CADalyst articles from June 2000

CADalyst archives from June 2000

Develop support for your CAD standards.
June 1, 2000... Recently we've written quite a bit about developing CAD standards and some of the issues associated with implementing and enforcing them. This month, I'll talk about general management issues and how to get people to accept and comply with the...

Coming next month in CADALYST.
June 1, 2000... Workstation review CADALYST Labs tests six of the most powerful 3D CAD workstations available. Design Spotlight thinkdesign solves Perception's kayak surface modeling challenge. CAD Spectrum We review Alias WaveFront and SolidEdge 8....

Not so fast.
June 1, 2000... CADALYST Labs is in the midst of benchmarking 3D CAD workstations for our July issue. Because Windows 2000 began shipping in March, we figured it would be a perfect opportunity to give the new operating system a thorough test drive in the...

Dialog Box : Thoughts from our readers.
June 1, 2000... Take it back Kenneth Larson's and Paul J. Fleury's letters (March 2000) reflect the sad state of relations between Autodesk, its VARs, and Autodesk's end-users. Design and drafting software suppliers don't deserve the position they...

Corrections.
June 1, 2000... In the May 2000 issue (p. 73), the Web site to download the free Productivity Pack plug-in for Architectural Desktop R2 should be www.dtitech.com.

Autodesk continues to roll out Internet strategy.
June 1, 2000... Autodesk launched its Point A Web site (pointa.autodesk.com), a portal that takes broad aim at designers, engineers, and architects with industry-specific content and links to discussion groups, collaboration tools, and product support....

Graphisoft extends FM reach.
June 1, 2000... Graphisoft (www.graphisoft.com) paid close to $2 million to acquire Drawbase Software, a facilities management software and services provider. Drawbase will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Graphisoft U.S. Inc. Drawbase's facilities...

M/TECH show renamed.
June 1, 2000... The M/TECH show has changed its name to CIM (Computers in Manufacturing). It's part of IMET (International Manufacturing Enterprise Technology Expo & Conference), which takes place October 10-12, 2000, at Rosemont Convention Center in Illinois....

Autodesk University visits Vegas.
June 1, 2000... Autodesk has dropped last year's lineup of regional shows and instead will offer one session of Autodesk University from Nov. 27-Dec. 1, 2000, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Daratech measures software markets.
June 1, 2000... Spending on mechanical CAD/ CAM software and services will surpass $5.5 billion this year, according to market research firm Daratech. Daratech forecasts a 13.8% growth rate, up from last year's 11.1% estimate. Top vendor Dassault will...

Business.
June 1, 2000... Visionary Design Systems changed its name to Alventive (www.alventive.com). | The IntelliCAD Technology Consortium licensed the source code of the ArchT architectural software product for AutoCAD and IntelliCAD from the Visio Division of...

Acquistions.
June 1, 2000... Publishing company Cahners acquired CMD Group for $299.5 million. CMD Group publishes Construction Market Data, Architect's First Source, and R.S. Means construction cost data. | Buzzsaw.com acquired PageMasters, a developer of software for...

Alliances.
June 1, 2000... Spatial's Bits2parts Web site will license Materialise's Magics software to verify, heal, and view STL (stereolithography) files on the Internet to make sure they are optimized for rapid prototyping. Bits2parts will also match up users with...

HARDWARE : 733MHz workstation.
June 1, 2000... Hewlett-Packard Company has introduced the HP VISUALIZE X-Class Personal Workstation ($6,4701). Standard features are a single or dual 733MHz, 800MHz, or 866MHz Pentium III processor, 8GB1 of SDRAM, 256KB high-speed cache, VISUALIZE memory...

HARDWARE : Graphics accelerator.
June 1, 2000... ELSA, Inc., announced the ELSA ERAZOR 3(2) 3D graphics accelerator ($299). The accelerator is powered by NVIDIA's GeForce 256 GPU and features DDR (double data rate) memory architecture. The ERAZOR also features 32-bit color, a QuadEngine with...

HARDWARE : 190 flat monitor.
June 1, 2000... ViewSonic Corporation announ-ced the PF97 190 (180 viewable) digital CRT ($625). Features include analog and digital inputs and multiple-input sync technology that provides display synchronization to any analog or digital computer signal. The...

