LT Unlimited

AU Virtual Call For Proposals

If you thought the fun of AU 2012 proposals was over for the year, think again! This year we split up the live & virtual CFP’s—the live part is over, but the virtual part is just beginning.

This year there are a few changes to the virtual class process & presentation. You should plan on 45-60 minutes for your class, and prepare it in 10-15 minute sections for delivery. (I kinda like the idea of bite-size instruction…what do you think?) Classes can be in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, to accommodate our international audience. And as an additional incentive, AUv speakers are eligible for a free 3-day conference pass (if you meet all your deadlines!). Head over to the AUv CFP site for all the details.

Submissions are due by August 3, 2012, but why wait? Fire up your new Camtasia 8 (or your screen capture software of choice), brush up your video editing skills, and get those proposals in!

New blog: AutodeskCare

Got Autodesk questions? Now there’s a new place to go for answers: AutodeskCare.

Posts on this blog are organized into categories such as “behind the scenes” looks at members of the team, announcements on new ventures like Pinterest, and tips & tricks for installation & licensing.

Follow the blog, or find the team on Twitter. They’d love to hear from you!

Annotation Monitor

I’ve got a handy new feature in AutoCAD LT 2013 to tell you about today—one of those little-but-amazingly-convenient types.

The more observant among you may have noticed it already: a new icon on the status bar.

This is the new Annotation Monitor, and it checks your drawings for dimensions and leaders that have lost their associativity.

(Just to refresh, associative dimensions and leaders stay attached to their geometry when it moves or changes.)

When you turn it on, what may have looked like a nice, well-drafted floor plan…

…suddenly gets these little badges everywhere!

Each yellow flag indicates a non-associative annotation. There’s also an indicator in the bottom right corner of the status bar.

(Red = presence of dissociated annotations.)

This wouldn’t be much of a feature, though, if it didn’t help you fix the errors it finds. So, clicking on one of the exclamation points brings up a menu with two choices, Reassociate and Delete.

Choose Reassociate, and you’re able to pick new points to attach the dimension endpoints to. (If you’re familiar with DIMREASSOCIATE…it’s the same thing.)

A simple blue X indicates a dissociated point, where you’ll want to pick a new one. An X in a box indicates a point that’s already associated. You can pick a new point, but you don’t have to.

 

Once you get all the dimensions fixed, the status bar icon will turn gray:

You can turn Annotation Monitor on or off from the status bar at any time. Although if it were me, I’d leave it on so I could find those pesky non-associative dimensions and FIX them! Because there’s not much worse than unintelligent dimensions, right? (Okay, I can think of a few worse things. But you have to admit they’re pretty annoying!)

Announcing Autodesk BIM 360

Autodesk BIM 360 is the next generation of BIM, for anyone, anywhere, at any time. Is this a big deal? You bet:

New cloud-based services for multidiscipline collaboration that support model coordination and intelligent object data exchange will transform the way architects, engineers, contractors and owners collaborate in real time and manage as well as distribute building and civil infrastructure data. Autodesk BIM 360 offers civil engineers, transportation and urban planning professionals new cloud-based services to collaborate between geographically dispersed teams to explore design concepts, create and review proposals and conduct feasibility evaluations.

At least, we think it’s a big deal—I hope you agree!

Autodesk BIM 360 services include:

• Clash detection, coordination and collaboration
• Conceptual design and feasibility evaluation
• Field management, commissioning and handover
• Energy analysis
• Structural analysis
• Visualization

The first 3 features in this list are new services, while the remaining three take advantage of services provided through the main Autodesk 360 platform.

To learn more about Autodesk BIM 360 and what it can do for you, watch the video below:

Voting Open on Revamped AUGI Wish List

The collective power of AUGI members has long been a driving force in the development of Autodesk software, and now it’s easier than ever to make your voice heard.

(You are an AUGI member, right? If not, why not? It’s one of the largest CAD communities out there—if not the largest—and it’s 100% free.)

They’ve recently revamped their Wish List System (WLS) so that it gets feedback to the teams faster. Right now, they need your help in narrowing the top 30 wishes for each product into a Top 10 list.

Here’s the scoop:

For starters you can only vote on products you use, and you define that in your membership details. Next, AUGI is only conducting a vote for the following products: AutoCAD, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Navisworks Manage, Inventor, Revit Architecture, Revit MEP, and Revit Structure. If you feel another Autodesk product needs to be included in the WLS, you can help make that happen. Just contact David Harrington, AUGI President, to find out how!

You should know that the new WLS is now an on-going, 365 days per year activity at www.augi.com and this includes voting! Each week the WLS reevaluates the top 30 for each product. If another wish within the WLS has a higher rank than one in the top 30, they swap places. But what happens if you had previously voted for a demoted wish? Well, you get your vote back! The server will send you an email that you have another vote to cast for that product top 30. You then revisit the WLS and choose another wish. What this does it keep the Top Ten as aligned as possible with the global user voice. Whenever Autodesk needs, they can look into the WLS and know what “we” want the most. Autodesk has all wish ideas, how they rank, and how members vote, as soon as they are available.

So, vote early, vote often—we’re waiting to hear from you!

Autodesk 360 Sync Hotfix Now Available

A new hotfix has been released for persistent Autodesk 360 sync error messages in the system tray.

Get it here, and—trust me—read the README. This hotfix involves a few manual replacements of files, and you need the readme to know which ones.

New Tab for Array Creation

When Associative Arrays were introduced in AutoCAD LT 2012, they had a great contextual ribbon tab that showed up when you selected a completed array…but didn’t have one during creation. There were still command-line options, of course, but sometimes it’s nicer to see all the options. So this year, we added an Array Creation tab to AutoCAD LT 2013.

Here’s the one for rectangular arrays:

There are variations for path & polar arrays too. You’ll notice that they contain pretty much the same items as the Array editing tab—really the only difference is that the Edit tab adds a panel with the Edit Source/Replace Item/Reset Array commands.

Another tweak to the Array command you’ll notice is that, for rectangular and polar arrays, AutoCAD LT now automatically places the objects for you, as a sort of preview.

For rectangular arrays, you get 3 rows and 4 columns:

And for polar arrays, you get 6 items evenly spaced around the full 360 degrees:

These objects are placed as soon as you finish selecting the object (for rectangular arrays) or as soon as you specify the center point (for polar arrays).

And of course, you can change the count and spacing right away—with the grips, dynamic input, or the new ribbon tab—or after, again using grips/ribbons/etc.

There’s been a neat upgrade to path arrays too, but it’s a little tricky to explain (it’s not hard not to understand, just to describe in words), so I’ll save that for next time.

AutoCAD LT for Mac purchase options

I'm working on my Mac today, which means you get a Mac tip!

You might remember that when we first released AutoCAD LT for Mac, it was available only on the Mac App store.

With the 2013 release, though, you have choices. You can still get AutoCAD LT for Mac on the App Store, OR you can buy a license from your favorite local or online reseller. The serial number accompanying this purchase can be used to activate AutoCAD LT 2013 on a Windows machine or a Mac (or on a Mac running Windows...the possibilities are endless).

So what's the difference between the App Store version and the serialized version? Feature-wise, absolutely nothing. On the logistics side, there are a couple of differences. The App Store version of AutoCAD LT cannot be upgraded or put on Subscription. (It can, however, be used on multiple machines with the same Apple ID per Apple's license agreement.) In the serialized version, you'll also see a Subscription item in the Menu Bar.

This provides direct links to the Subscription Center, support reuqests, and downloads -- all accessibile if you have a subscription.

I hope that helps clear up any questions you might have had about the two purchase options.