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Greetings!
The Inventor Vs. MDT Saga Continues
Following Paul Waddington's renewed issuance of his
challenge to construct a part in Inventor faster than he
can do it in MDT, a CADzette reader posted the
challenge on Autodesk's Inventor discussion group.
Many Inventor users took the opportunity to take
potshots at Paul. The fact that they had never met
Paul, had never communicated directly with Paul, or
even knew OF Paul prior to reading the challenge, did
not seem to dissuade them from entering into opinions
as to Paul's character, state of mind, etc.
Paul has closed the contest...one contestant came
tantalizing close to the $1500 prize money. I have no
idea who that was. I would like to say Charles Bliss, as
I believe he had a go at it, but again...I have no real
clue as to any of the contestants' identities. Only Paul
knows who they are.
Paul promises to email me with a full report once he has
gone over all the submitted data.
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Correction....power.org Morphed to cadville.com |
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Last week, I reported that Cadville.com had engulfed
and devoured the power.org site. Brian Myers emailed
me immediately and said that nothing could be further
from the truth...
Rather, cadville.com is a Dean Villegas creation and he
had simply rolled the power.org site into it. Brian is
involved in the website, but only as a remote site
administrator.
Which means that Dean has gone into the cad portal
business...tenlinks.com, watch out!
Check out cadville.com »
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Going from Step to IGES |
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I think the hardest format to bring in has to be a step
or *.stp file. These files usually come from Unigraphics
or CATIA users and if you are lucky enough to be able
to open one, you are probably going to end up with a
dumb body.
Recently, I had to try to bring in a file created in
Unigraphics into Inventor. According to the customer,
Unigraphics will only allow you to save to a step file.
Inventor brought the step in fine (as a dumb body), but
not satisfied, I wanted to see if I could do better....and
I wanted to do it without having to fork out any money.
I found this company called Open Cascade. They have
a file translation service...but MORE importantly, they
provide some FREE tools that allow you to go from one
format to another without too much problem. I highly
recommend you check out their products if you are
struggling with the file translation dilemna.
To download and learn more.... »
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Block Automatic Update of Windows XP SP2 |
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So many users are concerned about the conflict
between SP2 and their applications, they have asked
Microsoft to provide a utility that will prevent their
systems from auto-installing (and/or annoying them)
the SP2 update.
If you are using Windows XP and AutoCAD 2000/2002,
you may wish to delay installing the service pack until
Microsoft or Autodesk have come up with a fix.
Download here »
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Reader Searches for Fonts |
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Dan Cole, of Tucson, Az, writes:
"I do want to tell you that your CADzette e-zine has
been real helpful with the tips. I have gotten a few
routines that have helped cut my production time
down. What I was wondering was if you know of a
place that I could get a font that is like the Stylus BT
font but with the capability of making it bold, italic or
underlined like you can do in MS Word. I am trying to
move away from the SHX fonts and into the TrueType
fonts. That seems to be the way that the ball is
rolling. I would really appreciate it if you would let me
know where I could go and find a font like that."
The best source for fonts I know is www.acidfonts.com
(see link below). The fonts are free and it would
literally take days...maybe months to go through the
selection. I did a search on Stylus BT, but came up
empty...however, chances are they have a font style
that will come close with a different (probably more
unusual name).
Download some free fonts »
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More XP SP Woes |
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If you install Windows XP SP 2, expect a Windows XP
security alert to display when
you view a DWF embedded in a Web page using DWF
viewer.
To solve this: When the message
appears, click on it and select Allow Blocked Content.
Select OK in the Enable
Active Content dialog box.
Autodesk says it's working with Microsoft to fix the
problem.
In the meantime, to avoid the message, select
Tools/Internet Options in
Internet Explorer. Select the Advanced tab and scroll
to the Security settings.
Select the checkbox to Allow active content to run files
on My Computer.
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Determine the Length of an Arc in AutoCAD |
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There are two quick ways to determine the length of an
arc. The first is to select the arc on the screen and
then go into the Modify menu and then click on
Properties. This will bring you to the Properties window
for the Arc. In this window, there is a parameter for Arc
length.
The second method (useful in older versions of
AutoCAD) is to type PEDIT at the command line and
then select the arc. Next, choose to turn the arc into a
polyline by typing Y or if is the default hit [Enter].
You will be presented with options for polylines. Simply
type X. Next,
type AREA at the command line and hit [Enter]. Then
type O for Object as the option and select the arc. The
area and length of the arc will be shown.
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Autodesk Hot Fix for Inventor Now Available |
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A hotfix has been released to address a DWG import
issue experienced by many
of our Inventor 8 and Inventor 8 Professional
customers. The fix has been
posted under the Inventor 8 and Inventor 8
Professional product centers.
In previous versions of Inventor, when you import an
AutoCAD .DWG file with
multiple layers into an Inventor part sketch, the layers
all come into
Inventor as one sketch. However, when you perform
this same operation in
Inventor 8 the result is multiple sketches in the
Inventor part file - one
for each layer in the DWG file.
This is for Inventor R8 ONLY!
Download the hot Fix here »
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Readers Weigh In |
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Last week, I wrote about why I write this ezine and
how it functions. I got the following emails back...and I
do enjoy hearing from my readers very much...reading
your emails totally makes my day.
From Jonathan Morey of Goshen, NY -
"
Let us know if there is anyway we can support the
newletter.
Your site is the one newlettter I read on a regular
basis.
Your text books are great. Maybe you could insert
references to your own books now and then."
(ed note: I guess I just did . My texts can be
found on amazon.com and from my publisher at
www.sdcacad.com)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I often get
email
from auto-responders from subscribers. I am always
tickled when I get an email in a language other than
English (reminds me that this is an International
ezine). Well, I got an email in German from a fellow,
but German is one of the languages I can't read (I can
read Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, and
Italian.), so I emailed back that I don't speak German
(in German, of course!). He emailed me back in English
and I am delighted with his reponse....
"Dear Mrs. Moss,
I'm an interesting reader of your CAD Newsletter. So I
signed in to receive
it regulary.
During my last vacation, I started a automatic routine,
to send every time
a message out, when I will receive an incoming mail.
So this must be the reason, that you got my message.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen / kínd regards"
From Ludwig Reuss, Manheim
His English is better than my German.
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