LT Unlimited

AutoCAD WS brings DWG editing to iOS and web

Do either of the following scenarios sound familiar?

• You’re out in the field, trying to add some notes to your drawing to document an as-built condition, and you think, “It’d be really nice if the team at the office could see this now.”
• You’re on the phone with a colleague or client, trying to explain something about one of your drawings, and they’re just not understanding. You’re thinking,“Gosh, it’d be great if I could just show them what I mean.”

You’ve been there? Me too. And today is your lucky day!

That’s because with the launch of AutoCAD WS, you can now put your drawings in the cloud so you have access to them wherever you go. Once your drawing is in AutoCAD WS, you can make basic edits to the drawing and add markups that are saved right in the file. They’re only shared if you want them to be, so it’s up to you who else can see them (if anybody).

You can either work on the drawing and then send the comments to somebody else after the fact, or you can work collaboratively with one or more people at the same time. Way cool. (Although when you try it, remember that everybody sees the same thing all the time. So if you want to pan or zoom, make sure you’re not interrupting somebody else’s work when you do it. Shaan Hurley and I got in a bit of a tug-of-was yesterday when I didn’t realize what was going on…oops.)

Here’s what AutoCAD WS looks like on the web, in your browser of choice:

You’ll see a lot of your favorite AutoCAD functions here—despite the fact that it’s a simplified web editor, there are over 100 commands available.

If you have an iOS device—an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod Touch, go get AutoCAD WS Mobile from the iTunes App Store.

The mobile version is more scaled back than the web version, but still amazingly functional.

So, how do you get AutoCAD WS?

For your browser, just visit www.autocadws.com. Either create a new account, or use the one you already have for the discussion forums or some of our other communities. AutoCAD WS is part of the Autodesk Single Sign-On, so if you already have an account with us, try that one before you create a new one.

For your iPad/iPhone/iPod, fire up iTunes and search for AutoCAD WS.

Notice the little price bubble? That’s right, it’s FREE! Free is good.

And now that you’ve got AutoCAD WS, how do you get your drawings in there? Again, there are two ways. You can either upload drawings from the web version, or go grab the brand new plug-in available for AutoCAD LT 2011 (English). Find it at http://www.autocadws.com/downloads.

This plug-in adds a tab to your ribbon with all the tools for uploading and sharing. Anybody can use it—you don’t have to be on subscription.

Pretty neat, don’t you think? Will this help you in your day-to-day work? (Maybe it’ll even help convince the boss that you need an iPad?)

AUGI CAD Camps are coming

The fall tour of the AUGI CAD Camps will be kicking off at the end of next month, covering four cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast – Boston, Chicago, DC, and Minneapolis.

If you’ve never been to a CAD Camp before, they’re a great way to learn a whole lot about your program of choice in a single day. There’s even a CAD Manager’s track if you’d rather pick up some leadership and organizational skills instead.

Registration is open for all four events, and the agendas are up as well. $195 gets you the full day of classes from nationally-known instructors, plus lunch and the chance to network with your fellow CAD professionals.

Go here for dates, agendas, and registration information.

P.S. I highly recommend the Arlington (a.k.a. DC/Alexandria) event…’cause I’m doing most of the AutoCAD track! Hanging out with AutoCAD users is my favorite part of my job, but it’s no fun if no one’s there, so sign up & show up!

Calling All CAD Managers

Robert Green’s annual CAD Manager Survey is up and running – if you’re a CAD manager, please take a few minutes of your day to fill it out!

Robert is an author, teacher, and consultant on CAD Management, with a long history of articles at Cadalyst and a book, Expert CAD Management: The Complete Guide. He’s a frequent instructor at the AUGI CAD Camps and Autodesk University, so if you’ll be attending one of those events this fall be sure to take at least one of his classes.

But in the meantime, take the CAD Manager Survey today!

AU 2010 YouTube Contest Extended!

Want to go to Autodesk University in Vegas this year…for FREE*? Then get over to the AU 2010 YouTube Contest and submit an entry! Entering is easy – just grab a video camera and tell us why you want to go to AU 2010. Then post it as a video response to last year’s “Why Attend AU?” video.

Don’t have a camcorder? Use a webcam! Don’t have a webcam? Check your digital camera – most of them shoot video these days. Yours doesn’t? Use Windows Live Movie Maker or your video editor of choice to put together text and images instead. One of the funnier entries last year was a scrolling Top 10 list, no actual video required.

The deadline has been extended to October 1, so you have a whole week to put your entry together.

You can’t win if you don’t enter…

*Sorry for the asterisk, but putting the details up there would break the flow. The contest prize is a free pass to AU 2010, including 3 days of classes, meals, and hotel. You have to get yourself to Vegas. Read the rest of the rules & eligibility requirements here.

Create Freehand Sketches

One of the new-to-AutoCAD-LT commands in AutoCAD LT 2011 is the Sketch command. Previously available only in AutoCAD, Sketch received a makeover in this release (in both AutoCAD and LT) and is now easier to use and more flexible.

By default, Sketch is only available from the command line, but you can create a button for it if you want. Once you start it, left-click to start a sketch, then – without clicking – drag the cursor along the path that you want. Left-click again to end that sketch path, and left-click once more to start a new path. When you’re finished, press Enter to record the sketch.

The green color you see while the command is active has nothing to do with the current layer or color – all sketches are green while they’re being created.