HARDWARE : 3D rendering.
June 1, 2000... 3Dlabs, Inc., announced the Oxygen GVX210 ($1,299) graphics accelerator. The Oxygen GVX210 drives two monitors from a single standard AGP slot and accelerates 3D volumetric textures. The GVX210 combines two 3Dlabs GLiNT R3 rasterization engines...

HARDWARE : Desktop scanner.
June 1, 2000... Abakos Digital Images released DeSKan Express ($3,900), a large-format (A0/E-size) desktop scanning system. DeSKan Express 4.5 scans 600dpi in 24-bit or 8-bit color, 8-bit grayscale, and black and white. It features an automatic scanning...

On the Job:U.K. water service company is VISIONary.
June 1, 2000... Thames Water, the United Kingdom's largest water and sewer company, has successfully implemented an innovative enterprise GIS (geographical information system) designed to support up to 1,500 concurrent users within a CORBA (common object...

HARDWARE : Large-format scanners.
June 1, 2000... VIDAR Systems Corporation announced the Surveyor ($33,500), the Select Pro ($17,000), and the Designer 1600 ($17,500) scanners with scan-to-print and scan-to-archive technology for GIS and mapping, CAD engineering, reprographics, in-house...

HARDWARE : Workgroup scanner.
June 1, 2000... EPSON America Inc. announced the EPSON GT-10000 ($1,499) workgroup scanner. The GT-10000 uses Epson's Micro Step Drive technology to deliver 6003 2400dpi resolution and 110 3 170 color scanning. It features 36-bit internal color depth and a...

HARDWARE : Xeon workstation.
June 1, 2000... Dell Computer Corporation announced the Dell Precision Workstation 620 ($3,351). The system incorporates single or dual Pentium III Xeon processors at 733MHz or 800MHz with a front-side bus speed of 133MHz. Other features include two 64-bit PCI...

AEC SOFTWARE : Landscaping software.
June 1, 2000... Eagle Point Software announced LANDCADD 2000 (call for pricing) landscaping and irrigation design software. New features let you label previews, draft proposed or existing contours in 3D, intersect pipes in the Irrigation Design module, embed...

AEC SOFTWARE : Plant design.
June 1, 2000... Rebis released AutoPLANT Plant Design Workgroup v1.5 (contact Rebis for pricing), an ObjectARX-based plant design and modeling software that supports AutoCAD 2000. AutoPLANT v1.5 features AutoPLANT Explorer/ID v6.0 for faster and more effective...

AEC SOFTWARE : Language translator.
June 1, 2000... CR/LF Corp. Essen/Germany introduced AnnotationTranslator ($50) to translate AutoCAD text strings and annotation blocks into French, German, and Japanese. AnnotationTranslator exchanges one phrase with another and does not modify phrases...

AEC SOFTWARE : Space management solution.
June 1, 2000... CADD Automation Tools, LLC, introduced its Boundary Utilities Application ($1,599). You can predefine boundary types, which are composed of a boundary line, attributes, and text. Simple attribute tags can be alphabetical or numeric. Location...

MECHANICAL : Product specs.
June 1, 2000... Thomas Register introduced its latest PartSpec and PlantSpec CD-ROM CAD titles. Edition 3.0 offers engineers and designers product information from 224 manufacturers (PartSpec 170, PlantSpec 54). Features include applications that improve...

MECHANICAL : 3D design software.
June 1, 2000... C-MOLD released 3D QuickFill for SolidWorks v99.7Plus ($5,900, or annual subscriptions for $1,250) for plastic part and injection mold design. Quickfill lets you perform sink mark prediction, evaluate melt delivery systems for single-cavity,...

GENERAL SOFTWARE : Scanned drawing conversion.
June 1, 2000... Softcover released Scan2CAD OCR Plus ($249), a raster-to-vector converter that offers customizable OCR font training. Scan2CAD's OCR supports standard fonts such as Arial, Sans Serif, and Times New Roman. Scan2CAD Plus lets you train the...

GENERAL SOFTWARE : Standards management system.
June 1, 2000... Softco Engineering Systems Inc. announced R2000 versions of S-MAN Standards Management Systems ($888). S-MAN is designed to help AEC CAD managers upgrade to AutoCAD 2000 by providing workable solutions for standards issues that could arise in...

