Twitter profile picture

Now, this is just completely random.  While browsing my twitter feed the other day, I realized most people might not know what my profile picture represents.

At that resolution, it kind of looks like a poorly drawn happy face. I can tell you that it is not a happy face on purpose.

Point Cloud Extension

Just a quick note…

The Point Cloud Feature Extraction extension is no longer a lab product, but has graduated to the Subscription Center. It is a global product for Civil 3D 2012 at this time. If you have no idea what that extension does, here is a quick description:

…provides functionality to display points in, extract a “bare earth” Civil 3D surface from and extract roadway features from a Point Cloud (PCG).

By the way, here’s the complete list of productivity tools for 2012:

• Borehole utility
• rail track layout
• cartogramma utility
• GENIO import/export
• CAiCE translator
• transportation utilities
• DACH extension
• ISYBAU translator
• ….and several other translators and data importers

 

NIMBY = Public Eminent Domain?

Soooo, here’s the story about my little old township. Over the past decade, many things have changed; population growth, infrastructure, residential developments, everything relating to a booming area. With this growth, the Township administration appears to have been a bit overwhelmed in this period. Bygones…

Picture of land under scrutiny. What’s missing is all the development happening outside the frame of the picture.

The problem now is that people are angry that a landowner/developer has decided to “destroy” this western edge of the valley. And it seems that they won’t be happy until said owner abandons all hope of building anything on his own property.  So these NIMBY folks seem to be employing a form of Neighbor Eminent Domain.  Is this any more appropriate than local governments using said instrument to “improve” certain districts?

No-Plot This!

Take a moment and tell me what your firm uses for a no-plot color.  Just wanted to take the pulse on this “topic.”  This doesn’t imply STB or CTB, just the color associated with a layer. I suppose it does imply that object color is BYLAYER. If it isn’t, then you’re in violation of the International CAD Code.  :)

[Edit 11/23/2011 So the results are all over the board.  Even the "other" responses were varied; 211, Brown, 124, 101, 160, 49, 245 and a true color 255,255,255. Although layers can be set to no plot, we are still grounded in the idea that a color implies results.]

Thanks for your help!

Get your voice heard!

Now is your chance. Autodesk has created a new vehicle to get input from you, the users of all things Autodesk. It’s called the Infrastructure Participatory Design Council.

What is it?

Being an “Owner”

In an effort to better understand our services as an Architectural & Engineering firm, I thought about putting myself in the shoes of an owner.  Presuming that they’re a size 10 1/2, we’re good to go.  The scenario is that I have a 3-story 30,000 sf commercial building I want to build on property I own. Whom do I hire to help and what type of contractual agreement with my “team” is best for me?

Let’s just say I got stuck right there.