in this issue
The Human Factor
Recently, it has come to my attention that many
people have forgotten the importance of the human
factor. Do you know the name of the guy at Starbucks
who makes your morning coffee? Does your mechanic
have kids? Do you know if your plumber sings in the
church choir?
These may seem like small things, but they compose
the basis for a relationship. Next time, you get into a
business transaction, take an extra fifteen minutes and
ask the other person about their life. The next time
you come into their place of employment, I guarantee
you will get a smile and better service.
People complain about the lack of customer support,
but they fail to recognize that it is a two-way street. I
always get the name of the person who is taking care
of me and ask them how their day is going. If they are
younger, I ask if they are working their way through
school. If they are older, I ask if they are married or
have kids. If they have an accent, I ask where they
are from and about their hometown.
Invariably, the next time I need help and that person is
there, they remember me and they want to help me.
You will be pleasantly surprised about how much the
quality of your life improves.
Quick Links...
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Greetings!
Tomorrow I fly off to Orlando, FLA for a week with my
two sons, their partners, and my husband. We plan to
spend the week exploring the plethora of amusement
parks; Epcot, Islands of Adventure, and Disney Quest,
to name a few. Yes, we know it will be hot, but my
youngest son chose this week as the only time he had
off between university classes.
Don't worry, though, you will still receive your issue of
CADzette next Friday on schedule. I try to write one or
two weeks ahead in the event I get busy at work, etc.
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Deploying Custom Menus
In our installations for Autocad modules we have
created a custom *.mnu file in the past. We have
created GroupX and PopX values in
HKCU\...\Profile\\Menu, and our module-
specific menus appeared in Autocad. That worked for
Autocad in the past. From version 2006, what do we
have to do on installation of our modules to register the
Enterprise cui file for Autocad 2006?
With AutoCAD 2006, it is recommended that profiles no
longer be used to customize menus. Instead, one
should try and use workspaces as much as possible.
Download the sample arx file below for an example of
how to create custom workspace and load a custom
CUI file.
When loaded, the sample creates a custom workspace
and loads the user specified CUI file. Purely loading the
CUI file will not automatically display the toolbars, and
pull-down menus, so the application goes one level
further and uses the Com API to turn ON the Toolbars
and the pull-down menus.
Download the arx sample file... »
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Understanding Inventor's 2D World
The Inventor developers and I have been having an
interesting discussion on how Inventor creates 2D
views in the idw environment.
Basically, Inventor creates a literal view, so a curved
surface is still curved, even in the side view. In a
standard 2D layout, a curved surface is treated as a
flat polygonal shape. For example, the side view of a
pipe is displayed as a rectangle. In Inventor, it can be
difficult to detail features on the side of a pipe; i.e. a
threaded hole. Especially, if the hole or cutout is
located offset from any of the quadrants.
Yes, there are workarounds, you can associate a
sketch with the view, etc. Or, you can do what I
do...export the drawing over to AutoCAD, clean it up,
and go from there. Interestingly, the Inventor team
acknowledges that MDT does a better job going from
3D to 2D, especially when it comes to detailing these
types of surfaces.
But, the real question is whether or not the Inventor
team should invest their time into cleaning it up. After
all, there are advantages to the way it currently
works...not the least is that the view will update
properly when the model is modified. In the real world,
how many of us are simply emailing the model in
sat/stl/iges to our fabricators and simply using the 2D
layouts for checking and quality control? Let me know
what you think and I'll pass on any interesting
commentary to the Inventor team.
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Inventor R10 Battles Matrox Graphic Card
I am a big fan of Matrox graphic cards...mostly because
they seem to work really well with Inventor...at least
until the R10 release, when I started to experience
some unanticipated crashes.
The Autodesk Inventor team tells me that a good
percentage of Inventor crashes are due to the graphics
card and my case was not the exception.
My first step was to go to the Matrox site and
download the latest driver for my card. My second
step was to download the FREE file provided by
Autodesk to improve my hardware performance.
I am pretty good at running driver updates of my
hardware and software, but even I can fall behind on
the updates.
Check out the free hardware registry file for Inventor users... »
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CADzation Giving Away Free Trip to Autodesk University
CADzation is is giving away a trip to Autodesk
University 2005 in Orlando, Florida. This is the premier
event for AutoCAD users and to show support to the
CAD community, we are giving away a trip that includes
all registration fees, hotel, and domestic airfare. In
addition to this, Grand Prize, CADzation is giving away
50 first place and 250 second place prizes.
The last day to enter is September 30, 2005 and the
winners will be selected on October 10, 2005
Enter to win a free trip to AU... »
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