GENERAL SOFTWARE : Alternate operating systems.
June 1, 2000... V Communications, Inc., introduced System Commander 2000 ($79.95, $34.95 for physical upgrade, $24.95 digital upgrade) to prepare and switch between operating systems, including Windows 2000. System Commander lets you add a new OS while safely...

SOFTWARE : AutoCAD training software.
June 1, 2000... Referentia Systems released 3D Design & Drawing in AutoCAD 2000 ($129), the first volume in the Referentia for AutoCAD 2000 series on CD-ROM. The computer-based training volume is designed to improve productivity while teaching principles and...

MARK YOUR CALENDAR.
June 1, 2000... A/E/C SYSTEMS 2000 June 5-8 Washington DC Convention Center Washington, DC 800.451.1196 www.aecsystems.com Design Automation Conference June 5-9 Los Angeles Convention Center Los Angeles, CA 800.321.4573 www.dac.com ...

Stormwater management.
June 1, 2000... Haestad Methods introduced PondPack v7 urban stormwater management software ($4,995) to model rainfall, runoff hydrographs, culverts, channels, ponds, outlet structures, interconnected ponds, diversions, and tidal outfalls. PondPack generates...

Structural steel software.
June 1, 2000... Peri-Tech launched its 2D structural steel software package, HPSTEEL v2.0 ($200) for AutoCAD Release 14 and 2000. HPSTEEL offers a variety of structural steel shapes such as WRF, WWF, W, M, S, HP, SLB, C, MC, square, round, rectangular HHS...

Surveying and mapping.
June 1, 2000... Autodesk introduced Autodesk Survey Release 2 (call for pricing), an add-on package to AutoCAD Land Development Desktop Release 2. It creates intelligent land plans through automated mapping, data capture, and surveying analysis tools. It...

LDDT section labeler.
June 1, 2000... Section Labeler ($140) from Robert Steltman Inc. is a civil engineering software tool that labels cross sections with feature IDs, offsets, and elevations in Land Development Desktop and other Autodesk civil products. Section Labeler labels...

Electrical controls.
June 1, 2000... VIA Development Corp. announced VIA Schematic Jr ($1,995), made up of three modules that work within AutoCAD Release 14 and 2000 to create electrical controls schematics, bills of material, and panel layout drawings for control systems....

AEC software.
June 1, 2000... Informatix Software International Limited released MicroGDS (call for pricing) for AEC and facilities management. New data management features include double-precision arithmetic and storage that provide an accuracy of 0.001mm over 100,000...

AEC: Schematic wiring (slide).
June 1, 2000... CIMLOGIC, Inc., released Toolbox/WD ($2,495) for schematic controls wiring diagram design and drafting in AutoCAD 2000. Enhancements include new source and destination signals, cross-referencing with spare contacts, a feature that checks wire...

VP181 : 18.10 flat-panel monitor.
June 1, 2000... ViewSonic has long made high-quality monitors that are very popular among CAD and visualization professionals, so it should come as no surprise that its new VP181 flat-panel display is made to the same high standards, with many extras that...

Sheetmetal Desktop Pro : Sheet-metal design inside Mechanical Desktop.
June 1, 2000... SPI GmbH of Germany is a member of Autodesk's Mechanical Applications Initiative and has been a sheet-metal solutions provider for almost 20 years. Sheetmetal Desktop Pro is just one of several sheet-metal solution packages it offers for...

CADWorx/PIPE : Piping software for AutoCAD.
June 1, 2000... CADWorx/PIPE is a single-module, full-featured package for designing and creating orthographic, isometric, and 3D piping and equipment drawings in AutoCAD Release 14 and 2000. CADWorx/PIPE uses a straightforward installation wizard. The...

Celebrating Nature.
June 1, 2000... The Lichterman Nature Center, a 65-acre park in the heart of suburban Memphis, Tennessee, needed special treatment. When a historic log cabin visitor's center on the site burned to the ground, the city commissioned Williamson Pounders...

Unigraphics v16 leads the pack : A veteran program keeps up with changing technology.
June 1, 2000... Unigraphics is a high-end 3D CAD system from Unigraphics Solutions that provides a wealth of functionality that midrange systems don't match. It has a number of strengths that compare favorably with the three other predominant high-end systems...

Solid Master adds solid modeling to CADMAX : CADMAX Corp. releases its first combination surface and solid modeler.
June 1, 2000... Solid Master v9 from CADMAX Corporation adds parametric feature-based solid modeling, assembly design, and layout drafting to the original CADMAX tools such as Boolean solid modeling, free-form surface modeling, and 2D sketching and detailing....

Native healing in 3D models, part 2.
June 1, 2000... Native healing occurs within a solid modeling system when you import a model, after it's imported, or both. This is in contrast to healing tools that aren't native, such as the 3dshare.com Web site (previously 3dmodelserver.com) by Spatial...

TUTORIAL: DESIGN WITH INTELLIGENT OBJECTS.
June 1, 2000... A revolution is taking place within the CAD software industry. All the new software products in the architectural arena are coming out with various concepts for intelligent objects. This means that a wall object reacts like a wall, a door like...

AEC OBJECTS IN THE SPOTLIGHT.
June 1, 2000... Back when personal computers were first introduced, businesses tried to figure out ways to use these new little devices to improve operations. Not too long after the PC made its debut, businesses in the AEC industry were introduced to PC-based...

DESIGN SMART ALL THE WAY TO CONSTRUCTION.
June 1, 2000... Smart object technology has found a home in the design-to-build process. You can use the 3D architectural model throughout the building project to add further details to contract documents and streamline real world processes. We talked to...

AEC OBJECTS BUYER'S GUIDE.
June 1, 2000... Table 1 AEC 3D to 2D program features Cost/ OS Company annual Program | review issue fee (if Contact information ...

2000 CADALYST LABS ALL-STARS.
June 1, 2000... CADALYST reviewed nearly 70 CAD-related products in the first half of 2000. Of these, 21 received our Highly Recommended rating. Sometimes that's not enough. Here we recognize six products that raise the standard for excellence in their...

WINDOWS 2000 : WHAT'S IN IT FOR CAD USERS?
June 1, 2000... First there was A2K (AutoCAD 2000). Then came Y2K (the year 2000). Now W2K--Windows 2000--is upon us. In case you've missed the media buzz and Microsoft advertising blitzkrieg, Windows 2000 is Microsoft's successor to Windows NT 4.0. Like...

NOTES FROM CADALYST LABS.
June 1, 2000... We started with a Gateway E-5000 workstation configured with a single 333MHz Pentium II processor, 256MB of system memory, and a Seagate 9.1GB SCSI hard drive. Although Windows 2000 directly supports hundreds of graphics cards, it does not ship...

GNU/Linux: A viable option for CAD users?
June 1, 2000... You'd have to live in a remote corner of the world not to have heard of Linux by now. (And even if that remote corner were Antarctica, you'd be surrounded by Linux's mascot, the penguin). If Windows 2000 has you contemplating an operating...

Mission: To understand Undo and all its variations.
June 1, 2000... These are the voyages of the CADship LearnCurve. Its mission: To seek out new commands, to explore AutoCAD functions, to boldly go where the manual has never gone before. Captain's log (rtos (/ (getvar "cdate") 10000))= 2000.03311841. CADfleet...

Assembly models can have too much of a good thing.
June 1, 2000... Let's start with a basic assumption. If a little bit is a good thing, then more is better and a lot more is much better, right? Maybe when it comes to skiing, SCUBA diving, and windsurfing, but this assumption isn't always true. When you build...

Develop database applications step 2: Nongraphic data and attributes.
June 1, 2000... You may consider attributes old technology and believe that you can attach attributes only to blocks that you add when drafting. In this traditional use of attributes, you draw some graphic objects, add some visible or invisible attributes,...

Tips from our readers.
June 1, 2000... $50 BONUS WINNER Harness Variables Tip #1621 [HYPRVAR.LSP] and [VARS14.TXT] This routine restores your default drawing variables after a mishap. It also converts client drawings to match your standards. hyprvar.lsp is the main...

Area error.
June 1, 2000... I get discrepancies with area calculations in AutoCAD 2000. My local dealer discovered that I can make the part a region to correct the problem. The problem generally occurs on parts that have radii. In the example, shown in figure 1, all four...

[0] HARDWARE : 733MHz workstation.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
June 1, 2000... Gateway announced the E-5400 ($3,999) Pentium III 733MHz workstation. With an integrated Intel i840 chipset, the system supports up to two Pentium III processors and dual Rambus memory channels that accommodate up to four Rambus DRAM modules....