyze Faces tool was added in R6. In R8, it's still there, but it's hidden. In order to access the tool, you need to add the command to one of your active toolbars. You will not be able to access the tool from the Tools menu or the toolbar until you add the command to your toolbar. The Standard toolbar is the best choice if you plan to use this tool on a regular basis. The tool is used to analyze a face or a part to check surface continuity. The tool applies parallel lines so you can easily identify tangent points and inadequate "pull" for face drafts.

	AutoCAD for MAC?
MACCentral reported in a May 15, 2003 article that Eric Stover, AutoCAD Product Manager, was looking into whether or not it would be worthwhile to develop an AutoCAD version of MAC. Well, Eric was removed from that position shortly after that article appeared, moving on to bigger and better things within Autodesk. Conspiracy theories abound...could Autodesk be so ANTI-MAC that they punished Eric? Actually, not true, but I am easily amused by conspiracy theories. There used to be a MAC version for AutoCAD - around R13, but I could be wrong. I think there may be more of a market for a version that runs on Linux as more and more developing countries gravitate towards an operating system that does not cost anything. My husband tells me that he could develop a free OS in a couple of years that would include all the office programs Microsoft Suite does. Basically, any programmer worth his salt could. So, why doesn't he? The same reason Autodesk will probably not develop a version of AutoCAD for MAC...there simply isn't enough money in it for them.

	Corrections, Additions, and Apologies
Thanks to Thomas E. Momeyer, AIA, CCS from Peterborough, NH, who tells me: "In Adt 2004, Details has changed to "MDI" and no longer requires running in "SDI"." I hadn't had time to check out Details in ADT 2004, so shame on me.

Quick Links...

Shaan Hurley's new Blog featuring free AutoCAD tips Dimensioning Rules according to ANSI AEC Portal - A Resource Site for BID

CAD Management Software Online Catalog of furnishing products for AEC Professionals More About Us