Within the Sketch command, you have three options for controlling a sketch’s appearance and behavior: Type, Increment, and Tolerance.

Type controls what kind of objects are created when you finish the sketch. Your choices are Lines, Polylines, and Splines. (Unless you really want a headache or two, don’t choose lines.)

Increment determines the size of individual sketch segments for polylines and lines, or how far you have to move your mouse before a new segment is drawn. Smaller numbers mean smoother sketches, bigger increments lead to rougher sketches. What increment you choose will depend on the scale of your drawing and the purpose of the sketch.

Tolerance is only relevant if you’ve chosen Spline as your object type. It controls how close the finished sketch comes to the points your cursor passed through. Tolerance can be set to any value between 0 and 1 (inclusive), where 0 means the spline fits perfectly to the mouse path (potentially a very rough line) and 1 provides the smoothest curves (potentially not very close to where your mouse went). The default value is 0.5, and you can experiment to see which value works best for your sketches.

In the image below, the sketch on the left had a tolerance of 0.5, the one in the middle had a tolerance of 0, and the one on the right had a tolerance of 1.

Autodesk Student License Now Good for 3 Years

You probably already knew that students can get free Autodesk software through the Autodesk Education Community. (And if you didn’t know before, now you do.)

The news for today, though, is that the student license now has a 3-year term, so you can hang on to your software for longer.

Over 25 products are available for download, including AutoCAD, Inventor, Revit, 3ds Max, and Maya.

One important quote from the fine print: “To join the Education Community you need to be a full-time student or faculty member participating in a valid academic program at the secondary or postsecondary level.” (Read the full FAQ here.) If you’re not a student but aren’t currently employed, check out the Autodesk Assistance Program instead for access to free software & discounted training.

New Additions to the Customer Showcase

Have you checked out the Customer Showcase on the AutoCAD LT site lately? If not, it’s worth another look – we have several new stories featuring our customers and the way they use AutoCAD LT, either by itself or as part of their CAD and BIM software portfolios. Some of them even have videos accompanying the story.

These customers & projects include:

• MDM Engineering: Mine Waste Solutions Plant
• Murman Architects: Restaurant Tusen Project
• Benson Hlavaty Architects: Texas Capital Bank
• TEECOM: UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay

Would you like to see your company featured in the Showcase? Just e-mail me!

Autodesk University Registration Now Open to All

Registration for AU 2010 is now open to everybody! (AU Online members were able to sign up last week.) It’s November 30 to December 2, at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

As always, it’s a jam-packed 3 days of classes & networking (plus a couple parties, er, receptions…AUGI Beer Bust, anyone?), with over 640 classes and labs organized into 19 discipline-specific tracks. If you’re an architect, you can even get AIA credit for a lot of the classes.

The current registration fee is $1,895, and it includes all classes, meals, and four nights at the Mandalay Bay. (As a comparison, a 2-day seminar from ASCE costs around $1,200 – one less day of training, and it doesn’t include the hotel or all meals.) You have until September 28 before the cost starts to go up, so now’s a good time to start planning.

I’m teaching a live class called “Hey, I Never Knew That! The Best of LT Unlimited” on Thursday at 4:30 (which is the last time slot of the entire conference…stay awake for me, okay?), and lab-assisting in at least one more – details to follow.

If you don’t have the budget to go to Vegas, you still have a couple options for attending AU.

First, you can enter the YouTube contest to get Autodesk to send you for free! (You only pay airfare.) Just tell us in a video why you want to go to AU 2010, and get all your friends to vote for your entry!

Second, there’s AU Virtual (a.k.a. AUv). AUv brings “high-quality, relevant, expert-led, live streaming and on-demand classes and keynotes right to your desktop.” The classes you’ll see will be recorded specifically for this event, and are led by the same instructors teaching the live classes.

A full-access pass to AUv is only $139, and if you’re an AU attendee, a student, or a Subscription customer, you can register for free.

My virtual class is a repeat of my live class, and will be presented at noon and 5:00 Pacific on Tuesday, November 30.

I’m also hosting a Product Clinic, “Take Control with AutoCAD LT,” and this should be the really fun one. That’s because it’s live virtual Q&A. You send your questions in by text, and I (try to) answer them live. This is something really new and different for me, but I’m looking forward to it. Mark your calendars for 4:00 Pacific on Wednesday, December 1, if you want to stop by and ask a question.

Hope to see you (live or virtually) at AU!

Webcast Tomorrow – Sign Up Today!

I’m hosting a live webcast tomorrow on the productivity improvements in AutoCAD LT 2011—if you've recently upgraded or are looking for reasons to upgrade, you won’t want to miss it.

AutoCAD LT 2011 Webcast: Productivity Starts Here
September 14, 2010, 10:00 AM Pacific / 1:00 Eastern

New and improved features in AutoCAD LT 2011 are designed to make you more productive - and testing proves it. A recent study by leading CAD expert David Cohn documented overall productivity gains of up to 44% with AutoCAD LT 2011 over AutoCAD LT 2008.

Register today for this live 60-minute webcast features tips and tricks for AutoCAD LT 2011 and Windows 7.

Pin Ribbon Panel Open

A quick and easy tip for your Friday: If you often access a command from the “expandable” portion of a ribbon panel, you can pin that panel open so you don’t have to open it up every time.

Expandable ribbon panel:

Expanded:

Pinned: