I had no idea this existed

I had no idea this existed

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock Dice Set
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f38d/?pfm=_featured_f38d_3

Washing Sketchup 3D models

Ron Couillard over at CADsoft Consulting has 2 great posts here and here on doing laundry.  I mean using Civil 3D as a way to wash the 3D models in the Trimble 3D warehouse (previously known as the sketchup warehouse) so they can be used in Infrastructure Modeler. Pick you favorite model and drop it in AIM, or whatever we’re calling it now.  :)

Or I should say Infraworks for the 2014 version. Man, can somebody just buy everything once so I can keep track of all these things? I’m not getting any younger….  :)

Contractor Workspace

Finding all kinds of tools tonight and this one is a Contractor Workspace as detailed by the Autodesk Transportation blog. If you move dirt or pour concrete and asphalt for a living, do yourself a favor and download this custom workspace provided by Jerry Bartels! Yeah, he’s gonna kill me for that mug shot….

Project Chronicle Captures

Project Chronicle, if you don’t know, is an Autodesk Lab solution to capturing workflows in your Autodesk app of choice. I’ve been using this for some time now and realized I hadn’t shared about it…

Anyway, while doing my weekly blog reading, The CAD Geek reminded me of how great this little gem is with his recent write up.

By the way, it’s a completely free app! You can find a gallery of posted Chronicles @ chronicle.autodesk.com.

Go check it out and use it share your knowledge with your company, user group or the world!

Fully Cooked Project Template in Civil 3D

We’ve all seen project templates in Civil 3D that come pre-installed. There are a few folders to help organize drawings. Typically, you would create a new DWG, save it into one of those folders and start adding content.  Maybe you then have to make a data shortcut. No create another file, make more content, and maybe add the data shortcut. Continue this until you have the full set of construction documents. Just this process of building a new set of project files can take at least a few days to complete.

But.  What if you had a template based on a specific project type where most, if not all of the drawings, data shortcuts and xref’s were already established? Can’t be done you say? Read on doubter of efficiency…

Hacking PDF into Nook Color

Just a quick tidbit about getting things done. As part of my current job, I have to lug around several reference books for training and consulting. I also carry a Nook Color for personal reading purposes and thought…

“Wouldn’t be great to get all these heavy books out of my bag and into the Nook?”

Well, for the most part it’s pretty simple to move documents between my computer and the tablet using the USB charger. What is often the problem is the format. ePub files tend to be oriented for text documents.

But if you need images, PDF files seem to be the friendliest so far. The same page in ePub above is shown in PDF below.

But as you can see, while PDF documents look a better, they are generally formatted for letter sized paper and still don’t look so good on small tablets. You can pan and zoom on a page, but sometimes that’s a bit more trouble then its worth.

So what’s the issue? Ownership I suppose. Some are published by myself and others are not.  If you have any chance to control the output, then read on….

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 17,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 4 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.