in this issue
Using Technology to Create a Garage Band
Long time CADzette subscribers know that I like to mix
these newsletters up with news from industry which
interests me. I figure if I am interested, you will be
interested as well. You would be surprised by how
many Deskers there are who play in a garage band or
even semi-professionally. In my youth, I played cello
and piano, but never advanced past painful beginner.
So this article was interesting to me...the use of design
to create a digital guitar that can simulate all the best
guitars in the world.
The art of making musical instruments has long since
gone beyond mere woodworking and other refined
crafts. Digital signal processing and bandwidth are now
king. And some companies are using the latest and
greatest in hardware, software, and modeling
techniques to faithfully replicate classic rock-and-roll
instruments. But they're also coming up with new,
otherworldly sounds. And there are still some craftsmen
among the technophiles.
Read the entire article...
Quick Links...
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Greetings!
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Autodesk goes on the Attack
In case you missed it, Buzz Kross emailed a white paper
to registered Inventor users blasting SolidWorks 2005
pending release. Apparently, SolidWorks is boasting a
new 2D capability based on a license agreement with
Cadopia's IntelliCAD.
IntelliCAD, for those who don't know, is an AutoCAD
knock-off that reads and writes in the DXF/DWG
format. You can open and save to dwg format, which
means you can share drawings created in IntelliCAD
with AutoCAD users without having to go through an
import/export/convert process. If you send someone
an IntelliCAD drawing, chances are they will never know
it wasn't made in AutoCAD.
So, why doesn't everyone jump over to IntelliCAD,
since it is considerably cheaper than AutoCAD? Well,
probably for the same reason people buy Levi's instead
of off-market brands. Some of it is quality, some of it
is brand loyalty, and some of it is an assurance that
AutoCAD will be here tomorrow, IntelliCAD - who
knows? But for students, one-man shops or the
occasional user, IntelliCAD is a pretty good option.
I noted that in Buzz's attack and examples, he
demonstrated how IntelliCAD does not port in shx fonts
or GDT symbols well from AutoCAD. In my testing, I
didn't have any of those problems...I use ttf (Windows)
fonts for most of my annotation, and I suspect that
most users have abandoned shx as well. So the so-
called bugs Kross points out...well, they really aren't
that significant to most users. As far as the actual
geometry (lines, circles, and arcs, and even
dimensions), IntelliCAD seems to handle it fairly well.
Frankly, I am impressed that IntelliCAD managed to
negotiate a partnership with SolidWorks and if the date-
phase is successful, I wouldn't be surprised if
SolidWorks/Dassault makes a move to acquire/marry
IntelliCAD. If that happens, Autodesk may well have
cause to be concerned.
Now, does this mean I think you all should jump ship
to SolidWorks? No, but in the real world, you have to
be willing to work with any CAD package...and
understanding what's under the hood can help you work
with the product. It's OK for SolidWorks to promote
their new 2D capabilities, thanks to IntelliCAD, but
users should understand those dwg features offered in
SolidWorks are not equivalent to AutoCAD, and they
may not get the purest results. Moving past the hype
and getting down to brass tacks, AutoCAD is hands-
down the most reliable, robust 2D CAD program out
there. When it comes down to it, you are only as good
as your latest drawing file. If it's corrupted or
damaged, you are screwed. Frankly, my work is too
important to risk to an "also-ran"...I suspect most users
agree.
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Inventor Design Problem Resolved
So, I am trying to create a part that is a hexagonal
plate. The plate has a rectangular pattern of
small .030 diameter cylindrical bumps inside the
hexagon. When I try to create the pattern in Inventor,
Inventor basically stalls.
I try all sorts of methods...I divide the hexagon into
triangles and fill one triangle and try to do a circular
pattern - but then my overall pattern is messed up. If
I create a rectangular pattern, I can't suppress the
unwanted cylinders that are out in space (especially
the parent cylinder which is at the 0,0 lower left corner
coordinate.)
Inventor keeps crashing and I spend a good afternoon
looking for work-arounds and ways to make Inventor
perform. Finally, I give up. Up comes good ol' reliable
AutoCAD (thank goodness it is included in Inventor
series.) I extrude the plate. Create my pattern of
cylinders, erase the undesired cylinders, and then
extrude those. Finally, I perform a union to bring my
cylinders and plate into one solid.
Now, to bring it into Inventor. IGES fails, DWG fails,
but ACIS works. Simply, type 'ACISOUT' on the
command line to create an sat file. Then, open the sat
file inside Inventor. Voila! Success. A dumb body, but
it will work in my assembly...and if the pattern or plate
changes, I can always go back to AutoCAD.
This points to a serious flaw in Inventor patterning
capabilities. Hopefully, it will be improved in a future
release.
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Conquering the DWF Blues
Faithful readers may recall that I have been struggling
trying to get the DWF Viewer to work for me. After
two weeks of banging my head against the wall,
uninstalling and installing the viewer software, and,
cursing Autodesk under my breath (and also loudly), a
kind Autodesk DWF developer let me in on the fix.
So, if you can create DWFs, but not view them...there
is a fix. However, (always a caveat) do not attempt to
do this unless you are fairly savvy. The fix requires you
edit the system registry. Here are the step by step
instructions:
- Go to Start->Run.
- Type regedit and press OK.
- Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk.
- You need to create the following path if it does not
exist:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\DWF
Common\Preferences\User Interface],
To create the path, go to Edit->New Key.
- Once the path is created, right click in the right
hand pane and select "New->DWORD value"
- Rename the new value "Use Hardware Acceleration".
It will have a default
value of 0 (which is what you want).
Re-launch the DWF Viewer and it should work. The fix
basically has to do with an issue with some graphics
cards.
Download the latest DWF Viewer »
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Compress URL Links
Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it
break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut
and paste it back together?
This is especially problematic with some of Autodesk
web pages. You want to email a colleague a link to a
technical paper or download and the URL is simply too
long.
If you go to this website, you can cut and paste the
long url and it will convert it to a short url that you can
email to your buddy.
Convert an URL »
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